Matsuyama castle
Today we explored Matsuyama city, beginning with the castle, another of the 12 remaining original castles in Japan.
We walked from the hotel to the chairlift that took us up the hill to the castle grounds.
The hilltop position of the castle mean there were good views over the city as well
Matsuyama is famous for oranges, so we had an orange ice cream whilst enjoying the views.
Dogo Onsen
After making our way back down the chairlift, we took a tram to the Dogo onsen area. We started with a walk through Dogo Park.
We then walked through the shopping street to the main Dogo onsen building, stopping for various lunch snacks on the way
Dogo Onsen Honkan is a wooden public bathhouse, dating from 1894 and is one of a few that were inspiration for the bathhouse in Spirited Away
There was small park up a hill that overlooked the Honkan
We then made our way back to the Victorian train station to take a tram back into the city centre.
Gintengai and Okaido Shopping streets
We wandered through the really long covered shopping streets, visitng a few shops along the way.
Our last stop was an early dinner at Goichi, a local restaurant known for their selection of different flavours of karaage chicken. We took advantage of their half and half options so we could try a few – garlic chicken, and chicken nanban
