Frolicking Toenails

 The next phase of my Master Plan “Touring Japan With A  Dummy” involved a one week blitz of the island of Shikoku. No time to lose.

Four hours, about ten of these bridges and $40 in expressway tolls later I was in Matsuyama., 

Truthfully, Matsuyama is somewhat underwhelming. Castle, onsen, end of story. 

More of those fucking stairs. I swear that these old-time Japanese guys must have had monkey blood.

The most impressive thing is how high up it is. How did they do this?

As impressive as the Dogo Onsen is, it’s also closed and has been for a while. Oops! Guess we should have told you. Our bad. Doesn’t seem to have deterred a shitload of people swarming about. For what?

So nothing to write home about, although I just did. 

There were, however, two important discoveries:

Onigiri: rice pyramids with every type of stuffing under the sun and wrapped in seaweed. Where have you been all my life? I’d seen these in 7/11 but wasn’t sure exactly what they were. I’ll tell what they are: fucking delicious! These are the gourmet version.

Sea bream cooked in rice. A Matsuyama specialty. The locals insist on having the whole fish, but in my menu, according to Google Translate, this was the “Eat Easy” version - and it was.

Japanese Fun Facts

Let’s talk walls. It occurred to me that, for whatever reason, Japanese castle walls were not anywhere near as tight-fitting as the walls I remembered seeing in South America AND they were often curved. Why?

Aztec wall - seems more advanced, no?

Well, it turns out they weren’t less skillful (which I confess did cross my mind). Nope. They were building their walls mainly to contain the giant mound of earth the castle was on AND, more importantly, they were taking the earthquake factor into consideration. Same reason they didn’t use mortar. They curved the walls so they could attack from the side as well as the top. Those Japanese warlords - always one step ahead.