Southern Shikoku

Continuing our drive down the coast, we stopped at a few scenic spots to take pictures of the beautiful beaches. It was weird because I never think of Japan being tropical or beachy...


Ashizuri Point

This lighthouse is located at the southernmost tip of Shikoku. Quite the view. Quite the 80m high cliff.

A thought: It's really hard to take a picture of a lighthouse from the bottom of it.



Sea Side Lodge Ki No-Kujira

This pension (I guess the equivalent of a B&B) was spectacular! It was owned by an adorable couple who we all fell in love with immediately. The view was pretty awesome too (below).

The style of the pension made me think of a shiny, new Canadian lodge but somehow it fit right in. It was clean, airy and welcoming. Dinner was the most amazing thing - we had the whole dinning room to ourselves and the food was some of the best I've ever eaten!

Below, is possibly the best fish dish ever! There was a whole fish for two people (I think I could have eaten the whole thing, it was that delicious), sashimi, rice with fish in it, tempura, wonderful eggplant...

We asked the owner where she learned to cook and she told us how she didn't know how to cook when she got married so she took some lessons and now cooks all the meals in the pension. She is such a fantastic chef and so cute!


After that wonderful dinner we did some fireworks in front of the house. Or rather, Mr. Yamamoto did some fireworks and I stood nervously on the porch watching (I'm not a fan of 'at home' fireworks).



Next morning's breakfast was just as delicious as dinner. I wanted to stay here longer...but we had places to go...so we said our goodbyes.



Above - the very cool and cute owners. If anyone is ever in southern Shikoku, definitely stay here!


Local Fish Market



We were going to be cooking dinner for ourselves that night so we stopped at a local fish market. My dad and I were amazed by the variety of fish. There were some we'd never seen before and some that were absolutely terrifying.

These were definitely the weirdest. Kind of like an eel with a strange tail and a scary, scary face. Can you imagine these swimming by you in the water?? EEEK!


Check out the teeth on that fish!



Our next stop was a stretch of beach that is famous for its rock formations.





Cool, huh? The only not cool part was the thousands of tiny sand/rock bugs that were crawling all over the place. When I went close to the rocks to take a picture they'd all shoot out of their hiding spots in the rocks and freak me out.


That afternoon it poured but we were dry in the car, singing songs and thinking of Japanese sound words (pika-pika!). We were spending the night in cabins at the top of a mountain, which sounded cool until we were on the impossibly small, single lane, winding road up the mountain. I seriously thought we were going to die. We later found out we took the back road and that there was a large highway road up and down...oops.

This place was so Japanese, in that it was weird and out of place. At the very top of this mountain was a campground, some cabins and a weird amusement/nature park. But once it stopped raining, the view was amazing.






My dad and I doing an "Aaron" shot.

My mom singing "The Sound of Music"


Osugi (Big Cedar)


This tree is approx. 3000 years old. That's right. I didn't just sneeze, causing my hand to slip and add extra zeros...it's three thousand years old. My brain can't understand how it can be that old.





Our last stop on our road trip was the fancy Seto-Chuo Expressway bridge. Here we stopped for pictures and lunch. It was burning hot. After a break, we hopped back in the car and the Yamamotos dropped us off in Okayama. We waved goodbye and the Elliott-Yamamoto Shikoku Road Trip came to an end! What an adventure!