Udon Pilgrimage: Commence
The next thing on my food itinerary in Japan was visiting the place notorious for it's pride in making udon, the Kagawa prefecture. People from all over Japan know if there's one holy place for udon it's Kagawa but it's not always that easy to find. Noodles in Japan, whether it be ramen, soba, or udon, are Japan's soul food. Crazed fans even take trips designated just for finding the best ones all over Japan - a food pilgrimage if you will. This was my induction into that subculture of noodle connoisseurs and I was just barely skimming the surface.
The greatest part of traveling in Japan, unlike America, is everything is within less than 2-8 hours by car or train and even faster by shinkansen, depending on where you're going. You can pretty much travel to all the major cities in Japan within a week or so if you're the kind to always be on their feet. To get to our destination, we went by car and took the toll roads and passed through the Seto Bridge, which takes about 20 minutes to cross over from Honshu to the island of Shikoku.
One of the most famous and longest bridges in the Japan, and riding through it on a sunny Sunday you can appreciate the structure and engineering that built this bridge.
The best part about these bridges are the parking areas, also known as rest stops in America, offer nice views, delicious food from the region, and my favorite part - car meetings.
Luckily for me, there was a small group of Honda Beats that were basking in the warm Shikoku sun so I ran over to take a few shots while I had the chance.
The Honda Beat was a special car back in the early 90's - it was unique coming from Honda blood line. They may not look like much, they even remind me of little toy cars, but they embodied aspects that made a car fun to drive whether you're on a track or your daily driver.
They were classified as kei cars and were rear-wheel drive, mid-engine, and were two-seater roadsters. I drive a `95 Mazda Miata and for me that was small enough and I'm no Goliath but I couldn't imagine how much smaller these are compared to my car.
The Beat was Honda's answer to the kei car boom that was happening in the early 90's when car manufacturer's such as Suzuki with their well-know Cappuccino and Mazda with their Autozam were producing fun, drivable, and affordable cars at the time.
Throughout the years, the automotive industry is breaking barriers with frankensteining cars, like dropping a Corvette motor in a little Miata that weighs a fraction of the original motor's shell. But these cars are fun even without all that horsepower, although it wouldn't hurt to drop a turbo in it to see how much wheel spin you can get out of these.
There were all types of tuners at the parking area, each car showed the personality of the owners - some a little on the "ricey" side for my taste, but that's what makes these cars so fun. Each car had it's own personality, some subtle and some extreme, some sat too low to drive and others looked like they were driven on the track.
Some of the owners drove from all over the Kansai region just to meet up for some coffee and talk cars all afternoon. Observing some of the license plates, some came from Kagawa, Kyoto, Himeji, and even Hiroshima - all for the love of cars.
Like I said, personality was abundant and I personally kept looking at this yellow Beat rocking steelies with the white walls - simple, yet effective.
I got so distracted with the Beats I forgot to meet up with my family for some lunch and I rushed back to get some scenery shots before it was time to head back on the road.
It was back on the road for us and Maru was loving the ocean air driving into Takamastu
つづく
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