“The fleeting beauty and symbolism of cherry blossoms, which serve as a reminder of the impermanence of life and the value of appreciating the present moment.”
Welcome to April and cherry blossom season! The school year has ended, graduating students have moved on to their new chapter in life, and I welcome deskwarming season. Not that I really left considering exam season literally preceded it.
To preface this little adventure, I was checking out the posters inside Imabari Station when I noticed this:
The station in the photo is Engaru Station in Hokkaido. But it also spurred me to explore other places/stations featured on the Seishun 18 posters. I found this article featuring some of the places featured on the poster. Does this one seem familiar to you?
Yup, it’s the same station as the photo I took above. Called Oshima Station. And luckily for me, was in neighboring Tokushima Prefecture, meaning that I wouldn’t have to drop tens of thousands of yen in order to reach it. Hotel booked, and off I went on another journey, this time without leaving Shikoku. But before that, a shorter day trip that took place within Ehime Prefecture.
If you could tell from the header image, I spent a nice two hours on the Iyonada Monogatari from Yawatahama in Nanyo to Matsuyama. This also was influenced by the countless times I walked past a poster advertising the train in stations across Ehime. I guess that’s proof that advertising does work on me. Or just my American train-deprived brain trying to experience as many trains as possible. Due to train timings, I had around two hours to explore Yawatahama.
After wandering around and enjoying a very tasty set meal, I made my way back to the station. And to much fanfare, the train arrived. Prompting very excited passengers waiting on the platform to start taking pictures from every angle. I, of course, joined.
After that it was time to actually board the train. The train has three cars, with car 3 being a private suite for 2-8 people and requires and a whopping ￥28,000 private room fee in addition to the required tickets. And I totally would have paid that if I had another person coming along and if it was unreserved (it wasn’t on the day I took the train). My seat unfortunately was facing away from the ocean, but I had a nice view of Ozu Castle. The afternoon tea set was delivered, and I started sipping tea and munching on tasty pastries as we rolled towards Shimonada Station.
After a while, we arrived at arguably the main highlight of the ride. Shimonada Station. Despite the Wikipedia page stating that passengers don’t get off the train, we were allowed to disembark for around five minutes in order to get photos.
After that it was a smooth ride back to Matsuyama, and a smooth connection to the limited express train that would take me back to Imabari. Overall, a pretty fun adventure down to Nanyo and back with a fancy train ride in-between!
And now, onto the Tokushima adventure. As mentioned before, I saw a great opportunity to visit a station featured on one of the Seishun 18 posters with great timing too as cherry blossom season was right around the corner. After a few hours on trains, I arrived at Oshima Station in Tokushima.
The next day, I made my way up north to the city of Naruto to check out the whirlpools. It was a very neat experience but the weather wasn’t as nice. I think looking at the whirlpools from the bridge above might have been better, but I wasn’t lucky with the timing and there were no whirlpools after the boat ride according to the schedule.
After that it was off to Ryozen-ji, AKA Temple number one of the 88 for the Shikoku Pilgrimage.
As much as I would like to attempt the pilgrimage, unfortunately I don’t have enough nenkyu nor a car. But something did catch my attention while I was in Tokushima. Iya Valley in the western part of the prefecture. As much as I love exploring large cities like Kyoto and Tokyo, the rural, less traveled places also excites me. I am currently looking into a trip there, but not for the foreseeable future as I have an exciting trip abroad at the end of this month.
Finally, I went to Kotohira to check out the shrine. I think I’ll get the pictures speak for themselves.
Anyways, that’s all for now. Assuming nothing goes wrong (uh oh), I have a long awaited trip abroad in ~2 weeks followed immediately by Golden Week. I think I will have a trip report written up sometime during the week as I don’t have any plans (and don’t really want to travel during the busiest weeks in the year). Until then.