Shikoku trip - Shimanami Kaido, Naoshima, Kurashiki

I finally made it to Shikoku :)

This region has been on my list since we moved to Japan (if not earlier, tbh) but I was having trouble figuring out logistics and a good itinerary. Shimanami Kaido was one of the top listed things to do in this area and I never thought I'd be able to do an 80km bike. But thanks to a great bike tour experience in Minamiboso in July 2023 where we did 50km and it wasn't that terrible, I became more open to the idea and moved forward with this as the highlight of the travel to Shikoku. 

After discussing it with friends, we decided to shift the trip into late March to coincide with the spring break of one of our friends who is a teacher. 

Day 0 - Arrival in Hiroshima

M&M had a different travel schedule due to differing transportation and surrounding plans, so my husband and I made our way over on our own. We flew from Haneda to Hiroshima Airport on Thursday afternoon.

An airport bus to Shiraishi and two train rides later,

we arrived in Onomichi and checked into the Daiichi Hotel there.

We arrived just in time for dinner and had a few options, but ended up seeking out コラッジオ "CORAGGIO" for Italian food as our pre-biking day meal. 

Day 1 - biking Shimanami Kaido, Onomichi to Imabari

The next day, Friday, my husband and I just needed to cross the street to the Onomichi Port Bicycle Rental Terminal which is located on the first floor of a parking area. I had initially made a reservation for 4 cross bikes but we ended up only needing 3 as only M was joining us. I checked in and figured out the payment details at the reception counter and then we were shown which bikes we could pick from.

There was a decent selection of bikes from size XXS to M but not too many larger bikes than that. M used an XXS bike, I used S and my husband used M according to our height.

Picked our bikes, got our helmets, and then we were directed to the ferry port. 

I thought part of the path was across the bridge to start, but it turns out our only option was to use the nearby Ferry to Mukaishima. It's a short ride, constantly runs back and forth, 110yen per person and no problem to take the bikes on with you. No reservation needed.

Once on the Mukaishima side, just follow the blue line and go! We were starting before I knew it just a few minutes before 08:30.

It took me a while to adjust to biking and taking photos, so I didn't do it much at the beginning, especially when we were riding on the road with cars constantly passing. 

To be honest, we didn't have a set itinerary for the ride itself since I knew the blue line would lead us where we needed to go. We stopped where we thought it made sense or just whenever it suited us without specific landmarks in mind most of the time. First stop was about 20 minutes in where we saw a lot of other people had stopped lol. 

Previewing our first bridge to conquer.

Innoshima Bridge was the first one that we crossed at around 09:00. It was really interesting because pedestrians and bikes passed under the vehicle road! Leading up to and right after the bridge were hills which weren't really present through the rest of the ride to that point. 

Somehow a bird pooped on the sleeve of my shirt near my wrist, so we made a bathroom stop to rinse it when we saw one.

 I loved this little crossing guy lol. And M & I both wearing our Popflex leggings this day.

Had another little pitstop at around 10:00 before tackling the rest of the climb to Ikuchi Bridge which included a salted bun snack for me. 

It was a nice clear day but also getting a bit hot! At 10:20, we stopped for refreshments at Dolceドルチェ 瀬戸田本店. Gelato for M & my husband and a frozen lemon drink for me. 

We took about a 25 minute break and then continued on our way.

The next stop was at Setoda Sunset Beach 瀬戸田サンセットビーチ where there were a lot of cycling horses set up but not too many patrons. Just a quick look around for us. 

We tackled Tatara Bridge next. I switched places in our line up with M and I had a little better handle on the bike by this time, so I was able to get some photos of the bike-dedicated road up to the bridge.

Crossed it no problem but with a lot of other riders around making it a little crowded. This was when we officially entered Ehime prefecture in Shikoku! On on the Omishima end of the bridge, look for the signs for the Cyclist Sanctuary. My husband managed to miss all of them, but I was determined to stop there, so I caught up with him to direct us back to it. We got to this point, which is about halfway (we did about 39km so far), at 11:40.

There were these fun posed bike stands that I had a little too much fun with.

We opted not to stop here for lunch and instead continued toward the next bridge with a roadside station just after, intending for that to be our major break in the ride. 

It was about 5km of riding before we approach (what I think is) Omishima Bridge which connects Omishima and Hatakajima.

 finally was able to get a picture of one of the km markers while biking lol ^

For lunch, after a very brief accidental deviation from the blue line, we stop at Michi-no-Eki Hakata S.C. Park at 12:30. 

We purchased tickets from the vending machine at the restaurant inside the building. Thankfully, it wasn't very crowded and we didn't have to wait to be seated or very long for the food and could relax and take a bit of a break.

My husband ordered Yakibuta Tamago Don which is a regional dish of Ehime.

We took a quick look at Hakata Beach before leaving and got a view of our next bridge we'd tackle. 

We tackled the Hakata-Oshima Bridge at around 13:15. 

