I left my comfortable apartment on the southeast corner of the Kii Peninsula (more like a blob than a peninsula) at 5 am, heading first southwest and then north along the coastal road. My goal was to reach Wakayama by 9 am. I was going to try for the 10:30 am ferry to Tokushima, on the island of Shikoku. It was not a difficult ride because the sun was shining and the coastal views were spectacular, but I could not dilly dally either. I saw a family of monkeys crossing the road!
At the end I arrived at 9:45 am, and I wasted precious 15 minutes trying to find the terminal, which has to be one of the most poorly signaled in the world (and I have seen bad before). I remember someone bickering about this in Google, and remembered the mention that the ticket office "was on the other side of the light". A pretty obscure reference if you ask me, but looking for "a light" I spotted a traffic light in the distance, and lo and behold on the other side was the office. It took but a moment to buy my ticket (5,000 yen including the motorbike) and after studying a sketch I crossed to the coast side of the traffic light and after a couple of turns found where I was supposed to wait.
We are definitely not in the tourist season, because the cavernous ferry was barely half full with vehicles and carried very few lowly pedestrians. Mine was the only motorbike.
The ferry departed at 10:30 am, and took two and a half hours to reach the port of Tokushima. This is a big city, in the estuary of the Yoshino River, and I thought I would treat myself to a nice lunch of curry. I punched COCO Curry in my phone, and easily found three locations within a 15 km radius. I have moved into two cups of coffee and a little thing (e.g., a rice cake) for breakfast, a substantial cooked lunch, and maybe a convenience store bowl of noodles for supper. This was lunch, so I had a nice Cesar salad, rice with tuna curry, and a lemon lassie drink. Yum, yum.
I need to get a coin purse. Coins are actively used in Japanese stores, and I had a coin purse I bought in Veracruz that I liked very much. Unfortunately, after I got drenched a couple of days ago the leather got all soggy, and I had the silly notion that I could speed the drying out by putting it into the microwave oven. It was ugly. Within less than 15 seconds it had shrunk to a third its original size, and was beginning to puff like a chicharron. With great sadness I had to throw it in the trash. But where do you find a coin purse in Japan? I tried a couple of drugstores and food markets to no avail, so I thought I could check a used goods store. Turns out there is a whole chain, like Goodwill, here in Japan. It is called "Second Street", so once again I punched it in Google maps and 15 minutes later I was there. The first floor was all new manga comics, DVD's, game cartridges, and electronics. The second floor was all clothing, and I was flabbergasted when I saw the high prices. I have not gone to any new clothes or shoes stores, but to judge from the price of the used stuff they must be astronomically high. Makes sense given that Japanese are very much into image, but it made me think that this is a land of contrasts. Some things are dirt cheap, like food, gasoline, or French wine, whereas other things are ridiculously overpriced, like ferry tickets, train tickets, and used clothes.
I left the city, to the west, to begin my exploration of the Iya Valley, which is a very pretty rural area, with postage stamp-sized rice paddies, apparently tended by gentlemen farmers who have beautiful Japanese style mansions. Maybe this is what you are supposed to do during your retirement, just like owning a vineyard in Provence (you own the rice paddy, but you lease it to a farmer who does all the heavy work; in the meantime you lord over it all from your beautiful mansion). The ag landscape is very pretty, but I was wondering where my lodging was going to be.
It was in a small cluster of houses, which could hardly be called a town. Why would a backpackers lodge be located here? Aha, it is a bicycle lodge (or motorcycle lodge, since I am the only resident), and they attract (?) lodgers by organizing bike excursions to nearby villages. It was only 4 pm, and I was not ready to tuck into bed, so I scootered to the first of the villages mentioned in the brochure, and found a real jewel of old Japan. It is only one street preserved in what now has become the modern town of Mima, but it is gorgeous. Lined with old Japanese wooden buildings that are now occupied by pottery shops, restaurants, ice cream shops (Japanese love ise-kremu), and a few wealthy homeowners.
Tomorrow I will further explore Mima and its surroundings.
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