Day 16, April 16th: Sakamoto, Ryoma Museum

We woke up to a gray, cloudy, rainy looking day.

But it was OK.

We were going to a museum.

Art will tell you he planned it that way.

I do love the Japanese bathrooms.  I won't talk about those squat toilets here.  The sit down toilets are just wonderful.  See that handle on the right?   The Japanese character on the handle points to small and big.... meaning small or big flush.

On the arm of the toilet you've got dials that enable you to have a jet of water for a bidet to clean... well... never mind.  It's for women.

Then there's the dial for your other end and it all allows you to be as clean as can be with minimum toilet paper use.

The breakfast (included) at the Hotel Los Kochi was wonderful, but with my shaky system... I decided not to put the raw egg onto my rice.  Art and Dennis?  They never let anything go to waste.

You can see I'm looking a little tired here.

The rain let up just enough for us to walk briskly to the bus station to catch the Ryoma decorated bus to the Ryoma Sakamoto Museum.

By the way, one of those statues is of Ryoma Sakamoto.

It was a short walk to the museum from the My Yu bus stop.

We saw a Japanese Taiga drama about Ryoma Sakamoto last year and became interested in this brilliant man who rose from obscurity to change Japan.

The sign here said to shake hands with Ryoma.

While Mom looked at Ryoma's letters, watched a video about his life, and learned even more about this amazing man... we... ummmm... had just a teeny bit of fun.

If a sister can't have fun with her baby brother, wouldn't it be a sad world?

Ryoma wanted us all to be equally happy... equality being the operative word.

There is a famous photo of Ryoma with his mouth a little down turned and hand in his kimono... sort of like Napoleon.  Art just couldn't resist.  This wax mannequin was really realistic!

Unfortunately, not everyone agreed with Ryoma... particularly the shogun in power.  Ryoma was assassinated on his 33rd birthday at the Omiya Inn in Kyoto.  This is what the room looked like down to the blood splatters on the wall.

The museum hotel restaurant was great; we really enjoyed the meal.

Everything was delicious and at the top right hand corner is tataki which is seared sashimi, another delicacy my cousin in Sendai, Norio recommended we try.

We did also have a mango soft serve for dessert at the museum.  Actually, Dennis had to be different and tried the matcha soft serve which is a bitter tea.  He liked it.  We sure enjoyed the mango soft serve.

When we got back to the Hotel Los Kochi, mom and I were pretty exhausted.  However, we needed to find dinner.

Searching for a restaurant was the last thing she and I wanted to do.

What a surprise to find the Han no Ren restaurant on the first floor below the hotel registration desk!

On top of that, all the teishoku meals were delicious... or maybe it was the beer that again provided that extra flavor enhancement.

We almost NEVER drink beer at home.  Honest!  Cross my heart...  But, somehow... in Japan we did have our beer. 

We also rarely have pastry type desserts at home.

But in Japan... somehow... the calories didn't count.

Dennis and Art went out and got some desserts for us.

And they were good!

Day 15, April 15th: Kochi

We had our Toyoko Inn breakfast at 7:00 and then caught the 9:15 JR train from Matsuyama to Tadotsu.

We bought bento lunches in Matsuyama because there wouldn't be enough time between trains to do any food hunting.

I loved seeing these delicate little blue flowers on the train tracks.

Lunch on the train is always yummy!

I'm holding up a cherry blossom kamaboko (fish cake).

We arrived in Kochi at 1:40 and walked from the train to the Hotel Los Kochi.

Mom could walk but we wanted her to conserve her energy.

We dropped off our suitcase and backpacks at the hotel.

We then caught the streetcar to Kochijo (Kochi Castle).

We needed to make a transfer and weren't sure how to get it.  We asked mom to ask the driver, but he was in a busy intersection and asked her to wait.

Perhaps the driver wasn't as friendly as our fellow passenger would have liked.  

Whatever the case, this fellow leaned over and presented Mom with...

...this exquisite miniature stainless steel origami crane.  We were astounded!  You can see how tiny it is in the previous photo.  Mom is holding it in her left hand.

Mr. Ishida gave us his business card.  He is the president of the company that creates these works of art.  He's also the chairman of this and head of that.  We do know he made our day!  We will always remember him.

We found Kochi Castle easily enough and were glad that the sun had come out for us.

Mom was excited to see this statue of Chiyo Yamanouchi who was the wise and beautiful wife of Kazutoyo Yamanouchi.

Mom says everybody (in Japan) knows the story of how she helped her husband rise from an ordinary samurai to governor of the province of Tosa.

She started it all by purchasing a million dollar horse with her dowry which her  husband was able to give to Nobunaga Oda who was an important leader at the time.

I'd write more... but like all of the history that Mom starts telling me... it's so complex that it could go on and on and on...

Like I said before...

Our trip is nearing the end.

We're getting a little crazy.

Kochi Castle is beautiful!

We could see how windows were slits for arrows to be shot through.  Below them are spears to make it difficult to climb over.

Remember... there were ninjas around.

We had to remove our shoes to enter the castle.

I thought this palanquin that nobles rode in didn't provide much leg room.

I'm feeling sorry for the guys who had to carry this for miles.

We met another guide who kindly offered to show us around and explain the hidden secrets of Kochi Castle.

