Temples! Bathhouses! And GET! Oh my!

This past weekend we had a really fun adventure to the biggest city on the island—- Matsuyama! It’s a three hour train ride away from our current city, so for our three day weekend we decided to take a little vacation. And it was a much needed vacation, at that. Even though everyday is a new adventure, spending each day, all day with children has proven to be quite exhausting. (though totally worthwhile) So our weekend of relaxing began! We caught the train early in the morning to make the most of our day. Originally we were planning to ride our bikes there… It’s the distance from Ogden to Draper. So we thought we were tough enough for such a journey. However were soon enlightened that would NOT have been a great idea, (more to come on that later) so we opted for the train. Thankfully. So this island is similar to Utah in two ways. It’s known 1) for it’s unrivaled scenic beauty and 2) for it’s temples. Despite the fact they are Buddist rather than LDS. So a big site seeing adventure is to travel to see all 88 Shingon Buddist temples on the isle. That way you get to see all of the island and get to see a bit of traditional Japanese culture. Very cool. We have made it our goal while on Shikoku to see all of the temples. So first things first in Matsuyama, we decided to stop at the temple. The temple was very ornate and quite a sight! Tucked away in the middle of the city in it’s own little secluded forest. These temples are very deeply rooted in tradition. Before you step foot onto the grounds you need to wash your hands and mouth from a fount. After that you must ring a big gong to signal your enlightenment experience to begin. From there, you have the option to light incense and candles in remembrance of your ancestors and to bring yourself good karma. Or there are various places to go to recite mantras or Buddhist prayers. They also have monks who will scribe in and stamp a notebook to show that you have visited that temple. We bought notebooks for this so we can keep them as a cool way to remember traveling the island. After we visited the temple we made our way to a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant as recommended by Shin’s mother, who conveniently is from Matsuyama. Conveyor-belt sushi has become our new favorite way to eat sushi. At this particular restaurant they had iPhones at each booth so you placed your order on the phone’s app and then in less than five minutes your sushi would be delivered to you. It was a very unique dining experience, and excellent sushi. We looooooove this country! Then we went from there down to the main downtown civic center. We found a hotel for $49 for the night (breakfast included). Not too shabby! The room was really nice too! We dropped off our bags and then set out for our night adventuring in the main shopping district. The malls here are called Arcades. A little confusing if you are asking for directions to play a video game. Luckily all Arcades have video games inside! So we walked around this mall. It was huge! Two 9 level department stores that had Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Dior, Burberry, Cartier, and Bvlgari stores inside of them. Not too mention on the roof of one of the department stores there was a ferris wheel. So you can imagine how large this is. Then surrounding the department stores were all of the smaller boutique stores. These stores took up 7 city blocks. We wandered all of the shops for a while. Then we stumbled upon a Pachinko house, and we decided to try our hand at this game that is so popular here. We had a difficult time mastering Pachinko, suffice it to say. It was seemingly simple but we won nothing… Hopefully we’ll have some video to come soon. It was far too ridiculous to even describe. Thankfully the prizes were not at all tempting. A box of curry, laundry detergent, and packs of cigarettes. How these prizes lure so many Japanese people to play the game is beyond us. So afterwards we continued to wander around some more. We walked through a beautiful park in the middle of the city. And get this, this park has it’s own man-made mountain inside. That’s right. And on top of the mountain is the Matsuyama castle. You can take a gondola or opt for the rustic ropeway and hike. It was getting late so we decided not to see the castle on this trip. Plus there was also so much to see in the park. Lots of museums. A Space and Art museum, mind you. Reason #367 why I love this city. So after that, we retired to our hotel. The next day’s excursion took us to the Dogo district. It’s the very ritzy area. As Shin’s mom says, “it’s where all of the doctors and lawyers live.” So to get there we took the trolley car. Reason #1,986 why I love this city. It still has a trolley car like San Francisco. Not too mention, Matsuyama is one of the last cities in Japan that still kept its street cars. So a short trolley ride took us right into Dogo. Oh, did I mention it was pouring rain. All day long. Though, it wasn’t too terrible since it was not cold bitter rain. Anyways, immediately after stepping off the trolley, you are right in the heart of a very cute shopping area. Small little boutiques with pretty touristy goods. ALSO! A Hayao Miyazaki novelty shop. Miyazaki is the most notable animator in all of Japan. Much similar to Disney in the states. He created “Totoro,” “Ponyo,” “Spirited Away,” and “Princess Monoke” and the list goes on. If you are interested to check these out, they were released in the states under Disney. His stories are excellent. The store was really cool too, essentially a Disney store that sold all of the stuffed animals, movies, and other various, random items like plates with all of the characters painted on it or ceramic figurines. As lovers of his movies we were very excited by this store and spent a fair amount of time in it. Located at the end of the shopping strip is the Dogo Onsen. The oldest bathhouse in all of Japan. We will write more in depth about the bathhouses in a later date. We have yet to visit one, so we’re not feeling too insightful but we have heard it is the best thing to do to get a truly Japanese cultural experience. Bathhouses are spas where you can go to take a bath in a huge public bath or get a massage or sit in the sauna. The entire time being naked… we’re going to need to muster up some self confidence before we visit one. So we walked around outside the bathhouse, took some pictures. We shopped around some more and ate at a tasty Udon noodle shop. We’ve been eating a lot of Udon lately seeing as Shikoku is its birth place. So goood! It’s like thick ramen and they will add all sorts of toppings to it. Delicious. And now, ladies and gentlemen… to Tyler’s most exciting moment in his entire span of living in Japan… THE SECOND HAND CLOTHING STORES. Oh boy, oh boy. Talk about true gems. From one of the stores, Tyler was able to snag a suit coat and vest for only $2. I got a pretty sweet peacoat and some really adorable shoes for $15. True finds. Not to mention, one such second hand store was four levels high. It had a section for anything one man could possibly desire. A boy scout shirt section. An overalls section. An entire assorted denim selection—- blue, magenta, or neon yellow jeans what you crave? ‘GET!’ has your size and favorite color. Guaranteed. An entire Disney sweatshirt collection. Want a Christmas Mickey hoodie to spread some holiday cheer? ‘GET!’ has one with your name on it. Sweatsuits of every color of the rainbow. What else? I don’t want to leave anything out. They truly had it all. That’s a fact. And the prices? You thought the DI was cheap? Forget it.  Reason #1,007,684 why we love this city. Hmm.. other than that. I think I just hit the high point. I don’t want to end this blog anticlimactically, so I’ll end here. All in all, we were very impressed with Matsuyama and it was an amazing weekend! Enjoy the photos.