Kochi

Kochi is one of the four prefectures that make up Shikoku. If you look at the kanji for Shikoku, it is 四国, the first part meaning four, and the latter meaning country. So four countries. Or in this case, prefectures. 

Osaka and Kyoto are to the upper right for reference.

Kochi is a small but lovely place, so small in fact that I got a good number of stares including a comment from a person that they did not get many foreigners there. This is probably because it is out of the way of pretty much everything. It took us three hours of driving through these beautifully dangerous mountain passages, often with a steep ravine on one side of the other bottoming out in a river from which many communities would often build their grounds from. However it is not a trip that many foreigners will travel on their way through Japan. There may be a rail way to Kochi, but it would again be a long and expensive passage, perhaps not so frequently traveled. 

What Kochi does has is a fantastic beach. Though swimming is not recommended and prohibited if caught, due to its strong currents and tendency to carry people away. They are also well known for a particular fish dish popular throughout Japan, called katsuo no tataki. Katsuo no tataki is a type of tuna that is seared over a large flame for mere seconds, just until the outermost layer appears to take on a slightly blackened color, before sliced and served. It is no wonder that it is custom to eat it here with the close proximity of the ocean and all of its fishy harvest at hand. 

As far as people are concerned, the most prized personal Kochi has to offer is Sakamoto Ryouma, whose name might not mean much to many Westerners or perhaps many young people anywhere. But he is famous for bringing about the end of the Edo period in Japan and being a founding father or the Japanese Navy, as well as bringing both westernization and modernization to Japan. 

In fact, at Kochi's most famous beach, Katsurahama, there is a large crowd drawing statue of Ryouma facing westward. 

Other venues special to Kochi are its bright red bridge, Harimayabashi, right in the middle of the downtown area and a rather popular nighttime hangout place. There is also Kochi castle, which I cannot admit to seeing while I was there. It seems like many other castle of feudal Japan, white with a tiled roof, but rather small and unimpressive in structure.