I picked up Tye from the Fukushima City train station on Friday night and we drove back to Minamisoma together. He was exhausted and jet-lagged so we went straight to bed hoping to get rested for the many adventures we were going to have during the next two weeks.
4/29/2017
The next morning we had a small breakfast of some instant miso soup and headed out to the Abukuma caves in Tamura City in Fukushima prefecture.
It was a beautiful, and warm day with the sun shining. I brought an extra jacket because I didn’t know how cold it would be inside the caves.
On the way down I decided to drive through Namie and Okuma and take the mountain pass further south rather than take the northern mountain pass going to Kawamata and then heading south. It was going to be much quicker as well.
Along the way we saw some beautiful scenery! The mountains were speckled with many different colors of green. The mountain sides looked like a patchwork quilt.
We drove through this little town in the mountains called Kawauchi. It is such a quaint little town. There were frogs decorating some of the buildings. I passed a manhole cover and stopped to get out and take a picture.
Tye decided to get out and take some pictures of the lovely scenery.
We continued on until we got to the Abukuma Caves.
Before we went in we went to check out the lovely view from the viewing platforms.
This is a planetarium next to the caves. Tye says it belongs on the “Evil Buildings” subreddit.
We then went up to the shrine up on the small island/cliff in the middle of the parking lots.
Then we went into the caves. The caves were just as beautiful as I remembered them (see the Study Tour Day 1 post from last October.)
We were able to take a lot of nice photographs. Tye’s fancy-ass camera was better in low light than mine. Some of the pictures turned out a bit blurry, but I think they still look good.
This picture we are looking straight up at the stalactites and ceiling above us.
And a few more.
I liked how they placed a dish or something here and it got calcified. It’s been made into a little altar.
On the way out there is this pretty little tunnel with lights all through it.
And there is that pretty zen garden out the back between the caves and the gift shop.
After that we got back in the car and drove back to Minamisoma. When we passed through Kawauchi the weather had started turning bad, but it made for some neat pictures.
On the way back we decided to drive through Namie.
Namie just recently opened again for habitation, I believe, but nobody has moved back in yet. The town is still pretty trashed. Buildings are falling over and filled with garbage. I expect volunteer efforts to begin in Namie within the next six months or year.
Its a bit sad that this town is so so empty.
I went back to the collapsing Shinto shrine to show it to Tye.
From here we went to the 1000 year old Buddha and Kannon cliff side carvings in Odaka.
Our first stop was the stone Buddhas. (I have already posted my photos of these following places in another post back in June called "Minamisoma Adventures." So I'll just post a choice few in this blog.)
I showed him the dragon iconography in the small park nearby as well as the grave/monument at the top of the hill.
Then we walked over to the temple that houses the reliefs. Tye was impressed with the large tree that you see on the way to the temple.
The place still creeps me out and had a hard time approaching the reliefs of the cliff Buddhas again. I went inside and looked around, but I was really antsy and the feeling got worse as I approached the glass separating us from the reliefs. So, I kept my distance and peered at them from just inside the entrance.
Tye was fine. He wasn’t affected by whatever was effecting me. He thought they were way cool.
I walked him around the side of the hill past all the other small Buddha statues and to the other shrine on the side of the hill.
This is a sign telling people to beware of starting fires.
Tye agreed that something definitely used to be displayed in the “window” of the shrine. But whatever it was can no longer be seen. It just looks like a lichen covered rock face.
From there we went to the big Kannon relief carving on a neighboring hill. This is the one behind the houses that you would never know was there.
Tye was more impressed with this one than he was the Buddhas. His jaw dropped to the floor. This one is much bigger and I too like it more. This one doesn’t creep me out. Sadly you cannot see the bottom or middle of the relief, you can only see the top.
He was so impressed and deeply saddened that it had been so far gone and so eroded before anyone thought to protect it. He told me he felt such a great sense of loss when he looked at this Kannon relief.
He then said in that moment he understood why I went to school to become an archaeologist. Things like this are amazingly impressive and way cool. I think he felt a great appreciation for the work that archaeologists and people that work in cultural preservation do.
The sun was beginning to set, so we had enough time to go see one more location. I took him up a nearby mountain to see a damn and reseoir, that as far as I know don’t have a name. This is the one closer to my house and the one that I personally think is prettier, not Mano Dam.
Tye was a bit surprised that we could not walk across the dam or anywhere near it because it was full of the bags of radioactive dirt, so you could not go near. But I think the view of the reservoir is one of the prettiest in Minamisoma. This time it wasn’t raining, which made me happy. (I am missing these photos as well. I will try to find them. I'll post them if I ever do.)
It was now dinner time and I wanted to show Tye my favorite restaurant in Minamisoma, Bar Wizard! On the drive to Bar Wizard! It started raining, and I was glad that it had waited until we were done enjoying the view of the dam before it started. When we got there it was a half hour before it opened, we sat in my car and chatted and watched the rain play with the view of the building lights while we waited.
Tye ate some pasta and I, of course, got their Anchovy Fries. The best fries in this whole god damned world! Tye liked them as well, and agreed to help me figure out how to make them myself when I returned to America.
After we finished eating we returned to my apartment and watched some Archer before we retired for the night.
