Two Days in Kochi

On our recent trip to Japan we were lucky enough to spend two days in the less well known city of Kochi on the island of Shikoku. We didn’t really know much about it (and probably still don’t know a lot!) but we thoroughly enjoyed our time there and are so glad we decided to visit.

We caught the train from Himeji to Kochi which was around a three hour journey. I remember being particularly proud when I asked a Japan Rail worker in (probably broken) Japanese whether “this train goes to Kochi?” and him seeming very impressed and enthusiastic in his response, that yes this was indeed the train to Kochi.

The train trip itself was very beautiful! The scenery was amazing, so many valleys and gushing foaming rivers and rocky green mountains. I wish I had taken some photos, but alas. We also saw snow falling from the sky (from the sky!) as well which was super exciting.

It must have been after 1pm when we arrived in Kochi so we took the street car to a few blocks away from our hotel, wandered past our hotel to the wrong hotel, before returning to our actual hotel and checking in. We decided lunch and exploring the area near our hotel was in order. So we dropped our bags off and headed towards what appeared to be the main hub. Kochi is a lot less touristy than some of the bigger cities so most of the restaurants didn’t have menus available in English as is the case elsewhere. So we probably took about an hour to find a place we were comfortable with, which turned out to be a ramen joint. I don’t remember how tasty the ramen was on a scale of all the ramen we ate on the trip, but afterwards we continued to stroll around and then headed back to the hotel for a nap. Travelling is exhausting, yo.

Around dinner time we headed back out past this bridge, which is apparently famous for being a meeting place for a monk and his secret lover, and posed for some photos.

 Then we began the unnecessarily looooong task of finding something to eat. Once again our conservative side got the better of us and we stumbled into CoCoIchi which is a delicious Japanese curry rice chain restaurant. Shannon thought it was amazing because you could get two types of chicken in the same curry (!!). And the curry was pretty damn good as well.

This marked the end of day one.

Day two we bounced out of bed and peered outside at the fresh, almost warm Kochi morning. Breakfast was chocolate croissants and coffee. 

After which we strolled to Kochi Castle.

 Unfortunately the castle itself was closed until after New Years but we had a great time exploring the surrounding gardens.

 We then headed over to the Yamaguchi’s former residence. I have no idea who the Yamaguchi’s are…I’m assuming some former political leaders…but I now know where they used to live. And it was interesting to see a traditional Japanese home, plus there was a museum like display upstairs so it was worth the visit. Plus it was free of charge!

 We then headed back in towards the town centre and stumbled across some street markets. I picked up an awesome phoenix brooch and Shannon found a traditional one yen coin from the Meiji Era which he dubbed his “lucky” coin and then proceeded to lose a few days later.

After some lunch we headed back to the hotel for a rest. Travelling is hard, yo.

For the evening’s entertainment we had decided upon dinner and drinks. Unfortunately we got distracted by pre-drinks at a place called Jack’s Bar. It had a very homey feel inside and lots of memorabilia from different countries around the world such as USA and Australia. The owner settled us into a corner table that was snugly packed with pillows. He brought us our drinks as well as a small tasting plate of squid, potato pizza and octopus. We ended up chatting with the owner about Australia because he has a friend who lives in Port Lincoln and who he has visited before. He even showed us a photo album of his trip.

After two drinks there we decided to change it up a bit. We were going to have bonito for dinner but we were kind of full from the bar snacks so instead we went and got some taiyaki. Oishii!

We then went into another bar called Hibiscus which I'd seen online. It was on the second floor of a building and was decorated very tropical in tribute to the tropical islands of Japan, Okinawa. It was very cool in there and we enjoyed some more drinks and some shochu, which was strong but tasty. 

There were a few big groups of people that came in and eventually they cracked out the karaoke which was entertaining to watch. After a while we decided we wanted to karaoke as well!

We headed over to Big Echo, a Japanese karaoke chain, and got a room for an hour to belt out a few tunes. I could easily spend a few hours there!

We decided to call it a night after that and stopped at Family Mart on the way home for some snacks.

And that concluded our time in Kochi! Worth a visit if you have a few days to spare!