This post is continued from Trip to Shikoku in 2015 spring – Part 3, staying at Morinokuni Hotel in Nametoko canyon.
We really enjoyed to stay in Morinokuni hotel. The hotel staff gave us ride to Matsumaru station. But I asked him to drop off us at Nijinomori park near Matsumaru station. This is the roadside service station and there are some shops and small aquarium. Train does not run very frequently on Yodo line. We needed to spend a couple of hours near the station.
Nijinomori Park Osakanakan
“Osakanakan” means fish building. This was not like major aquarium, like Kaiyukan in Osaka. But it was enough to spend a few hours and my daughter was very happy.
This aquarium shows the species in this area mostly, especially Shimanto river. Shimanto river is known as one of most beautiful stream in Japan.
When we were there, it was low season. But local kindergarten students visited this aquarium. It showed us penguin walking and feeding.
Travelling on Yodo line
We spent a couple of hours at Nijinomori Park and walked to Matsumaru station. It was only 10 minutes away from the station.
I love this typical country side scenery. It is so peaceful.
Matsumaru station has day use Onsen bath. I did not have a time to take a bath there but I just tried foot bath. It is free of charge.
I had “Pon Juice”.
It is 100% orange juice that is made from Ehime prefecture’s orange. When you go to Ehime, you can find this easily and try. It is fresh, a bit sour and very tasty juice.
Yodo line train arrived at Matsumaru station. It was same type of fleet on day before.
As you see the photos, the weather was so lovely and I really enjoyed the scenery of Shimanto river on the way to Kubokawa. It was 1.5 hour train trip.
Another express train trip from Kubokawa to Kochi
Yodo line train arrived at Kubokawa station.
This is the junction of Yodo line, Dosan line and Tosa-Kuroshio Railway. Tosa Kuroshio Railway is not JR lines. But many of JR limited express train go through Nakamura and Sukumo stations from Kochi and even Okayama.
We transferred to Limited Express Ashizuri to get Kochi.
It had only two cars. But we still could find some empty seats.
It was only one hour trip to Kochi. We arrived at Kochi and stayed overnight in this city.
Kochi station and street car
In Shikoku, Takamatsu, Matsuyama and Kochi have own local railways. In Kochi, street car runs from south to north and from west to east. We can access many places in the city by street cars.
At Kochi station, street car stop is connected to the main entrance of Kochi station.
Many old type cars still run on the truck.
Walk in Kochi city
We stayed only one night. We did not have time to see many places. We just walked through shopping arcade and had dinner. Before eating dinner, we just dropped by Harimayabashi.
It was so tiny and most of first time visitors are wondering why this place is one of the biggest name in Kochi. If you want to know why, please read Japan-Guide to find the story.
We had a dinner at Hirome Ichiba (official site in Japanese).
This is a sort of local market. But in the middle of the market is like food court.
We can drink and even smoke at some part of this market. There are lots of local favorite items, like lightly roasted bonito.
On next day, we visited Ryugado cave and Oboke gorge. I will talk about Ryugado in next post, Trip to Shikoku in 2015 spring – Part 5, visiting Ryugado from Kochi.
