Taking an overnight ferry in Japan can be like a mini holiday. The ships are beautifully appointed with lovely lounges, comfortable state rooms, tatami sleeping rooms, a restaurant and always an Onsen. However, much too soon the announcements began at 5:30 in the morning encouraging people to get up. We don’t understand the language, but you can’t help but get the message. The official disembarkation time is at 6 am but you can choose to get off at at 7…. we chose the 7 option. 🥴 We were greeted by a wet, rainy and cold morning. Not an auspicious start.
A graceful, open design with the information desk and dining room on the lower level, sleeping rooms on levels 2 and 3 plus the onboard onsen (public bath).
We like the Orange Ferry Line. A year ago we travelled on this same ferry route when we rode the incredible cycle route Shimanami Kaido from Imabari to Omichi.
Thank goodness for Conbinis (Convenience Stores). Hot coffee and egg salad sandwiches for breakfast. Sadly this one had no inside seating, so we ate on our trikes.
We have decided that Lawson’s is our favourite Conbini…great coffee, good food and the most pleasant staff. This is closely followed by Family Mart with 7-Eleven bringing up the rear
Our ride so far has been challenging….first the weather and then once we started to climb, we continued to climb without a break for over 20km. The final straw was that there is no shoulder or lane for us. We just had to hold our line as we had nowhere to go. This was a bit unnerving as much of the traffic was big freight trucks.
We had two route choices in getting to Matsuyama from Toyo Port. We could have ridden along the shore via Imabari (about 70km) or cut across country as we did (about 45 km). Once we got into this route, we realized that we had chosen poorly. The coast route was probably easier without monster hills despite the longer mileage.
Despite realizing that we had chosen a difficult and somewhat perilous route (due to the freight truck traffic), we appreciated the beauty of our surroundings.
Approaching the city of Matsuyama we had two incidents that we hope not to repeat and both were due to the lack of space for the bikes. First, to keep up to traffic, Mary Ellen was ploughing along and a prickly branch smacked her mirror and shattered it. But the worst was…as we entered Matsuyama, we had two long and steep bridges to cross . First bridge fine, but on the second bridge, Mary Ellen’s hamstring had an intense charliehorse. With no where to pull off and be safe, she kept riding one legged and tried to stretch. Ouch.
Matsuyama has covered walkways with shopping as well as this mall.
Botchan is a novel written by Natsume Soseki in 1906. It is one of the most popular Japanese novels. It is read by many students during their school years. Botchan is the first person narrator of the novel. He takes a job teaching middle school math in Matsuyama. The novel helped to make Matsuyama a place of interest for Japanese people. The image of Botchan can be seen all over the city.