The north side of Oshima island (right after the bridge) is a nice ride along the coastline and very relaxing, not too many cars for us. We enjoyed this area a lot. Little did we know what was ahead lol. 

From about the middle of the island, you'll start the incline and it gets pretty steep for a pretty long distance for us inexperienced cyclists. It may be no problem on an ebike or beginners with fresh legs, but we were already feeling a bit fatigued at this point (maybe around 60km in) so it was challenging! 

I had to take a break on the incline when I saw another of these fish rocks lmao. 

There is some relief with a downhill a short bit after the fish haha. 

We took our final break at Roadside Station Yoshiumi Iki-iki-kan, arriving at about 14:05. It's got a good view of the final bridge to Imabari and had a lot of tourists already milling about. 

Enjoyed our break by getting a cold drink from the snack shop. The sun and heat was starting to take a toll on us as well but I wouldn't complain about the weather at all. 

Kurushima-Kaikyo Bridge is quite long, I think I saw the 11 through 8km remaining markers while on it. There are a couple of small ups and downs through the distance, so it's not completely flat! 

I think we entered the bridge around 14:40 and I took around 20 minutes to get to the bottom of the bike access on the other side (it's a long circular downhill). The three of us ended up getting split up with my husband blazing on ahead, me in the middle and M somewhere behind. There were some people who stopped to take photos, but we kept riding the whole time. I didn't take out my phone as much as I wanted to because I actually got a little scared of heights looking over the edge at times, especially with the strong winds. My palms are a bit sweaty again just thinking about it, haha. 

It is beautiful on the bridge and very scenic though. The views are amazing!

We regrouped once on Shikoku island to ride the last stretch to Imabari together. This last part is mostly flat without too many challenging inclines but there are more cars around and it's a bit more city-like. 

We reached i.i.imbari! Cycle Station just after 15:30 which was about half an hour before our self-estimate of 16:00, so I think we made good time even with the breaks we took!

The return process is very simple, leaving the bikes and helmets where the staff instructed and ensuring the bike lock code was returned with the bike. I did need to provide a numerical code that I got at the reception on the Onomichi side to the Imabari desk but that's really it. We did it!

We biked from 08:30 - 15:30 with lots of short breaks + lunch in between. Covered nearly 80km and made it from Hiroshima to Ehime! None of the three of us are bikers, so just finishing the route instilled a sense of accomplishment in us lol. The blue line is very easy to follow and I can easily see this being split up into a multi-day trip with overnight stays in some areas to get to know them more. For what we had time for, this was perfect for us and I'm really glad we did it!

Day 2 - Naoshima

We rearranged our Day 2 slightly to accommodate some personal logistics and ended up heading over to Uno Port at around 08:15 to give us enough time for a leisurely drive over before the 11:00 ferry. We parked in line and then went into the ticket office to purchase round trip tickets.

The ferry ride is short, around 20 minutes and had quite a few people for the 11:00 departure from Uno. This particular boat had a slide and a few swings and a nice room for children to play in as well. 

I had previously reserved tickets for the Chichu Art Museum online which was good because by the time we arrived, all tickets for the day were sold out. The tickets are sold in time slots and our entry time was 11:30 which was well timed with the ferry + drive to the museum parking lot. 

For the most part, photos actually aren't allowed in this museum except outside the gift shop area, so I don't have much to show for it visually.

I'll say that the exhibits were interesting, but there wasn't as much content as I was expecting for the cost of the ticket (2100yen) and the effort required to get to this place. If you are an art lover, maybe this is more your speed, but I wouldn't recommend it otherwise. There is one space each for Walter de Maria, Claude Monet and James Turrell and the architecture of the building is done by Tadao Ando. All of these were great in their own way, but I just left feeling underwhelmed about the museum as a whole. 

For lunch, we managed to get seats at Luke's Pizza & Grill which was serving only lunch sets (pizza + salad and a drink). 

This restaurant is reasonably near the Ando Museum, so you may want to visit that at the same time. We had initially planned to visit, but with no nearby parking and the dogs in the car, it didn't make sense to walk.

Instead, we went over to check out Yayoi Kusama's yellow pumpkin on the south side of the island. 

There was a large line of barely moving people (each group really took several minutes or longer rather than snapping 5 photos and going next), so we opted for pictures from farther away since we wanted to catch a specific time ferry back to Uno. 

The Kusama Red Pumpkin is near the Miyanoura ferry port and had 0 line at all plus some interactive elements to it. The background is not as picturesque but better with no wait.

Once back on the Uno port (Okayama prefecture) side, we split from M&M as they readied for their drive back to Kanagawa and we caught a train from Uno station. 

We navigated to Okayama station, which was very simple, and checked in and dropped our bags off at our hotel - Daiwa Roynet Hotel Okayama Ekimae. We booked through the Capital One Travel portal and unfortunately it seems that the hotel didn't have any non-smoking rooms left (even if we paid more or paid for an additional room), so we were placed in a smoking room for our one night stay. The location is great, but make sure you get all the details in place!

