Today I packed my pack and headed south into Takamatsu, Kagawa. It was about a 4 hour train ride, 3 of which was done on the Shinkansen. Covered quite a lot of distance in that time! I had my GoPro running a time lapse throughout all of it which will hopefully have some cool results once I get home and can compile it. For the time being it generated about 13,600 image files. A new record for me on pictures I've taken during a trip!
To get to Takamatsu you have to cross a bridge from Okayama where you switch off the Shinkansen. It was a little overcast and gray today but still enjoyable to see.
My hotel is right next to what would be called an open air mall in Utah. It seems like it was originally a street filled with shops that the city then came in and organized a bit, put some lighting in, and put a roof on top. It's nice to have so close. There are many many shops. This and the following pictures were what I discovered on my way to find a shrine about 25 minutes away.
Using Google maps I found two shrines close together. The first one didn't have a whole lot going on and I think anyone who is usually there had already gone home. I'm attempting to get a stamp and writing from as many shrines as I can. It's a thing offered at the larger shrines. I'm sure there is a better explanation behind why this is a thing. But I sadly do not know it and have not researched it yet either.
Finally I got there at around 5:00 PM (http://goo.gl/maps/M7Yoi). There were just a couple of people there, some cats, and not a whole lot else moving around! As I said above one of the reason for visiting these shrines is to get a stamp in this small book that I have. Sadly, everything was close down. However there was an elderly gentleman who was collecting some of the offerings made at the shrine. I hesitated a moment but then figured eh... why not ask him "doko deskua?" while showing him the book. Lucky me he recognized it and showed me into a room and had me sit down while he went into the back. Minutes later he returned and I now have this shrine in the book as well! I'm really glad I asked as I don't know that I'll make it to this shrine again since there's a lot more to do tomorrow.
The room he sat me down in above.
A "biking-lot", yes I just made that up. I'm so clever. Literally it was a huge area full of bikes. There's so many people and bikes around. I'm hopefully going to find a spot to rent one tomorrow. It'd help a lot.
Tempura Udon for dinner. Kagawa is famous for it's Udon noodles. I bought a teriyaki chiken sandwich thing on the train for lunch too. Both were quite good!
Room for this area. It's a nice one and I like it more than the room in Tokyo. It was just so cramped! Not that this one is huge but still more.
Picked these up as I was out. Uhm, yes. They're good. They taste better than they look, too!