Travel Log: Shikoku Day Trip

[gnine]

So, while I've accepted that however much I might *say* I'm going to keep up on regular updates, I know in my heart of hearts it’s a filthy, filthy lie (oh procrastination, here's looking at you, kid!), I've decided to make a go at posting when I travel. Not only is it one of my favorite things to do (and my biggest money sink, hands down. Stupid air/train/bus fare being the very opposite of cheap! *grumbles* :-p), I also have a tendency to take a ridiculous amount of photos (waaaay more than I ever post, much to everyone's relief, I'm sure ^_-) and it's fun to share 'em.

So, in keeping with my newfound resolution, a brief summary/photo log of me and xparrot's day trip to the town of Naruto, in Shikoku, and the spectacular whirlpools that they have there!





Having lived on Honshu, and traveled to both Kyushu and Hokkaido, Shikoku was the only one of the main islands we had yet to visit in Japan (ironic, seeing as it's the closest to Kyoto :-p) and we were determined to go before we left. Though we were originally considering a two day trip, money being what it is with the move and all (and the saving for grad school...London, m'love, yah ain't cheap! :-p) we opted for just a quick hop down. Taking the bus from Kyoto Station (which left at the ungodly hour of 10 am...Okay, yes, I *know*...but you try going to bed on average at around six am, and *then* try telling me 10 ain't ungodly! :-p), we arrived in Naruto around 12:30, with plenty of time to find the best viewing spots for the whirlpools, which were suppose to peak a little after one thirty.



Looking out at the bridge over the Naruto straits, we could see the water just starting to get choppy. (Also, as you can see from the picture, we were lucky enough to have gorgeous weather, which kept up throughout the whole day.)

Wandering aimlessly around the Naruto park for a bit, trying to decipher maps which were less than clear when it came to informing us where we were supposed to go to find the boats that would take us out over the whirlpools (suppose to be the best way to view them, though going out on the bridge later was pretty cool, too...), we were finally helped by the nice udon shop owners. They called the boat place *w00t for the ridiculously helpful service industry in Japan!*, which sent a free taxi to pick up the poor, confused gaijin. (The place was fairly empty in general, the week after a major holiday, and on a Tuesday, but even so, foreigners seemed to be a rarity there. We were the only gaijin we saw the whole day, though everyone was plenty happy to help us. Especially when the realized they wouldn't have to try to struggle with English. ^_-)

The boat tour itself was a half hour round trip and took us right into the heart of the whirlpools!





So cool! That's the edge of the boat in the second pic, there, to give you an idea of just how close we were coming to them as they formed. There were a couple of times the boat jerked and dipped in exciting yet vaguely alarming ways.



Looking at the one above, you'd think it was just the rapids created by rocks right below the surface, but in reality the channel is extremely deep. The dramatic depth of the narrow strait being one of the factors that plays into these daily formations.



The suddenness and deepness of the funnels as they formed were incredible, if hard to capture on camera :p, but I gave it a go.

After the boat dropped us off, we returned to the bridge, and the viewing walkway which runs under it for about half it's length. By this time, peak period was over and the whirlpools were slowing down, but they still looked pretty damn cool from above!



The bridge was about 45 meters above the water, and not at all recommended for anyone with a touch of vertigo!



Thankfully, if anything, I'm an acrophile, and was rather enamored of the floor windows.



This was the boat we were on, out on it's 2:30 viewing, right in the thick of things.

Lastly, this was random but amused us greatly (which, anyone who knows me...like...at ALL, knows is the easiest thing in the world, but still...). To get back to the bus, which only stopped on the high way (which are hugely elevated in Japan) instead of taking up stairs or an elevator, they had this great self-operated tram.



Push the button and the tram comes, and ding, just like an elevator, you press the up button and off you go. Tram-elevators...oh Japan, I do so love you!

Traffic being what it was, it took over three hours to get back, and then on our way home from Kyoto eki we helped these nice French tourists wandering aimlessly themselves, not a lick of Japanese between them, and a hard-to-find Japanese inn lurking somewhere close yet stubbornly elusive.

