Shikoku

A trip in Shikoku

It has been our first stay in Japan since March 2018, thus since the end of my career and our settling in Bordeaux. Leaving the chaos in France, after a year of uncertainties about where our lives will go, it has been a come back to our country, since Japan is not only her but also my second home, with its constant qualities and also some changes.

Still here : the sea ! Seen from a distance and fascinating when I lived and worked in town, dreamed more than actually visited, the sea is here, splendid and active, full with treasures and fishermen, a paradise of fishes and shells still unknown, reminding me in its way the famous “maquis” (Ivory Coast word, an almost clandestine restaurant in the fisherman’s home) in Shodoshima we feasted with sushi.

Still here : the calm of a society where the democratic debate doesn’t lead to a systematic showdown, where the respect of the others is so deeply rooted that even in the vibrant Tokyo, one who doesn’t walk at a fast pace is not ejected to the sidewalks, where bicycles and pedestrians get along with each other on the same lanes, where big billboards remind to the former to respect the latter, and other billboards advise not to read the smartphones while walking…
Refrain from any comparison !

Changing : the decaying archipelago because of demographic failure is far from totally resigned to its necrosis. The inland sea is travelled by all kind of ships : fisher boats, oil tankers, container mountains, and its coast is seemingly visited by many foreign tourists to whom the local industry deftly adapts.

In the air as well, Japan has changed. For the first time, I enjoyed flying in an Airbus (A 320) in a Japanese company, Jetstar. After ignoring for a long time the European airplane maker, Japan has at last opened the door.

So for me it is the revolving of a cycle, two Imperial eras after my first discovery of Japan. 31 years later, a Caucasian face in the bath or reading the newspaper is no more surprising.

My discoveries this time : the Island of Shodoshima, the only one in the archipelago where the olive tree has been successfully introduced ;

Kompira, a beautiful Shinto sanctuary on top of 1300 stairs above the plain of Matsuyama, you can see in a distance the great Seto bridge. In the 90’s, I had driven by bike on another one, the Awaji-shima bridge.

Nibukawa onsen, a slightly decrepit ryokan, simple and relatively cheap. There is a beautiful forest around where you can have a walk, around the mountain stream which flows at the bottom of the hotel.

The last mountain landscape it reminds me is Nepal where I walked two years ago. Here too there are narrow trails where you must take care not to slip down and suspended bridges – but no yacks. And perfect cleanliness, not a single litter in kms of paths !

The good point when coming during a non Japanese holiday time is that it is little crowded. For the sake or those who live from tourism, Chinese with various passports and Koreans fill somehow the empty rooms. I didn’t see any Caucasian during that trip. Anyway, commercial multilingualism is improving : information in the supermarkets, menus in the restaurants, prescriptions on the bath manners are translated in English, Chinese and Korean.

So that countryside seems to do well. What strikes me, like in the big cities, is the density of public transportation. And most of the local trains are well managed with only one staff, whether French trade unions like it or not…
Oldish trains, with drawn out suspensions, totally different from the shinkansen. But much cheaper and working well !