There are many fine places in Japan to spend a long holiday weekend but the one I think doesn’t get enough consideration is Shikoku. Maybe it’s because Navy MWR doesn’t plan tours there, but for those willing to drive the extra miles it’s a fantastic place with lots to do and see.

On our four day Shikoku trip, my fiancée and I saw two of Japan’s dozen original castles, relaxed in an onsen that’s supposedly been used since the days of King David, crossed over a ravine on a vine bridge, saw one of the first bullet trains and visited one of the most disappointing tourist spot in Japan to see if it lived up to the hype. And of course we ate mikans. Always more mikans.

MATSUYAMA

Matsuyama has a lot to offer for visitors looking for uniquely Japanese, and even unique among Japanese, experiences. During our short trip we took in an inspirational onsen, an original castle and one of the 88 pilgrimage temples on Shikoku.

Dogo Onsen was my fiancée’s idea, I’d never heard of it but she’s a Kyushu girl and loves onsens something fierce. She let me have my castles (and suicide torpedo museums, kamikaze museums, castle ruins that doubled as massacre sites… I’m amazed she puts up with me) so this was her itinerary addition and I’m glad she added it.

Dogo Onsen is a fantastic throwback of a bathhouse, the last stubborn holdover from a much earlier age surrounded by the modern world and still holding its own. According to the onsen, it’s Japan’s oldest and has been used for millennia. The current building was erected in 1894, but then people kept adding rooms and towers and other bits over the next 30 years resulting in an elegant collection of grown together halls and towers with a mix of black tile and upswept green copper roofs, and woodworking not usually seen outside of temples and castles in today’s Japan.

The onsen’s first brush with pop cultural fame came with its use in the 1906 book “Botchan,” by Natsume Soseki. The protagonist hates every single thing about redneck backwater “na moshi” Matsuyama except for this onsen. Given that the author was a frequent visitor when he lived in Matsuyama I wouldn’t be surprised if he is the reason you’re not allowed to swim in the bath just like Botchan.

A century later the onsen provided artistic inspiration again for the bathhouse in Hayao Miyazaki’s animated film, Spirited Away. It inspired me as well, at least to mention it in this travel article.

Beautiful as it may be on the outside, an onsen is only as good as its ambience and bath water and Dogo did not disappoint.

There are a few bathing options to choose from as there are different baths inside, we chose Soul Water and Gods Water. We were then led through a minor maze to get to where we could put on yukatas and go to our baths. This meant a lot up going upstairs, downstairs, up a single stair then back down and around the corner to get anywhere, I’d like to think the trip hazards are part of that cobbled together charm of the building. Its easy to see where Miyazaki got some of his ideas from for the movie and a few spots look like the real life locations for a few scenes.

My first onsen, the Tama no Yu or “Soul Water,” was back down stairs, but a different set of stairs and disrobing I was greeted with a blast of cold air from outside. The windows were open to an inner courtyard, but reed blinds kept anyone from looking in.

This bath was originally built for Imperial servants when the emperor visited (as extremely rare as they were, Dogo set aside a lot of space to handle the Emperor’s visits.) so has that little bit of history to go along with the relaxing water. The temperature was practically perfect, hot but not scalding, which not all onsen can seem to pull off. The onsen water as well was rather light, its fed directly from the source spring and is both colorless and odorless.

After steaming in the bath for a spell the blast of cold air from outside that made me shiver before was now a pleasant end to my first Dogo Onsen experience. This was followed up by the second bath, “Water of the Gods,” which was a more impressive setting with its Buddha-headed water tank and painted back wall depicting cranes and what I thought were mountains, well that or those cranes were massive in ancient Japan.

Given its long history, a few corners are preserved as miniature museums. There’s the Botchan no Ma (Botchan Room), which is the room author Natsume Soseki liked to use when he visited, and it has pictures of people associated with the author and his book..

We were given a guided tour of the emperor’s suite before leaving. Used only a handful of times, the gold-leaf gilded rooms mimicked a palatial atmosphere and I found them artistically pleasing to view. The suite consists of the bedroom, a rock garden, bathroom and private onsen. It cost extra, but my fiancée had this added to our trip because she knows I love to learn when I’m relaxing, even in an onsen.

Before leaving I picked up a pink souvenir towel that again is inspired by Botchan, as the protagonist’s towel has turned pinkish as its colors ran after being used in so many onsens.

As freshly steamed as a nikuman from not one but two hot baths, now how does one get from fantasy onsen to one of Japan’s last real medieval castles? Just like they did a century ago, aboard a whimsical German train of course! (Schedule permitting.)

Dogo Onsen Station is an architectural counterpoint to Dogo Onsen. Built in 1895, a year after the Onsen, whereas the onsen was a throwback to the traditional Japan, the station embraced the new, modern Japan. Elsewhere, whether in the US or Britain, I’d call its architectural style Victorian, but in Japan it’s Meiji, the reigning emperor when it was built and an example of how Japan modernized by taking Western ideas and making them it’s own. It feels like it belongs in Disneyland and not out in a city, an image that fits perfectly with the special train that stops here, the Botchan Ressha.

This “matchbox” like train is miniature and at first I thought it was just some silly fake like you’d seen in a mall around Christmastime with its small cars and chibi-engine, except it’s not. It’s a fully functioning and full-scale replica of the real German-built trains that ran around Matsuyama a century ago, which even in their day were commented on for being toy-like because of their diminutive size.

For train fans this is a must, though there are only a few of these running and the rest of the streetcars that service the station are normal streetcars, so plan accordingly. The current train is a replica, to see the original you’d need to make a trip to the city’s Baishinji Park where it is on display.

