Saturday was a travel day. We left Nagasaki and took a two hour train ride to Fukuoka. A two stop subway ride and we were at the airport. When we arrived, two hours and fifteen minutes early, we saw huge lines. I asked an attendant and they directed us to the line that applied to us, and we walked and walked and walked, to the end of the line. I went out in search of someone who could explain to me what was going on.
I spoke to a woman who worked for Japan Airlines, and even with google translate, she either didn't understand what I was saying or was unsure of how to respond back. She indicated for me to follow her to a computer desk. With help from another worker, they tried to explain that something was wrong with the runway, using the word "broken" to explain. They said that I could not check in yet until the problem was fixed. I asked if the flight would take off at all and they were unsure. They didn't particularly seem perturbed by this fact. I asked if they could double check that my tickets were in their system, since I had been getting only email confirmation of my ticket, and not anyone else's. They checked and everything looked good. I asked how I was to find out when check in would be available. They looked at each other and didn't seem sure. Just as I was waiting for their answer, something changed in their system, and they were all of a sudden allowed to check us in. I handed them my two passports and ran to Stephanie and Miles at the end of the line, in order to get her passport. Thus, we were able to skip the entire line. Sometimes it helps to know the wrong language.
After a fairly slow line to get past security, we were at the terminal. The flight ended up being delayed by 25 minutes, but then was bumped forward 10 minutes. We boarded a bus, boarded the plane, and took off. The flight was less than an hour and was mercifully lacking turbulence.
Yakushima Island
A year and a half ago, when I was researching places to visit in Japan, Yakushima Island popped up. The pictures of the greenery and forests were extraordinary. It looked out of a fairy tale. One of the hikes inspired a well known Japanese movie called Princess Mononoke. Many people go to the island just for this reason. I had not seen the movie, so I had us all watch it a day or two before we left for our trip. The island is known for having trees older than 1000 years old, called yakusugi. 40% of the island is a national park. The weather is described on websites as "ranking very high amongst the world's wettest locations." I packed rain gear accordingly.
We rented a car to get around the island, stopped at a local supermarket for food, and checked in at our cottage around 4:30 pm. Miles had a futon in the loft, which was reached by climbing a ladder. It had a little patio, a fridge, a stove, and a sink for dishes. We went to bed very early that first night. It was sunny and 65 degrees. The next two days were predicted to be cloudy with no rain and cloudy with a small chance of rain. No rain occurred on our visit.
When we woke up, Stephanie informed us that she had the beginning symptoms of a cold. We left at around 8:00 the next morning for our first hike, at the Shiratani Unsuikyo Ravine. This is the particular hike that the movie was inspired by. There were 3 hike choices on the map. I decided to pick the longest one, which was estimated at 4 hours total ,and on the return trip, detour onto the middle length hike. I illustrated our journey by taking the hike guide and using a pen to show the route. In case it is too hard to see the pen, we took the green route to the end, which is the Taikowa Rock, and then detoured onto the orange path. We started the hike at 9:30 and we crossed the finish line at about 3:20pm. It was the longest hike I have ever been on, and obviously Miles' as well.
On our drive up, we passed some monkeys.
The hike began by having us walk up huge rocks.
It led to a well manicured path, followed by a small suspension bridge.
Miles, emboldened by our hike in Unzen, bravely took the lead.
We walked for maybe two hours, seeing many beautiful trees and lots of moss covered paths. Miles got a small scratch on his hand when he braced himself from a fall. This upset him quite a bit, but the scrape was not bleeding. We gave him a tissue to hold on it to make him feel better. Eventually, we made a finally ascent to a huge rock, where we had fantastic views of the surrounding area.
Although I enjoyed the exercise and the forest, and really loved the view from the rock, I was still slightly disappointed with what I had seen compared to the pictures online. I chalked it up to reality never living up to expectations. We took the detour onto the orange path and all of a sudden, the landscape changed. It became greener, lusher. I can't really explain the difference, but it was noticeable. This was what I had come to see.
Some other highlights of the hike that came to mind was that after the detour, while crossing a small stream, one of my feet slipped and was entirely submerged. I wrung out my sock and emptied my shoe. I used this as a lesson on how to show Miles that one does not need to complain when something unexpected and unpleasant occurs. About an hour later, Miles slipped and soaked his foot as well.
Miles was quite tired and a little grumpy from his scrapes and wet foot. Luckily, he became engaged in Stephanie's stories of all of the times that she injured herself while hiking and doing other activities in her youth. In return, he told her stories of his bad dreams and scary movies that he had seen.
Once we had driven down the mountain, we looked for lunch. It turned out that all restaurants in town had closed at 3:00, to reopen at 5:30 or later. We tried a few that didn't list their hours on google maps and they were all closed. We stopped at a local coop to load up on snacks. We snacked a bit in the car, since the restaurants were closed, and continued the drive counter-clockwise on the island, away from our cottage and toward the side of the island known as being a nature preserve, where you could see deer and monkeys on the side of the road.
We entered monkey and deer territory around 5:00. In about an hour, we had only driven a handful of kilometers, as it was all one lane, extremely twisty, and we stopped fairly often for encounters with the animals. I was worried ahead of time that we would be unlucky and wouldn't see anything! Luckily, that was not the case.
As sun was setting, we made it out of the preserve. There was a waterfall recommended on this side of the island. As we approached the entrance, the road was barred off. We continued onward and luckily, there was a second entrance! We entered, the only ones there, parked the car, and ran for the falls. The path led us right to the bottom of the falls and it was huge.
Nearby was a highly rated soba noodle restaurant. We drove up and there was nothing there. It was not our day for restaurants. Back at the cottage, I tried a tree stump cookie candy.
No comments:
Post a Comment