Shikoku Group Tour (part 2) Take me to the river!

 The tour continues! After checking out of the hotel we boarded the bus and headed for Shimanto Gawa River. Internet Info here!

Emi and I opted for the boat ride.

First the boat headed down river so we could have a look at a typical Shikoku style river bridge.

The bridges are designed for flooding. There are no guard rails for the cars and everything is round and smooth so that the flood waters flow over the bridge. 

The boat tour is a one man operation. He drives the boat and talks on the microphone telling us how much and how often the river floods (it's a lot!). 

Inside the boat is very nice. 

While the river was nice it wasn't great. What made the tour fun and interesting was the guide; he had everybody laughing at his stories.

It was an enjoyable first stop of the day.

Next up: Kochi Castle! Internet info here!

This castle was a little bit easier to access than the first one. 

There are 2 ways to get to the Castle; easy and hard. Of course we took the hard way up.

Once we're in the Castle we climb steep narrow steps to get to the top. 

When you finally get to the top you meet all the people that were on the steps ahead of you. It's a small room with open windows on all four sides; the view is nice but going back down is harder than going up. 

Here you can see the steep steps with big thick wood beams strategically place for tall people (like me) to hit you head on. 

After we escaped from departed Kochi Castle we went and checked into 

The Royal Hotel Tosa Hotel Website

It's a big fancy hotel part of the Daiwa Resort Group Hotels.

Next day we're on our way to:

"Jardin de Monet Marmottan au Village de Kitagawa" Monet's Garden

This is an amazing place. There are ponds, nature walks, flower gardens... everything has a Monet theme to it.

Easy to walk trails.

Replicas of Monet's paintings placed next to areas that look like the painting.

 

Beautiful flower gardens.

A picture in the Garden gift shop of Monet.

Moving on! Next up is a closed elementary school that was turned into an aquarium. It sounds like a strange idea to convert an old school into an aquarium but it was a pretty cool place to visit. 

Muroto Schoolhouse Aquarium

I didn't expect the aquarium to be all that great but it was. Well worth the visit.

Last stop: Cape Muroto (Muroto Misaki). A place of scenic beauty!

When we arrived it started to pour down rain.

Most of the tour group stayed on the bus. A few of us went out to take pictures; we got soaking wet.

After leaving Cape Muroto we had a long enjoyable drive to Tokushima Airport and a night flight back to Tokyo where we caught a train for home. It was a great tour and I plan to go back to Shikoku again in the future.

Thanks for stopping by!

Mike

Bonus shots! (not related to Shikoku)