Shikoku, day 2

Our 2nd day was a short ride day. An hour and a half to Ozu, which the guidebook touted as keeping traditional Japanese life alive. Y'know, with silk and rice as the basis for the economy, and with cormorant fishing providing eel for the local restuarants. Ha! Ozu looks exactly like Wadayama. That is, a fair amount of tiled houses, some rusted shacks, and such traditional things as McDonalds. Cormorant fishing is big there, but only at night.

Our next stop was Uwajima, famous to foreigners for 2 things: bull sumo and a fertility shrine.

The bull fighting only occurs a few times a year, and we'd just missed it. That is fine, as it would've made travelling and lodging exceptionally crowded and stressful.

The fertility shrine was kinda fun, and there's a 3 story sex museum on the grounds. The museum houses sculptures and art showcasing human lovin' from various cultures. Interesting to note- all cultures like to exaggerate the length, but only the Japanese art showed significant "girthiness." Sorry we don't have pictures to show you, the museum requires a $200 fee to take pics.

We'd booked a hostel for our night and found that most of the 2 K to reach it were uphill. Very isolated, but clean and the staff were friendly. Up bright and early the next day for a traditional style breakfast. This might be a surprise, but this was the first Japanese style breakfast I've had here. At home we usually have cereal or eggs, and at conferences we're served a selection of Western foods. Miso soup, rice, tamago, pickles, and fish paste make fora pretty tasty breakfast.