To the enormous surprise of absolutely no one except the most irrepressible Pollyannas in or closely connected with the construction industry, the 19 years since the opening of the first of the gargantuan civil-engineering white elephants that go by the name of the Honshu-Shikoku bridges have not witnessed any torrent of tourists storming their way onto the smallest of Japan's four main islands.
That Shikoku manages to retain its quaint air of being resolutely one of Japan's backwaters, however, adds to the whole charm of the place. For the grand experience, the tourist makes for the high-profile sights on the other islands. For an appealing, intimate glimpse of tucked-away regional culture, you head for a spot like Uchiko.
This town in the northwest of the island is still surrounded by many of the remote, wooden valleys that local-boy-made-good Kenzaburo Oe, born just 10 km from Uchiko, described as his birthplace in his 1994 Nobel Lecture, after winning the prize for literature. Arrive in Uchiko toward the end of the year and the jade-green hillsides of those valleys are studded with the bright mandarin oranges of which Ehime Prefecture has long been Japan's prime producer.
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