I’m beyond the point of catching up, and I understand this. I haven’t written about my day-to-day experiences here since April. Therefore, I’m going to try something. Instead of wracking my brain trying to remember every little detail, I’m going to write about our beach weekend and then consider myself caught up, beginning with stuff that RECENTLY happened instead of continuing this catch-up game. Therefore, without further ado, I give you Aoshima Island:
On our way back from Nagasaki, Melissa, Justine, and I were talking about how sad it was that we live on an island, but we’ve only been to the beach once in the last year. It’s not completely our faults….we do live pretty much in the exact MIDDLE of the island, making it difficult to get to the beach. I researched early in the week, looking for a nice beach that we could make a day trip to. I had two requirements:
1) The beach must be sandy. None of this rocky or shelly business.
2) The beach must be long enough to walk along. I didn’t want just a strip of sand because one of my favorite things to do at the beach is go for long walks.
I sent out an email rounding up beach-goers, and Brian, Justine, Mary, Ian, and I met up in Hitoyoshi at 8 AM that Saturday and headed to the beach. Aoshima Island is in Miyazaki Prefecture and took about an hour and a half to get to. (I didn’t know it at the time, but Miyazaki is known for having the best beaches on our island! 
)
Aoshima Island is uninhabited, and the only thing on it is a shrine. You can easily walk around the entire island in less than an hour, and it is known for its strange rock formation, known as “devil’s washboard.” After years and year and years of erosion, the rocks surrounding the island look like shelves of cobblestone. (below, left) The island is right off the coast and is connected by a pedestrian bridge. We didn’t actually go to the beach on the island since it was all rock, but the beaches beside the island were AMAZING!!! Gorgeous sand beaches for as far as the eye can see…… We all agreed to explore the island first and then make camp on the beach. Once we were across the bridge, we noticed that caretakers for the island had gotten their truck stuck on the shelly sand of the island. All of us felt so sorry for the guy and his friend as they attempted time after time to get out, which only resulted in tires spinning. Luckily trucks here are lightweight and NOTHING like the enormous extended cab, long bed, engine revving Fords, Chevies, and Rams at home. Justine, Brian, and Ian helped literally lift the back end up and freed the truck. (below, right) 
Hurray for foreigners!
It was high tide when we were there, so we didn’t see a lot of the crazy rock formations, but that didn’t stop us from playing on them! 
We played the game “how far out can we go before we deem it too dangerous?” (below, left) Mary and I won. Then we tried to get pictures in the water. *mental note: Don’t play on the rocks in rough surf. It won’t end prettily.* I tried to do my best Little Mermaid pose on the rocks, but the barnacles cut my legs, and wave after wave tossed me off of the rocks. (below, right) By the time Ian gave up on taking pictures, I have cuts and scratches from my foot to my knee on my right leg and several on my elbow. (bottom, right) 
It might not have been worth it, but it was fun/funny!
We felt very, very weird being in bathing suits even though we were at the beach. The Japanese don’t really “go” to the beach like we do. They stand there and admire it, but they don’t really want to go in it. Since they’re terrified of getting the slightest amount of sun, they cover their bodies with layers of clothing…even at the beach! So we felt awkward parading around in our skimpy bathing suits and decided to put our clothes back on.
As we rounded the island, we came upon the entrance to the shrine and went to explore it. Normally I believe that if you’ve seen one shrine, you’ve seen them all, but this one was pretty cool. It was dedicated to married couples/eternal love. Hurray! Ian and I bought a his and her chopsticks set, and the priestess blessed them for us. The pathway to one of the side-shrines was really cool because it was lined with messages, wishes, and prayers that people had written. (below, center) The pathway lead to a spot where you could stack shells in a pile to represent your ancestors and toss other shells onto an altar. If the shells made it to the altar, your wish would come true. If not….sorry!
After that, we finally got to make camp and lay out at the beach! All day long I was seriously like a little kid!! I was so completely, totally, and irrationally excited to be at the beach. I cannot tell you how many times in the past couple of months we’ve seen a beach en route but didn’t have time to stop and enjoy it. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect!
After eating lunch, we all laid down for a bit. I heard one of our lunch sacks rustling, and I thought it was just the wind blowing it around, but when I turned my head, a huge black crow was riffling through our bags! I shouted at it, which scared it. Instead of fleeing the scene, the bird grabbed our WHOLE bag of Oreos and flew off. Justine and Ian tried to chase it down, but the darn crow had outsmarted us. (below, left) We spent the rest of the afternoon playing in the sand and riding the waves. At one point in time, all of us were in the water, and when we looked back at the beach, two huge crows were taking inventory of our stuff. Brian raced out of the water to chase the birds off, but that time they made off with two granola bars. We’d been taken advantage of not once but TWICE!
Crows: 2
Us: 0
Once the tide went out, we went back to the island to explore tidal pools. I’ve only done that one other time in my life, and it was awesome! With the rock formations completely exposed, we were able to climb on them and find prawns, crabs, oysters, little fish, barnacles, and tons of other sea life. Mary is from Delaware, and Justine grew up in Washington, so both knew what to look for and taught us landlocked Kentuckians how to pick up crabs and crack open oysters. Justine and I went on an oyster smashing rampage hoping that we could find just one pearl….but alas! The only thing we got from the oysters was oyster goo on our hands and legs.
After a long and relaxing day at the beach, we returned home, promising ourselves that we’d be back soon!
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