And thus concluded our Shikoku day trip, and probably our last real spate of traveling in Asia for the foreseeable future *sniffles*.



For those interested, a few more pics can be found here.

Comments

[openmydoors.livejournal.com]

LOL That tram reminds me of those transporty things in the Incredibles. Man, those whirpools are ridiculously cool!! But I'd be so afraid to go near them... lol

[gnine.livejournal.com]

LOL, it does kinda resemble that, doesn't it!

Yeah, they were quite cool, if a bit daunting! But...there didn't seem to be any wreckage of boats strewn about so...^_-

[byakkodan-slash.livejournal.com]

I don't care about the whirlpools, I've been there before, I care about you! Where're all the pics of you?

[gnine.livejournal.com]

Well, if you go to the linked pics on picas, there is one. Other than that, you don't get many...mainly cause neechan NEVER takes pictures. So I get ones of her on occasion, but very few of me...oops :-p

...Also, I am so the opposite of photogenic and hate about 99% of the pics taken of me, soo...

...in other news, when is the exact date of your wedding, btw? There has been some confusion...

[byakkodan-slash.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I saw the pic of you in the photo album.

The date of my wedding is Saturday August 22nd, 2009.

[mahaliem.livejournal.com]

These are such great photos! Thank you so much for posting and sharing.

[gnine.livejournal.com]

Thanks, so glad you enjoyed them! ^_^

[libsechumanist.livejournal.com]

Swirly whirlpools - so cool - and as an underwater archaeologist, they scare the bejeezus out of me from a SCUBA perspective! Really great photos - thanks!

[kathgrr.livejournal.com]

I agree! I'm a scuba diver and looking at that freaks the heck out of me!

[gnine.livejournal.com]

Yeah, cool from above, but I can't imagine being *in* the water anywhere near those. Would be terrifying!

...Underwater archaeologist? Cool! What kinds of things in particular do you explore?

[libsechumanist.livejournal.com]

Well, my hubby and I run a non-profit called Maritime Heritage Minnesota - http://www.maritimeheritagemn.org - we're currently waiting to hear on a grant to conduct a 3-year side-imaging sonar survey of 225 miles of the Mississippi River about 150 miles north of the Twin Cities - we already know of two wrecks in this section of river (the only two known wrecks in Minnesota's bit of the Mississippi - over 600 miles of it so we KNOW there have to be more, just no one's actually conducted any systematic searches for them) and have produced an assessment report for the State of MN that is downloadable from our site. We also just assessed a wreck yesterday in Lake Superior in Duluth - we've been monitoring it for over 2 years, documenting ice and sand erosion and taking photos as it is covered and uncovered by shifting sands. This wreck, the USS Essex, is one of the most important wrecks in the US for many reasons and we'd like to move it out of the surf zone to protect it; our multi-year assessment will help make our argument to MN's National Register archaeologist since the wreck is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It's no small feat to move a wreck, but with some patience, we can do it - to conserve it in a wet environment or process it with PEG to exhibit it in a dry environment.

Otherwise, I've worked on many wrecks in North Carolina (wrote a book on one there - and worked on Civil War stuff) while working on my MA (which was on North Carolina Schooners of the 19th Century), Michigan (a dry nautical wreck site), the USS Arizona and a PBY flying boat in Hawaii, worked at a site with part of the city underwater in Greece for 3 seasons with Cornell University (did terrestrial and nautical archaeology with them), and I've conducted research all over Europe, Israel, Egypt, the US, and Canada for my PhD research on Ancient Egyptian Watercraft Models (I just defended in March). I'm also conserve water soaked artifacts and am trained in Archives and Manuscripts management.

So, kind of an eclectic mix of sites and work. I'll be updating our site this weekend with some photos from the MN Archaeology Fair we participated in this past weekend. Was kinda fun! Oh - and sorry for the long answer - when someone asks about what we do, I tend to TELL them! ;-)

[gnine.livejournal.com]

Wow, seriously, that sounds really cool! Thanks for the links, seems like some really interesting stuff you're doing. Also, the list of places you've done dives is incredibly impressive!