Mom waited at the bottom while our guide took us for a quick tour to the top of the castle.

It's shocking how steep these stairs were!  Remember, the Japanese were shorter back then.  It must have been a challenge to climb these stairs.

It was a lovely visit and time to leave our last castle.

There was a large open air market that Art wanted to check out.  He was looking for a very special something for his sister, Kay.

And by golly!  He did find it!  A chestnut peeler!

Ryoma Sakamoto and his wife, Oryo are extremely famous in Japan for helping to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate.  I'm stopping there.

It would take another 100 posts to explain the whole thing.


For now, it was just fun to stick my head out and be Oryo for a few seconds.

We caught a quick dinner at the shopping area.  We had more sanuki udon noodles which my cousin, Norio had told us in Sendai that we must try while we were down south.

He was right!  It was wonderful!

My coughing was easing a bit, maybe just by sheer willpower.

As you can see, the Hotel Los Kochi provides you with a yukata for sleeping.

Since it was more masculine, Art let me post this photo.

Tomorrow.... learning about Ryoma Sakamoto!

POSTSCRIPT:  Happy Cinco de Mayo and Children's Day, everybody!

Day #14, April 14th: Matsuyama Castle

This was not a good morning for me.  I'd coughed until 3 AM and got barely a couple of hours of sleep.  I even wondered if I'd have to find a doctor in Japan.  Luckily, I'd brought every cold medicine I could think of in my travel supply with us.  I usually don't have to use them, but I did on this trip.  Both mom and I used the cough lozenges, Sudafed, Alka Seltzer Cold Plus, Airborne, Benedryl, Claritin and Coricidin (Mom).  

I was well enough to have a substantial breakfast.  Feed a cold, starve a fever, right?

We then walked to the gondola lift leading to the top of the mountain where Matsuyama Castle stood guard proudly.

Mom and I rode the ropeway. 

Art and my brother, Dennis did the chairlift.  As you can see, they're taking photos of us in the gondola lift.

A volunteer guide saw us and immediately found a kindred history buff in Mom.

She had to explain again why neither Dennis nor Art could/would speak Japanese.   She must have had to explain it a hundred times while in Japan.

She told him that Issei and Nissei could but Sansei (3rd generation) like us usually couldn't. 

He asked why I could, and she told him somebody had to talk to her.  Very funny...  (She didn't tell him that she usually advises me to stick to English while in Japan.)

 
There was more hana fubuki (flower blizzard) in Matsuyama and we loved it.  There was a carpet of flower petals everywhere.

Our guide showed us how the castle was made without nails.  Everything was interlocking!

The guide would point out something to mom and she would then explain it to us.

Sometimes I would then re-translate it for Art.

Dennis understands more Japanese than Art even though he refuses to speak it.

Here, our guide explained how boiling water was poured onto the enemy from above.

Some varieties of cherry blossoms were still blooming!

Our guide offered to take our photo for us with the castle in the background.

Camellias seem to also be in bloom everywhere in Japan.  Mom says the seeds are used to make oil.

Our guide offered to take us up the castle tower, but Mom really couldn't take the stairs so she and I stayed under a beautiful cherry blossom tree while Art and Dennis did the climb.

They both got to try the taiko drum.

They saw samurai armor.  It's surprising to see how small the Japanese were in stature a long time ago.  Today, the younger generation of Japanese are about the same as anywhere else...

...except the Netherlands.  The Dutch are VERY tall.

They got a wonderful view from the top of the castle.  Mom and I were under one of those cherry blossom trees.

Here we are sitting pretty.

Mom says there's some kind of saying that everybody looks good standing (or sitting) under a cherry blossom tree.

We were testing the theory.

I saw these small flowers growing right on the castle walls and had to take one or twenty photos of them.

Our guide said he used to be in computer technology, but now he volunteers as a guide for fun.  We invited him to have a soft serve with us.  I can't remember what flavor this was.  I'll bet Dennis remembers.

After viewing the castle we went down to the city to have lunch.  We noticed this glorious tree with the most exquisite double petal cherry blossoms.

We stopped at a restaurant called Bakudanya (The Bomb).

There was a scale from 1-20 for how hot-spicy you wanted  your meal.  Art chose 5, Dennis chose 17!  Mom and I had 0.

Then we saw a pictorial diagram showing what the rating scale meant.

Dennis did get a little worried.  He was counting on the fact that he knew most Japanese do not like their food too too too spicy.  He was right.

We did a little souvenir hunting.  Dennis needed to get some things for his family.  Finding gifts for the family is just the hardest thing to do.   We returned to the hotel, repacked our two leapfrogging suitcases and sent them to Narita Airport through the Yamato takkyubin service.  This is such a godsend.

The four of us would now be living out of one suitcase and three small backpacks for 4 days.  It was a bit of a challenge, but doable.

Dinner was at a restaurant called Chinchikurin.  For some reason Mom kept giggling every time she said the name.

Ever since we tasted okonomiyaki in Hiroshima four years ago, we've never found a place that served them as wonderfully.  The taste, consistency, sauce, whatnot was never the same.

We finally found it!  They said they were cooking it in the Hiroshima style.

Then again.... maybe it was that Asahi beer we all had with our meal that added that extra bit of perfection to the meal.