So there’s a thing about travelling long term; sometimes, inexplicably, one’s motivation to leave the hotel and traipse round tourist sites can vanish overnight. Unfortunately, this malaise descended upon me during my visit to Matsuyama for various reasons.

However, I knew not to get myself in a tizzy about it (like I would have done last time I was backpacking). I’ve talked before about how I can sometimes feel guilty for not making the most of every day I’m on the road. Now, because of my advanced age and resultant vast wisdom, I know that it’s perfectly acceptable to just chill out for a few days and not feel obliged to do anything. This trip is for me, and I don’t need to impress anybody by doing anything I don’t want to.

I was a little sad to have left my previous destination Takamatsu. The weather had suddenly turned to rain. Matsuyama isn’t as impressive a city as some I’ve seen and the transport to places nearby is difficult so I felt a bit stuck there. Thanks to trying to align my schedule with a friend for the weekend, I would be staying longer than I’d planned as well. I managed to do some things but Matsuyama probably ranks as my least favourite city in Japan. A shame, but somewhere has to be.

Enough moaning though. To its credit, Matsuyama does have a very beautiful castle on a mountaintop where I enjoyed an evening watching the sunset.

Closeby, the Ninomaru Castle Garden provided a welcome respite from the city crowds. I found it very beautiful and I spent many hours here writing even though most people took just 15 minutes to wander through.

I visited the Ehime Museum of Art and was quite impressed by their permanent highlights collection (no photos allowed) and relatively whelmed by the other stuff I saw (where photos were allowed).

Matsuyama also has the famous Dogo Onsen, usually credited with inspiring the bathhouse in the movie Spirited Away. Well, I’ve seen that movie so I was expecting a multi-storey zany jumble of architecture, but unfortunately the onsen turned out to be very small and under renovations meaning large parts of it were closed. Disappointing! I still went in for a quick soak, because there wasn’t much else to do.

Finally, I took the bus out of town to visit the Tobe Zoological Park where I saw polar bears, a Siberian tiger, an orangutan and best of all, some red pandas. Overall, a pretty nice day was had.

And that’s it! I was there for about 5 days and I think I spent a lot of time in my room, the hotel rooftop onsen and/or nearby cafes just willing away the time until the weekend. My next destination was something I was definitely very excited for – watch out for my next post about that!