Having fun zipping about the island of Shikoku, an island where some monk took a round route pilgrim to enlightenment visiting 88 temples along the way.

I took a day out to visit the first 7 of the temples, supposedly on foot (but I cheated catching a ride in a bus and from a local ;) )
and honestly that was enough for me; although I did come across some lovely hidden shrines along the way. The thing about this pilgrim is that the temples along it are completely tourist orientated; which is kinda good for the atmosphere - with the murmur of tourist groups chanting and going past in their `traditional` pilgrim outfit - but at the same time it means some awesome temples off the list are neglected...

(pilgrim piccys were downloaded to the laptop and I only have the USB at the mo.)

Actually, shrines/temples are as common (or moreso) than churches in Scotland; although those have been mainly turned into pubs or coffee shops. I suppose it`s kind of hard to turn a shrine to other uses; but a purpose to which they may be put is a childcare centre or playground, as seen in the following photo.
In fact, the older, richer, towns have shrines more often than you`d see parks in sydney suburbs...

My favorite town so far has been Uwajima; a little off the beaten track so less touristy than other places. The youth hostel there is pretty nice, up this massive hill (thankfully I`ve been able to leave my big pack in a locker in Matsuyama - my exit port for Hiroshima) of which there are a few. It`s a nice town to get around by bike; which the hostel lends out for free, but if you had to you could just visit the main sites on foot.

On the way down from Matsuyama I made a couple of stop offs; one to check out the unusual castle at Ozu, and another the heritage area of Uchiko, where there is a working Kabuki theatre.
I`m going to take an easy week this week; one, because I need to study before I start at school in 2 weeks (don`t want to be in the loser class!) and I haven`t studied since I finished school ages ago, and two, because transport takes forever, is expensive, so I have a cheap ticket that only allows travel on weekends!

Besides, Matsuyama is a nice town, the hostel has a nice shower and free internet and computer use (and tea, which I have been missing for a while!) and I just need a rest from being on the go every day since I went to the snow...

Plus I get the end of the cherry blossom season, sitting in the park with petals flying everywhere is really beautiful!