I'm guessing the Minnesota dives must be quite different from your thesis work. What got you interested in Ancient Egyptian Watercraft Models? (Though that certainly explains the icon! ^_^)

[libsechumanist.livejournal.com]

I've never excavated any Ancient Egyptian watercraft models - the 585 authentic ones in my dissertation were mostly "excavated" (meaning collected without a whole bunch of documentation at times - but sometimes they were excavated properly) between 1823-1932, with only a very few found after 1932; the most recent was found in 2007 and boy was I excited! The woman who just finished her dissertation on the dig where the boat was found graciously gave me all her research on it and I'm giving her a CD of my work so she can see where her model fits in with all the rest. The models are 95% of the time found in rock-cut tombs and the rest are from pit tombs or from house contexts - they were a common part of funerary practices in the First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom, but lesser so in the Predynastic, Old Kingdom, and New Kingdom - the 1 Third Intermediate Period boat I have is from a house. So, all dry contexts as part of the funerary rites - not from the Nile River or anything.

Diving in the Nile would actually be about the same as the Mississippi River or any other river I've dove in while working on my MA in North Carolina - muddy, murky, mucky, and dark. The wrecis found would be radically different of course! Most rivers are low-visibility environments and the diving is similar in them all - except for the currents and the amount of surface traffic you run into. The part of the Mississippi we are currently focused on is very quiet - so that's nice. Our house in St Paul is about 5 blocks from the Mississippi and about a mile from a dam - so very dynamic and busy river here, which we will survey in the future.

As for my icon - yep - that's a great little model is from the Saqqara tomb of Gem-wsr excavated quite well by K. Richard Lepsius in 1843 and dates to All Egypt Dynasty XI of the Middle Kingdom - very unique - it has a sister found with it and both belong to the Egyptian Museum in Berlin. The model was on loan to a weird little museum in Cottbus, Germany when I went to Berlin and made a trek to Cottbus, into the woods to a weirdly palatial house with out-buildings and in one of the buildings was the model in a museum exhibit. Currently the model isn't carrying its canopy and the pilot at the front now faces the other direction - this kind of stuff happens after over 150 years of museum life. The museum was bombed during WWII and they lost 1 model - one of the most fantastic ever excavated, but its sister model survived and I documented that in Berlin. Other museums lost models during bombing, including Griefswald in Germany and Liverpool.

Again, sorry to go on and on - I love the topic and since my defense went to well and my Readers are dying for me to publish, it's nice to know I'm not full of crap about the topic! ;-)

[libsechumanist.livejournal.com]

*wrecks! not wrecis - what the bleep in a wrecis?? ;-)

[kathgrr.livejournal.com]

awesome pictures! I've been thinking about traveling to Japan in the nxt year or so - is this one of the places I should visit?

[gnine.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

Hmm, well, depends on a couple of things. Is it your first trip to Japan, how long will you be there and do you have any Japanese/travel with someone who can at all speak/read Japanese?

If it's your first trip to Japan and/or you're not there for too, too long, there are a lot of other things to see in Japan, less off the beaten path. There's a lot of things I'd recommend seeing in Japan before this: Kyoto (which you can spend several full days exploring and not even see a quarter of the things there are to see), Tokyo (again, need several days to really see it), Nara is cool, Hiroshima, Himeji Castle, etc. to name just a few.

Also, there was pretty much no English spoken in Naruto, and the signs were hit or miss when it came to English labeling, so it can be hard if you don't speak Japanese.

However, if you do have a lot of time, it is cool to see, so...

Also, your icon is adorable! *sigh* I miss my kitties!

[altyronsmaker.livejournal.com]

Those are beautiful. Is it wrong that the first thing I thought when I saw the first pic above the cut was, "Ohh! Charybdis!" Yikes. I had no idea that Japan had whirlpools.