Nori and I just got back from a really nice 5-day break where we went to Sapporo, Kiroro resort and Osaka. Since coming to Japan 5 years ago, I’ve always wanted to go experience Hokkaido, both in the winter and in the summer. And though the summer trip will have to wait for another day, the winter version just had its first installment.
Last week, we were invited by the fine people of Forest Canyoning to go sliding, bouldering, waterfall climbing, rappelling and cliff jumping in the spectacular Nametoko gorge in south west Ehime.
It was probably the most adrenaline-filled thing I have done in Japan.
The 50th largest island by area in the world, Shikoku is smaller than Sardinia and Bananal, but larger than Halmahera and Seram. At 18,000 sq kms, spatially, it really isn’t that big, but being completely mountainous, driving anywhere is particularly time consuming. Breathtaking, but time consuming.
Using a couple of rare days off for us, we decided to see some parts of southern Ehime/western Kochi that we haven’t been to before. Our first stop was Shikoku Karst.
Earlier this week, Nori and I closed up shop for a couple of days and went for a lil’ trip. First stop was Kurashiki for a “meeting” of guesthouses located around the seto-inland sea. It was a pretty amazing experience and a great forum to share ideas and meet each other. The day after we stopped by Onomichi to start the Shimanami Kaido bike trip (more to come on that later!)
The last installment in the epic story…Christophe; who’s been a dear friend since we both attended a Japanese language class in Osaka, paid us a visit on the 17th and 18th of July.
Christophe (and his lovely wife Carol) was one of the people who really helped us with our opening party last March; he brought his amazing photos, he hung them, he made like 6 quiches, he helped serve drinks and he took some amazing pics that will soon be turned into postcards we will sell at Sen.
