Beached In Kochi

After weighing up many pros and cons, and several hours of debate, we decided to stay another night in Kochi. [Surely you just couldn't be arsed to leave... -Ed]

Kochi castle is similar to all the other castles in Japan, of which there are 400. Only 12 of the castles in Japan are original, most of the others were built in the 1960s. Coming from the UK, I find it very hard to get my head round the fact that almost nothing here is over 100 years old. Japanese castles were built of wood, so they often got burnt down several times before finally being built from concrete in the sixties. In the UK, however, we still have stone castles, stone houses, stone computers and even stone people. Everything is built to last, except for stuff you actually want, which tends to break after a few days.

In the afternoon we took the bus to Katsura-Hama beach. Like most beaches in Japan, it sucked. The beaches in Japan are pebble, not sand, and it's usually unwise to swim, either because of dangerous undercurrents, as is the case with Katsura-Hama, or because of pollution. We managed to catch a bit of the sunset, and we saw a Japanese girl practising the tuba, which was fucking hilarious so, in the end, going to the beach was time well spent.

We had an hour to kill before we could get the bus back to Kochi so we bought some Japanese chocolate from a tiny convenience store. Like most chocolate in Japan, it sucked.