The Fry up Inspector: Japanese Adventure, Chapter 4

For breakfast this morning we toasted a slice of the freshly baked bread and had a poached egg on one half and jam on the other. The mushrooms were the ones bought from the soy sauce shop yesterday, so delicious!

After breakfast we jumped on the bikes and made our way around to the other side of the bay. As I'm writing this I'm remembering just how magical this journey was each day, especially the final downhill section.

The shrine hike we'd taken the other day was still incomplete as we'd missed one of the shrines. This morning we tracked it down though, it was just behind Sakate Port.

Ella got out her sketchbook and pencil and captured the moment. I decided to capture her capturing the moment when I noticed a lady on the steps behind was watching Ella.

It turned out the lady was an artist too and after chatting with her for a while she showed us her beautiful paintings.

Next we cycled to a soy sauce factory where a member of staff gave us a short tour. He showed us the barrels used for making soy sauce and explained the lengthy process to us. The giant barrels have been used to make soy sauce for 150 years, the soy beans ferment in here for 3 years.

We then sampled some of the soy sauce produced here which was available to buy. We didn't buy any though as we were travelling with hand luggage and the 100ml liquid rule made bringing a bottle home difficult.

We did try some ice cream though which is served with a bottle of soy sauce.

Just a few drops of soy sauce added to this vanilla ice cream transformed it into the best flavoured ice cream ever!

It was such a hot day so we sat in the shade outside 7-Eleven with an iced coffee. As I sat there I noticed how you never see a dirty vehicle in Japan and the tiny vehicles seem to make much more sense too. I also thought about how the double white line separating the cars in the car park was such a simple but effective idea, I can't see it catching on at Tesco anytime soon though.

Fully refreshed by iced coffee and time in the shade, we went in search of a noodle restaurant that had been recommended to us by Matt at the guesthouse. Finding it was an absolute nightmare though as a map in the restaurant car park seemed to direct us away from it. Eventually we asked someone though and they pointed us in the right direction.

These noodles were served cold with ice cubes, there was also a cold broth you could dip the noodles in. Initially I wasn't too sure about eating ice cold noodles but they tasted great and were so refreshing. At one point though I dropped a big cluster of the noodles down my shorts!

There were signs around the island directing you to Setouchi Triennale exhibits. We decided to track one down and in Kusakabe Port we found an exhibit by Xiang Yang called The shore where we can reach.

You could open a door on the giant tower and take a look inside.

I don't actually recall buying this cake.

I do remember eating it though and it was pure custard cream heaven!

Not far from our guesthouse was the Twenty Four Eyes Movie Village, it pays tribute to both the novel and movie of Twenty Four Eyes, with a reconstructed film set for visitors to meander around at leisure. We hadn't seen the movie but decided to take a look around inside.

There was plenty to look at inside although having never seen the film it was difficult to identify what the relevance of some of the items were. A vintage movie theatre plays the film on loop, while one of the restaurants offers a retro Japanese school lunch from the Showa Era (1926-89).

The classroom set where moments later Ella posed as the teacher and I got behind the camera.

There was plenty to explore outside as well including these statues, a small canal and many gift shops. Definitely worth a look if you're visiting Shodoshima but I'd recommend watching the film first though.