Catching up on writing!

Way to long too long without writing; it’s getting hard to catch up. I decided to leave the last parts, of the stories from Hagi and Yamaguchi with Obaasan, just as the keywords I wrote down. Writing all that would take too much time when I have newer memories to write down while they are, at least seemingly, fresh.

Since I wrote last I’ve had a daytrip from Yamaguchi to Akiyashi-dai, left Yamaguchi, visited Tsuwano, spent a night in Masuda, travelled to Ooda and seen the sights of Iwami-Ginza and Nima before picking up my luggage back in Ooda and then continued on to Matsue; from where I had a daytrip to Izumo-taishi today. There are plenty of reasons for not having time or energy to write, but they can be summed up to “I’ve been busy”.

2008-02-15: Akiyoshi-do
Getting to Akiyoshi-dai from Yamaguchi was no problem, there’s a direct bus from Yamaguchi station to Akiyoshi-do – the great limestone cave at the plateau Akiyoshi-dai. (To avoid confusion: I visited the cave Akiyoshi-do, which is at the Akiyashi-dai plateau.) Going up the hills and into the mountains seemed like a bad idea considering the cold and my not-so-warm clothes, but I’d made up my mind, and had nothing better to do.

The bus-ride up to Akiyoshi-dai showed me a hilly Japanese countryside with scattered hamlets here and there in the valleys. As the bus-ride took us higher up there were snow-clad villages and rice-terraces, but up on the plateau by Akiyoshi-do the snow was gone, and it was slightly warmer than down in Yamaguchi.

Akiyoshi-do is obviously a season attraction. The cave is open year-round, but the town around it had gone into hibernation, and was little more than a ghost-town. There were some souvenir shops and restaurants open; but only some of the small places along the road leading to the cave.

There’s not really any point in describing the cave itself, it’s a cave with interesting colours and stone formations, but describing it won’t count for much unless you can see it, so I’ll post some pictures from the cave at some later point. I had a blast walking through the cave and play with camera angles and light challenges. Being in a cave it was (of course) dimly lit, so I had quite a challenge figuring out how to take the best possible pictures. I also made a game out of trying to see figures in the stone formations, and then photograph them. The question I whether I will be able to recognise the same shapes and figures when I see just the picture of them…

2008-02-16 Tsuwano
Scribbles in Traveller's Notebook, and pictures online.

2008-02-17 Oda, Iwami-Ginzan (Omori), Nima, Arriving in Matsue
(Scribbles in the Traveller's Notebook too -I might post some excerpts later, I might forget it

completely.)

I was on my way from Masuda to Matsue, but stopped underway in Oda, Iwami-Ginzan and Nima to see the sights while I was in the area. Oda was nothing to me but a helpful tourist information clerk, a useful coin locker, and a bus stop.

Bus ride to Iwami-Ginzan; me worrying about having taken the wrong bus and what to do if I did etc, and calming myself down; nothing special.

I couldn’t go to the Iwami-Ginzan silver mine itself, so I wandered around Oomori and saw the sights there. There was no snow there when I came, but 15 min after I came snow fell heavily.

(Scribbles in the Traveller’s Notebook from the café).

After enjoying the café I had to hurry through the rest of my itinerary to be sure to reach my bus in time, but in the cold I was glad to keep moving. I had a wonderful time even though I was “surprised” by the snow; it was a beautiful sight, and it reminded me of winters back home (well, the good ones at least). I put ten-ten on the “surprised” because I didn’t see it coming, but it was cold and snowy further south as well, so I was dressed to stand the cold.

From Iwami-Ginzan (Omori) I took the bus to Nima where I wanted to see the sand museum. That’s right people; it is a museum for sand. I reached the museum just in time for the last admission, and walked around the exhibitions twice before closing time 30 min later. Not the biggest museum I’ve seen. Perhaps not so surprising that they had a lot of hour-glasses, and sand-art “paintings”, but there were some other paintings as well, some photographs from famous places in the prefecture, a video room and 2 educational rooms for the geology of Japan for those that are good enough in Japanese to understand it all. I wasn’t interested in the last parts. One of the interesting things they do have is the world’s largest hour-glass, which is turned at midnight every New Year’s Eve, and has enough grains of sand to last until the exact same time the next year.

Outside the museum, waiting for trains, and finally, finally arriving in Matsue – picked up by the ryokan-family, and treated to an obento while chattering with the family for a while before retreating to my room. (Freezing night, I tried sleeping without the heater (bad idea!); had to turn it on at 4:30 because my legs were cramped.)

2008-02-18 Izumo-taisha
I’ve walked at least 4km today, just in Izuma-taisha. More later. Oyasumi.