While visiting the area, we walked through he L-shaped arcade connecting the onsen to the station and saw Botchan inspired statues and a clock tower, adding to the amusement park atmosphere. We stopped into a “sesame everything” shop for sesame soft cream and ate at one of the little eateries where they served anago, a local eel and locally brewed Dogo Beer. I tried a porter which, while no Guinness, was still not bad.

A quick word about food on Shikoku- this is the land of mikan. Everywhere, all the time. I cannot fully express just how mikan crazy this island is, and I live in Nagasaki Prefecture, the prefecture with the best mikan in Japan according to the Emperor. (Or so I’ve been told.)

Most Japanese castles today, original and reproduction, are shadows of their former selves. A donjon, or keep, amidst a scenic park, maybe an inner layer of defensive walls and an original gate, but the majesty is gone. The layered defenses, several series of walls and moats that blend into a fortified city essentially extending the castle itself for miles, no longer exist. Himeji probably comes closest to maintaining its scale, but Matsuyama, with its large still-fortified footprint atop a hill overlooking its former domain still impresses as it maintains all of its gates and most of the hilltop is walled and turreted as it has been for centuries.

Matsuyama is imposing in its stature and as the approach to it is still made up a hill with the castle looking down on visitors and helps one appreciate the scale and awe it was meant to inspire. The most imposing view was at the first inner gate to the keep, coming upon it meant passing through a walled valley topped with turrets and the keep itself bearing down on me. An invader would be at a severe disadvantage as they would be run through a series of interconnected gates positioned at awkward angles and at all times be under direct attack from every direction.

This is one of the few places where visitors can appreciate this kind of defense, though not all of these parts are original but have been convincingly rebuilt. The original castle was built by Kato Yoshiaki in 1602, shortly after the country’s unification. Kato was an accomplished soldier and sailor who served Toyotomi Hideyoshi and later Tokugawa Ieyasu in some of the battles that would shape the destiny of Japan. For his service the samurai was made a daimyo and given control of Masaki and then Matsuyama. The castle’s mascot, Yoshiaki-kun, is a cartoonish representation of the man and visitors can take their picture in the courtyard with him and the castle the real Kato built.

Kato’s castle took 24 years to finish but was worked on and modified over the years. The current keep is actually the youngest of the original castle keeps in Japan. The previous keep had burned down on New Year’s Day in 1784 and work on a replacement didn’t begin until 1820. Beset with misfortune, it took 35 years to complete. Just in time to see the beginning of the end of its era as it was finished shortly after American Commodore Perry’s visit.

Japanese castles are considered “original” if their keeps are from the Edo period or older. As most castle were torn down during the Meiji period or destroyed in World War II, there are only a dozen left and only a few are rated as National Treasures. Matsuyama is a step down on the cultural scale as an Important Culture Asset, though from looking at it, it’s as good as all three National Treasure castles I’ve been too.

A surprising amount of the castle is original beyond the keep itself, many of the towers and gates are centuries old, though arson and wartime bombings meant that other bits have had to be rebuilt in the modern era. Looking at them I’d be hard pressed to tell most of the reproduction buildings from the originals.

Inside is a typical but well-put together museum, with most everything in English, which shares the castle history and the stories of its inhabitants along with a healthy volume of artifacts.

After finishing with the castle, we had an abrupt shift in scenery as we passed the ruins of a gate and took a stroll down the forested hill to the Ninomaru Shiseki Teien. Autumn came late to Shikoku so the trees were a mix of green, gold and red, a combination enhanced by the golden sunset resulting in some beautiful shots of the castle atop the hill.

The ninomaru, originally the castle’s second palace, looks like a walled palace from the outside, but inside it has been re-imagined as a citrus-tree laden garden with tea house and koi pond. I found it interesting that the outline of the original building has been preserved in the garden walkways. The castle and ninomaru, though complimentary, are unrelated and visitors have to buy tickets to both separately. I had fun here having an  impromptu photo shoot with my fiancée standing under the fall leaves by the koi pond.

The last stop on our Matsuyama tour was Ishiteji, the Stone Hand Temple. The name is derived from the legend of a monk who went on a pilgrimage to 88 temples on Shikoku. The monk, Emon Saburo, was originally a wealthy farmer, who one day found a monk at his door, begging for food and shelter while on the pilgrimage. Saburo turned the monk away who then died. Soon after this, Saburo’s eight sons died and seeking forgiveness, he became a monk himself and took part in the pilgrimage. He learned what it was like to a begging pilgrim, like the monk he turned away, and as he neared death he wished to be reborn with wealth so as to take care of pilgrims that came across his door. He died with a stone in his hand and at that time a child was born clutching a stone that read “Emon Saburo reborn.” This child grew up and restored the old local temple, now named Ishiteji.

That’s the legend, what is known is that the temple was originally founded under a different name in 670 A.D. and is one of Shikoku’s 88 pilgrimage temples. These temples are a unique feature of Shikoku and visiting them all requires trekking across the island, which predates modern marketing attempts at tourism.

At first I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Out front are some very new statues of Buddhist figures, a dragon and a monk, and a tower, but the main complex is hidden from the roadside. We then passed under a long covered hall with food stalls and stalls selling charms before coming out before the Niomon Gate. Built in 1381, it’s a National Treasure. The temple complex was pleasantly simple, its plain wooden buildings and it’s subdued and natural appearance is a contrast to the colorful red or vermillion temples and shrines that are commonly seen. Nestled in a forested area, it feels to be completely in harmony with the natural beauty surrounding it.

After leaving Matsuyama we headed for the other side of the island and the city of Kochi to visit my fiancée’s brother, though we took in a few sights as well, including Kochi Castle and the Harimaya Bridge.