Shikoku Weekend: Day 2 Oboke and Iya

WOW. The next day was a complete surprise. We had heard that Shikoku could pose some travel problems if you were without a car, but we had no idea how infrequent and rural it could be. However, this made our trip even more of an adventure and we were happy to go somewhere that felt nothing like a concrete jungle... this was a real jungle.

We headed out on a train with two cars then transfered to a train with one car to reach our first stop; Oboke. Here we had heard that there were beautiful gorges and a river that you could raft down. Due to time, and the small side-note that it was FRRREEEZING, we decided to pass up the rafts. We got off the train in what appeared to be a small town. To our right was a shop that sold beer, and straight ahead was a small market selling less than, probably, 150 items. That was it. There wasn't even a man taking our tickets when we got off the train. We decided that first we would head over to the Oboke/Koboke Gorges because it was within walking distance and we realized that since it was not a holiday, or a weekend, that the buses would not be running to Iya for another hour and a half.

We crossed a beautiful bridge over the Kino River that proved to be a fantastic viewing spot for the mountains. The river wrapped around the base of each mountain in a way that I have seen before in Upstate New York. It was simply breathtaking. The leaves had only just started to changed colors, but just imagining how beautiful this place would be in a few weeks gave me chills.

We walked our two km down to the gorges where we saw some of the greenest water with white rocks that I have seen. There were not many people there but the few of them were on boat tours of the gorges as well as snapping photos like us. We took in the beauty of the gorges and hiked down a small trail where we sat and rested for a while.

After this, we headed back up to the road. We were quite weary of missing the bus since they came only once every 1 1/2 hours and we didn't have endless amounts of time to wait, not to mention daylight hours (there is no daylight savings in Japan so it gets dark in winter about 4:00- 4:30). At the bus stop, which had a table made of a giant tree slab, was a very old Japanese woman. She had few teeth but her smile brightened us up. I was freezing and she laughed at me. When I told her in Japanese it was cold, she agreed, then, assuming that we spoke fluent Japanese went off to tell us about other things. We were able to understand that she was saying Meredith was nuts for only wearing a short sleeved shirt and that she had three layers on herself. She walked off and didn't catch the bus with us.

When our bus arrived we headed down a mountain to the bottom where a small sign with an arrow indicated we would be able to discover our prize. We had traveled all this way to see the Iya Kazurabashi. This is the name of a famous bridge that is made of a plant called Shirakuchigasura. It was built with this vine because it would be easier for them to cut the bridge behind them if they were trying to get away. Under the bridge runs a river, and quite a fall. The bridge is over 800 years old and is rebuilt/checked every three (because they let tourists walk over it for a mere fee of 500 yen). You can hear about this bridge, if you understand Japanese, in the folk song "Iya no Kohiki Bushi".

We decided we were hungry and we would need our strength before trying to brave this bridge, so we stopped in on a local vendor stand to have a specialty of the area. I opted for the salted trout on a stick caught in this river. It was the entire fish, and I guess you were supposed to eat the whole thing... that wasn't going to happen. Meredith went for the other local delicacy which was some sort of concoction consisting of a potato, a special hard tofu from the region, and konjak all dipped in miso and roasted like the fish. We both agreed that they were interesting snacks and we were satisfied for the time being.

We went and paid our 500 yen (which is used to maintain the bridge) and started our walk. Now, this bridge is very deceptive. It looks much safer than it actually is. The slats are farther apart than most foreigner's feet, which is funny because Japanese feet tend to be much smaller. This means that your leg could easily slip through it you are not careful. Also, when the wind decides it wants to gust, it makes the whole bridge sway. This was definitely something out of Indiana Jones, and we felt like true adventurers crossing it. Holding onto your cameras while snapping photos was the worst thing we had to brave, for dropping it was a real danger.

Upon crossing we decided to go off the trail and climb down by the river to get some other photos of the bridge. We apprehensively jumped from rock to rock hoping not to fall into the icy river (mind you, I was wearing my only sweater and scarf that I had on this trip). We climbed up some rocks and followed the path of streaming water to discover Biwa waterfall. It was small, but the way that is poured down the rocks into a pool of water and then down into the river was something out of a tourist magazine. Pure perfection. I can imagine that it would be the perfect place to shoot photos in swimsuits.

After all of this wind, water, and adventure we were quite famished and decided to indulge in the local Soba noodles with a view of the river. They were soft and tasty, but not unlike other soba I had eaten in the past. However, the noodles were much thicker than normal, almost like Udon.

After this we realized that the next bus was not going to be for another hour, so we were able to negotiate with a cabbie to take us back to the train station for just 2000 yen. The bus would of cost us 1400 yen, so we felt very accomplished to not have to sit in the cold for an hour with no coats.

After arriving at Oboke station we read through a guest book filled with notes from people from all over the world. Some of them were lost, some of them were disappointed by Oboke, and some of them wrote blog and e-mail addresses. We half-thought it would be funny to e-mail all of them, then decided that our Creeper @ work series didn't teach us how to go about doing that.

We headed back to the hotel and then out for dinner to plan our next day of travel then it was off to bed early for a bright and early start in the AM.

This three-part series is To Be Continued....