Japan Day 9: A fun driving day.

Today was primarily a travel day, but even so, it was very enjoyable.
We drove to a town called Takamatsu, on the smallest island on the inland sea.

These hazy, misty shots were taken from the bus as we went over the bridge to the island.

Then I saw this spoiler for my next holiday in 9 days.

We were at Ritsurin Garden, a lovely place right at the foot of the mountain. Ben talked to us of the concept of “borrowed space “, where a garden uses vistas from beyond its borders to create a feeling of more space.

This garden does it with the mountain. I remembered the zoo I went to in Alice Springs last September. It also used the mountain behind it to add to its appeal.

We saw the famous pine tree on rocks, looking (apparently) like a crane on the back of a turtle. This imagery was also used in the University in Hanoi, only in that case it was a sculpture and was WAY clearer than here.

If it helps, the turtle’s head is to the left.

The tree is over 300 years old.

Cherry blossom!

Aren’t these amazing? By the size, they’re around 10 years old.

The superstition is that the carp are not just pretty fish. When they get big enough, they swim upstream and become dragons.

Soon after the stream, there was a rocky set of steps to the left. At the top was a viewing platform with this view of the lake.

This is the water source for all the six ponds in the garden. It once served in the past as a place for holding an elegant ceremony in which poets sent newly written poems floating on a gentle stream.

I didn’t write that. It was on the information board nearby.

The lake had a huge number of baby dragons. There is a festival day every year where kids make flags shaped like carp and they’re hung outside the house. It dats back hundreds of years, when they hoped that their children would grow up to be strong and brave like a dragon.

I stayed by the lake for some time, just letting my thoughts drift.

Then I felt a hand on my shoulder. One of the women from our tour asked me if I had airdrop.

Now I know what the heck of my head looks like!

There were a couple of boats sailing along.

By far the biggest feature of this garden was the pine trees, all professionally shaped and maintained by bonsai experts.

This was taken from the bridge over the lake.

Here’s a bonsai-sized one.

I airdropped this one to his mother.

There was a grove of plums towards the back. Pretty, aren’t they?

Then we were on the move again, this time to an udon noodle making class.

It was all as you’d expect, until the tambourine came out.

This made it so much fun. We rattled those babies around to ‘encourage’ the people mixing the dough. Then it was time to press the dough down hard.

This was done by dancing to ‘Gangnam Style’ on top of the dough. Then it was music was loud, everyone was shaking their tambourines and laughing.

it was so silly but it was so much fun.

We had our noodles for lunch. I was meant to cut mine smaller, like the width of a chopstick.

oh well. They tasted good anyway.

Cue lots of jokes about balls from the group…

He allowed me to taste one of his balls.

A few days ago we went through the longest tunnel in Japan. It was 10 kms long.

This bridge isn’t as long, but at almost 4 kms long, it’s the world’s longest suspension bridge.

The city we were heading towards was Kobe, on the way to Osaka. I couldn’t remember why the name Kobe was so familiar until Ben mentioned the earthquake in the 90s.
Over 6,000 people died. Kobe wasn’t considered at a high risk of earthquake, so the building regulations weren’t as strict as in more high-risk places. After this, the whole of Japan now has the same strict regulations in place.

Once we were in Kobe, with all of its towering buildings, I felt a little odd. All of the talk of earthquakes started to seem a bit dangerous…

It was a long drive to Osaka. As we were waiting for the traffic to move, someone noticed something odd about this building.

If you look closely, there’s a black shape that’s probably the cat.

Lots of us walked to the department store for dinner. There, like a good little quilter, I bought some Japanese fabric.

Dad Joke of the Day: