Shikoku Area consists 4 prefecture, Tokushima, Kagawa, Ehime, and Kouchi. All of the prefectures are next to the sea and composed of mountains and rivers. The northern Shikoku has Seto Inland Sea and southern has the Pacific Ocean. Here, there are four prefectures with various characteristics. This time, we will stay at Shikoku for 8 days and introduce the interesting tourist spots.

For this trip, we will reach Matsuyama in plane from Haneda airport. The first designation is Uchiko, which will be 30 minute ride of super express train. Uchiko itself is not a big town so it is possible to go sightseeing in half a day.

Uchiko is a town that flourished through Edo period to Meiji period. It is as if the time has stopped since then in this town.

As soon as you reach Uchiko station, a steam locomotive welcomes you.

20 minute walk through the city and we reached the first tourist spot in Uchiko, the Uchiko-za. Uchiko-za is a theater that was built in 1916.

It is still used as a theater today, therefore, you cannot do sightseeing on days they have a show. Luckly, it was a day off when we visited to we were able to go inside.

The beautiful building is still as it was back in the rich and gorgeous days.

The Uchiko shopping district

Since it was the weekdays, there were few people. The time was passing by slowly.

At Business and Living Museum, there are dolls and tools from the days to reproduce the life of pharmacy back then using the house from the old days.

The dolls speak accordingly to the scene.

There are old buildings left everywhere.

Soon, we reach the town of Yokaichi and Gokoku. 120 houses stands continuously for 600m and 90 of them are traditional Japanese houses. The houses with white plaster are beautiful.

Japan Wax Museum especially has traditional feels with plaster walls. Since it is under repair right now, only parts of the exhibits were displayed though it was interesting explaining Japan wax.

Somehow there was a gorilla statue on the road. There were various statues standing like this.

On the way back to the station, there were grilled fish and pickled plum being sold. Charcoal fire was being used so the delicious smell filled the air.

Rice plants were on their way to become good rice. All nice and green.

Next is touring around the Matsuyama city.

It will be convenient to take the streetcar and go to downtown to reach the touring spot in Matsuyama city. There are also a replica of locomotive that is drawn in “Bocchan” by Soseki Natsume.

The streetcar and the locomotive.

The Saka No Ue Museum, designed by Tadao Ando, is a triangle building using lots of glasses. You can get information about touring here.

Right next to the Saka No Ue No Kumo Museum, there are Bansuisou and Gudabutsuan. Today was raining heavily so it was closed.

Since there were no people, we went in the no tress pass area and took a picture.

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