We escaped the smokey room and headed over to the Momotaro Jeans store that's connected to the Icot Nicot mall. My husband recently became more interested in Japanese selvedge denim and Okayama is a hot spot for it. 

The store wasn't very busy and we were both able to try on several pairs without issue. My husband walked away with a pair that were even hemmed in shop while I was in the dressing room lol. 

For dinner, for convenience, we stayed in the Icot Nicot and visited what's kind of labeled as a "Ramen Park" which was 4 restaurants (although 1 was closed) with a shared seating area that you buy meal tickets from at the vending machine on the outside. 

Overall, I'd say this day was a little disappointing overall, especially after how well I thought the biking had gone the day before. We didn't end up doing as much on Naoshima as I had initially hoped for (but willingly conceded to) and what we did see wasn't super great. If you do plan to visit Naoshima, plan for a full day instead of a half day, especially if you're exploring by foot or on bike. There are a lot of hills and the buses don't run as often as you'd probably like for how many people are waiting around. It overall just felt pretty crowded and kind of meh. 

Day 3 - Okayama + Kurashiki

We didn't have strict plans this day until past dinner, so I woke up a bit early and went for a run. I already had running shoes from doing the biking and had packed an extra set of athletic clothes for this purpose. I've really been enjoying the concept of running to explore as a tourist! 

I made it around the northeast side of Korakuen (didn't enter because it's paid admission) and found a nice view of Okayama Castle and Momotaro 水辺のももくん before heading back.

Showered, got ready and checked out by around 09:30, leaving our bags at the hotel. We caught a streetcar towards Okayama Castle, closest station Shiroshita. We were already familiar with this route because we had just done it in February during our brief visit from the Kansai Wide Area Rail Pass trip! It's about a 10 minute walk to the Castle or the park. 

Since we already visited the Castle, we crossed Tsukimi Bridge and went straight to Okayama Korakuen 岡山後楽園 this time, hoping being a bit later into spring that there'd be more green!

It was a beautiful sunny and clear day, warmer than it had been lately, perfect blue sky against the park landscaping. (I think it got to a high of 80F in Tokyo on this day.) 

sun in my eyes lol

We took our time exploring the park, but were still probably not visiting at a peak time. Since it was hot, we didn't prolong our visit, but decided to head over to the matsuri booths I had seen set up during my run earlier. 

My husband got some of these chicken karaage fries and hashimaki which is like an okonomiyaki on a stick.

Still wanting to eat lunch, we stopped at Acerra Pizza アチェッラ which I had spotted with the Pizza Fritta sign during our February visit, but we didn't have time to stop. We ended up sitting right in front of the chef (upper floor tables were full) and both got a lunch set. 

Made our way back to Okayama station via streetcar, then went into JR Okayama station and caught the next train to Kurashiki. 

This area is known for Kurashiki Bikan Historical Quarter district 倉敷美観地区 and new for us (not previously visited in February at all). There's a large outlet mall on one side of the station, but lots of signs to direct you to the Historical district on the other. We made the 10-15min walk and enjoyed looking around.

There's lots of shops around but if you want to make it to the river, be sure to keep an eye out for the signs! (We missed it and had to double back.) There are short boat rides in the river and lots of people on the banks.

Thanks to our poor navigation prior, we had walked back the Ukiyo-e Museum which we went back to after checking out the reviews.

It's another museum with no photos allowed, but this one has LOTS of ukiyo-e artwork by Utagawa Kuniyoshi. Placards are in Japanese and English, so it's easy to understand. There are multiple rooms and multiple floors. The building itself is also very scenic/interesting. If you have even a small interest in Ukiyo-e, I would recommend this one if you're in the area! (Cash only and you have to remove your shoes.)

Kurashiki has its own denim street, and we also stopped by the Denim Laboratory store which has multiple Japanese denim brands. My husband was able to get another pair of pants, this time black denim. This shop was a lot busier, so we returned after about 20 minutes for the hemmed pants. 

We routed back to Kurashiki station through Achi Shrine which had a few sakura trees around.

Once back at Okayama station, we decided to grab dinner at Tonkatsu Shinjuku Saboten in Sun Station Terrace Okayama which is connected to the station for convenience and something familiar.

Returned to the hotel, grabbed our bags and then still had plenty of time to make it over to the west side of Okayama station to catch a shuttle bus to Okayama Airport. We did the same in February, so this was relatively stress-free. 

Unfortunately, our flight was a bit delayed and I was dying to just back to our house, but overall it felt like a complete day! 

This was another trip where we hopped from place-to-place - starting in Hiroshima, biking to Ehime and then driving over for a day trip to Naoshima in Kagawa and ending in Okayama. My initial plans for this trip had included more time on Shikoku island itself, but I'm happy to have hit the highlights in this way and enjoy portions of it with friends.