As one of the four haiku masters of Japan and the most recent, it’s not surprising that Matsuyama takes pride in its poetic son and seeks to memorialize his very short sojourn here. The Matsuyama Municipal Shiki Memorial Museum is a huge edifice in Dogo, with lights and glass cases. In comparison, this shrine to Shiki is a fraction of the size and could easily be overlooked. But the Shikido (Shiki Hall) is perhaps a more fitting tribute, because it captures the small scale at which the man himself lived, even if his impact and activity was great. As one of the characters who appears in the novel Clouds Above the Hill, the Shikido is one of the stops on the walking trail that places the novel in its context.

The Shikido is a tiny one-storey building tucked in amongst the old district that still survives to the east of Takashimaya Department Store. It’s a reconstruction of the house where Shiki lived until he was seventeen years old. It stands on one side of a large gravelled square with a temple, and sundry other buildings of post-war vintage. The Kururin Ferris wheel looks imposing from here. As you approach the Shikido, a disembodied voice from a pillar directs you to the little booth across the square next to the drinks vending machines to buy your ticket. In front of the Shikido is a peculiar little display of a Botchan Train carriage and a bust of the author Natsume Soseki, a friend of Shiki.