Last Saturday we went to the beach. With rainy season here and our nice, sunny days limited, we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weekend. I was able to cross two items off of my bucket list: go to Aoshima one last time and take the 219 there. The ten of us piled into two cars and left Yunomae at 9:30.
As promised, the 219 was a beautiful drive. from Yunomae, it winds up into the mountains. It’s a VERY remote drive, only hitting one little village, Nishimera, for about half of the drive. For part of the mountain drive the road followed a beautiful cerulean blue river and lake. It was gorgeous! We joked and said that we should just stop and swim there. What excited us even more was when we passed by a zip line over the water. We said that we should DEFINITELY come back and do that at some point in time, but who knows if we ever will. It was only an hour or so down the road, but with just two months left, I feel like time might just get away from us.
We made good time, only stopping twice for breaks. While the 219 is a gorgeous drive, it also takes a little bit longer to get to the destination since it’s a little mountain road. Once we finally got to the beach, I’m pretty sure that all of us were READY to get out of the car and hit the beach hard. Aoshima is my favorite beach in Japan. I love the long strip of natural sand beach, the nearby island of Aoshima to walk around and explore, the tidal pools, and Aoshima shrine. For me, it’s the PERFECT amount of adventure and relax time rolled into one.
When we first got there, the tide was really low, so we made camp closer to the water. This ended up being a bad thing because as the tide rolled in as the afternoon progressed, we kept having to pull our stuff further and further up the shore. Our first order of business was charging into the water like little kids. We ran full blast into the water only to get to stomach deep water before screaming “IT’S COLD! IT’S COLD!!” While we did swim out and play for a bit, a few of us got freaked out by…..something touching the bottoms of our feet. I’m sure it was just a fish, but I felt something slimy touch my foot, and then it felt like it tried to burrow into the sand. I’m sure the critter was more scared of me than I of it, but it was still a little freaky!!
We decided to walk toward the island of Aoshima and explore some of the tidal pools while it was still low tide. Being from the land-locked state of Kentucky, I don’t know a lot about the ocean or ocean critters, so others who have more beach experience told me things. I learned what sea cabbage and sea cucumbers look like, Ian found a sea urchin, and we even saw the poisonous blow fish briskly swimming around in the pools. I LOVE exploring tidal pools! They’re so full of life! With the natural rock formations surrounding Aoshima, there are plenty of little tidal pools to explore….another reason why Aoshima is my favorite beach in Japan!
After our tidal pool exploring finished, we walked back through the shallow water to Camp America where we ate lunch, snacks, and celebrated a birthday. Krista’s birthday was on Sunday, but we celebrated it a day early at the beach because why not? I had made brownies, brought a princess crown, tried my hardest to light the candles on her birthday brownie, (as it turns out, the windy beach is NOT an ideal spot to light candles….) and sang happy birthday. Hurray!
Most of us were interested in walking over to the island of Aoshima, so we left those who didn’t want to behind. At first we visited the shrine. (one of the coolest I’ve been to…literally. It’s in the middle of the dense jungle island, and you can feel the temperature change once you enter the shade of the shrine’s pathway.) One of my favorite things about that shrine is the prayers. Visitors can buy little wooden plaques and write and hang their prayers along the pathway. It’s something that really fascinates me about Japanese culture. While I can’t read most of them, occasionally there would be a few English ones wishing for safe travels or a healthy life, the same things everyone wishes for.
After the shrine, we were going to walk around the tiny island, but we got distracted with picture-taking instead. With the natural rock formations surrounding Aoshima, picture opportunities are incredible. Capturing that PERFECT picture of sitting on a rock with the waves crashing upon it is totally possible. We did it last year and HAD to do it again this year. I like to call it the “Little Mermaid” pose……except Ariel made it look SO. MUCH. EASIER.
When Ian told me to swim out to the rock where waves were gently rolling over it, I said “No problem” and promptly made my way out. After slipping and nearly biffing it a couple of times, I got to the water and doggy paddled out only to realize that things aren’t always as they seem. The not-so-shallow water swirled me around in it, banging my legs and feet into the sides of other rocks. When I finally climbed up on the desire rock, it was slippery and covered in barnacles which cut my skin. I still have a few scrapes today! Those gentle waves that washed over the rocks from the distance were terrifying up close. I had to brace myself against the rock each time the waves washed over for fear of being drug over the side. Ian (from the safety of another rock) shouted “QUIT LOOKING LIKE YOU’RE TERRIFIED! NONE OF THESE PICTURES ARE TURNING OUT!” Right. Remember to smile as the frightening waves scrape me against the rock and try to tumble me over the edge. Smile.
Whenever we got back to the beach, we realized how lucky we were that Krista and Mollee had stayed behind. Had we all walked over to the island, our beach gear would have easily been under several feet of water! We stayed on the beach for as long as we could before we needed to head home. We watched the sun sink low in the sky before packing it up and heading back to the car.
We debated what to do for dinner, and several ideas were thrown around, but we’re a very indecisive group and couldn’t reach a consensus. I remembered that there was a Pizza Hut in nearby Miyazaki City, and everyone agreed that would be a great option. Although the pizza was great and we enjoyed it, there were a few problems with it. The Pizza Hut store was a delivery only shop, so we had to go inside to order and then sit outside at the lone table and wait for our pizza. Not only that but the price of pizza in Japan is quite expensive. For an American medium (Japanese large) Hawaiian pizza that Krista and I split, it cost about $30. I’m not sure of the price in the States, but I’m going to venture out on a limb and say that it’s about half that price. Sometimes you just have to spend a little more to get quality western food, though!
And on a random note that has nothing to do with the beach, I got caught staring today. I was absolutely surprised and amazed when the teacher who sits right across from me caught a fly in his hand. He went to the open window and opened his clenched fist, releasing the fly. I was absolutely amazed that he had caught the fly with nothing more than his bare hands, so when he turned around and saw me sitting there, still looking dumbfounded with bugged eyes and an open mouth, he laughed. He’s a really cool guy, so we laughed about it.
In other news, it’s the weekend! YIPPEEEEEEE! However, it’s supposed to rain THE. ENTIRE. WEEKEND. No worries, though! I’ve already queued up a couple of movies in our Netflix account, going to do a bit of house organizing, and maybe pack up another box of stuff to ship home. Enjoy the weekend, y’all!
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