Travel Log: Shikoku Day Trip
May. 12th, 2009 11:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gnineSo, 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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.
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.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-05-12 05:44 pm (UTC)...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...
no subject
Date: 2009-05-12 07:00 pm (UTC)The date of my wedding is Saturday August 22nd, 2009.