Checking out of Yamatoya
Before checking out of Yamatoya Honten, we realised we had photos of everything on this trip except the car we’d been driving since Fukuyama. So, a quick photo shoot out front with Xiaobai, our white Yaris. (Yes, we named the car again. The Hokkaido one was also Xiaobai, and we did a photo shoot with that one near Otaru too. Some traditions you keep.)
Credit where it’s due: the ryokan made a great backdrop, a wooden building with a tiled roof and a leafy courtyard, and the car has never looked so well-housed. We took one last look at the breakfast hall too, a big old dining room with lotus-shaped lamps and rows of chairs waiting for the morning crowd, and then we were off.
The coast road
We headed south out of Matsuyama on Route 378, which hugs the Seto Inland Sea most of the way. The stretch from Futami down to Nagahama is nicknamed the Yuyake Kokoyake Line, the “sunset line”, because the sun drops straight into the sea in front of you. We were there at nine in the morning, so we got the blue-sky version instead, which honestly is no downgrade.
Futami
About 45 minutes in, we pulled into Futami Seaside Park, a roadside station with a sandy beach and a long breakwater. The water was flat and glassy, with little rock islands sitting offshore, and on a weekday morning in November we had the sand almost to ourselves.
The big draw is a stone monument with a hole through the middle. Futami is on the list of Japan’s 100 best sunset spots, and around the spring and autumn equinoxes the sun sets right through that hole. Mid-morning in November, the hole framed nothing but blue sky, so we framed ourselves instead.
Xiaobai got a second photo shoot in the car park, because one a day apparently isn’t enough.
The long drive south
Then came the long drive south to Uwajima, with the sea on our right the whole way, past rocky coves and little fishing towns tucked under the hills.
After that we cut inland for the last stretch, over the hills and down into Uwajima, just in time for lunch.
Tendon at Tenyoshi
Uwajima’s covered shopping arcade was so ulu. Hardly anyone was around at noon on a weekday, and we walked up and down for a while struggling to find anywhere to eat. Not sure if it’s just the far end of Shikoku, but a lot of smaller Japanese towns are like this now: people drive to the big malls on the edge of town, and the old arcades in the centre go quiet. In the end we found Tenyoshi, a tendon shop just off the arcade, and lunch came to ¥2,300 for two. We sat at the counter and watched the chefs fry everything to order, then it all went on rice with the sweet sauce over the top.
Fed and happy, we went up to Uwajima Castle.
Postcard from Iyo, Ehime
A roadside station on the Route 378 coast road, about 45 minutes south-west of Matsuyama, with a sandy beach, a breakwater and a stone monument with a hole through it. Futami is one of Japan's 100 best sunset spots.
PS: Come for sunset. Around the spring and autumn equinoxes, the sun sets right through the hole in the monument.