Kochi – once again.  Not that we are complaining, we love this town and today, finally after two previous visits, we are using the MyYu bus!  It is a great deal – takes you all over the city and out to Katsurahama where the Sakamoto Ryoma Museum is located – all for the low price of 1300 yen (about $8 USD).  That is compared to the $23 USD shuttle you can purchase at the pier.  Yeah. Nope. Not this time.

The only challenge with MyYu is the timing – not the best to maximize our time, but we have done so much here already, we’re good with just picking and choosing places using the bus. All that to say, we don’t have to rush this morning as the first bus we can catch is at 9:39, and only a 20 minute walk away.  But us being us, we can’t lollygag, so we do our normal gym routine, have our breakfast and are out and off the ship with plenty of time to get to the bus stop.  So much time in fact, we are able to wander around the Kochi Ike Park with its pretty little pond and gazebos (where we sit to avoid the rain). 

At the appointed time, the bus comes right on time and we are off on our little adventure to the peninsula of Katsurahama and the Ryoma Museum.  Sakamoto Ryoma was an influential Samurai in the Edo period – one who helped bring down the Bakumatsu government and the Tokugawa shogunate.  He watched as Commodore Perry came ashore in Japan and forced the end of the sakoku (isolationist) policy and was very much against taking state power away from the Imperial Court.  He was a proponent of democracy, the end of feudalism and Japanese nationalism. This museum is all about him and his life – and it was totally fascinating.

We start off watching a short film about his life, then wander through exhibits on English language teaching, a fun illustrated wall that traces Ryoma’s life, the placement of samurai residence in the castle town (Kochi) and their living environment.  There are depictions of Ryoma as a child with his parents, as a Samurai angry at the Shogunate and also a weird panel that talks about how to dress and things that weren’t allowed in the castle town (those items with “NG” above them!).  There is also a super serious looking – but super fun – statue of Ryoma that I get to play with!

There are great depictions of the Perry Expedition coming to Japan – unvarnished storytelling – as well they should be.

And then weirdly, a reproduction of the hotel room where Ryoma was assassinated in 1867 at the age of 33.  It is still unknown to this day who, or what faction, ordered his assassination. 

On a lighter note, there were rooms with Ryoma’s writings and map drawings, his clothes and weapons used, ships of the time, and a final room with a fun little area where we could create business cards with Japanese letters in Ryomas’ handwriting (so they say!) to spell out something.  Ours says “Love Japan.”

Through with the museum, we keep to our schedule (remember the bus!) and head out to the bus stop for the 11:18 Tosaden Kotsu Katsurahama Line bus back into town – as huge bonus of the bus pass – this is a more direct route into Koch which lets us off right by the main shopping street so we can go to lunch. 

And of course, where do we go? Where we always go!  Myojinmaru – the best Katsuo no Tataki we have had. Why mess with success?  And the meal doesn’t disappoint.  We have our beers, our Katsuo – 1 salt seared, 1 sauce set meal – and are extremely happy and satisfied.  We’ve been looking forward to (and drooling over) this for months now. Satisfaction.

Then of course we are off to the grocery store to buy our Hat Bread – another yearning we have had forever – and then, since it is a dreary and rainy day, we ditch the plans for the botanical gardens (we’ll make it there one day, for certain!) and go over to the Castle Museum to have coffee and dessert – an excellent apple chocolate thing – then visit the museum again, just because, well, why not?  We are here and we’ve nothing else planned for the day, so…..

….off we go to purchase tickets, where we are told that the special exhibition is closed but the price to enter remains the same.  Ok, whatever, we’re committed.  The sweet ticket lady gives us a special postcard with a cool illustration of a whale as compensation and as thanks for supporting them even without the exhibit.  Nice. 

The museum is just as nice as we remembered.  Lots of information on the Castle (of course), the building of the castle, different castles across Japan, a model of the Kochi castle and a really neat exhibit with hairpins. It is amazing how intricate the designs are on the top of the pins.  And of course there are always the great views of the castle perched up on the rocks above us. (It is one of the main reasons we love the little café up here – the views.)

Plus, we also do the cool stamps they have here – a series of different stamps that put different colors and designs onto the card until you end up with these masterpieces.  So Japanese – and so cool!

Making our way back to our MyYu bus stop, we hit Daiso for supplies (more socks!) and then stumble upon a restaurant that has Takoyaki.  Oh – we are not passing this up!  In the weirdly named Gindaco Highball Sakaba (it is definitely a whisky bar), we hop up on bar stools and order our Takoyaki along with a couple of beers and are in absolute food heaven. It’s been a stellar food day.

Before we leave, we help 2 fellow passengers with the menu (they end up with typically American dishes – turning up their noses at Takoyaki, eh, you can lead a horse to water….) and we bid them farewell, before venturing out into the rain and onto our 2:53p bus.  Before you ask, yes, I had all the bus schedules and times mapped out and in the calendar so we had notifications to give us time to get to the stops.  What can I say?

Our decision to ditch the Botanical Gardens, while very disheartening, was one of the better decisions we’ve made as it is pouring on the way up the mountain and when we arrive at the Botanical Garden stop.  You can barely see out the windows.  Makes for a wet walk back to the ship from our bus stop near the pond, but we have our rain gear and it wasn’t unexpected. We make it back, no worse for wear, just a bit wetter than normal, and start up our normal afternoon and evening routines, later watching the tug escort us out into the water for the first of our 3 sea days this leg.