Kochi, Japan

Day 1, Thursday 

Time to visit a new place: Kochi! From Himeji Station we took a ~30min Shinkansen ride to Okayama Station and transferred to the Dosan Line Limited Express train to get to Kochi Station. Overall, it took about 3.5 hours to get there and cost 10,750 per person one-way.

 

Since we arrived around lunch time, we had to try the meibutsu (local specialty) katsuonotataki, which is seared bonito sashimi. After lunch, we saw Kochi Castle. It's one of only 12 castles with surviving original keeps in Japan. 

Day 2, Friday 

There is a tourist My-Yu Bus you can use to get around to major attractions around the city. We used it to go to Makino Botanical Garden. The garden is named after Dr. Tomitaro Makino. Dr. Tomitaro Makino is considered to be the father of botany in Japan as he worked hard identifying Japanese plants and lobbied for a botanical garden. Unfortunately, he died in 1957, a year before the Makino Botanical Garden opened. 

 

There's a lot to see and luckily they have a restaurant with good food. After lunch we saw the conservatory, it was warm and humid inside, which was quite the contrast with the cold weather outside. 

 

Right across from the conservatory is Chikurin ji Temple. Since we were there at the beginning of the year it was packed with people visiting for hatsumōde (the first visit to a Buddhist temple or Shinto shrine of the year). There was even an area where you can leave your old religious items from the previous year like the charms or darumas that have to be ritually burned. 

Once we walked around the area and checked the bus schedule, we caught the next bus to town and got off near Hirome Market, which is a famous indoor market with a wide range of restaurants. It was packed, and if  you want to eat there you first have to find a seat and then order from one of the stalls. It was so packed we weren't able to find a seat and instead ate at a less busy okonomiyaki restaurant down the street.

Day 3, Saturday 

Our final full day was a beach day at Katsurahama Beach! You actually can't swim in the water due to the dangerous waters, but there were plenty of people walking on the beach. There's a statue of a local samurai named Sakamoto Ryoma, a shopping area, souvenir stores, an aquarium, and a small shrine. We walked to a small lighthouse, and escaped the cold by seeing the Sakamoto Ryoma Memorial Museum. The next day we headed back to Himeji.