If I had known that filling up our mp3
player with nothing but Disney songs and Green Day albums would have the
unfortunate consequence of Roland jumping out from around every other corner
singing, `do you wanna build a snowman?` I would have been a bit more
discerning in my taste of road-trip tunes. As I had already colored in every
prefecture that forms part of Kyushu on the map stylishly stuck to my fridge
with `Attack on Titan` and `Adventure Time` magnets it was time to move my
travels a little less south.
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| Coloring in the prefectures (just driving through does not count) |
And what a little less south it was as
Roland and I settled on Yamaguchi, the prefecture so close to our island that
they would be asked to move apart at a high school dance. After many renditions
of Basket Case and I'll Make a Man out Of You, our voices started to be drowned
out by the sad gurgling coming from our stomachs, reminding us that we had yet
to stop for lunch. Fortunately we were just about to cross the beautiful bridge
linking Fukuoka to a little town called Shimonoseki (or Shimonosexy to those,
who like me are eight years old when it comes to humor) and get our hands on
some sweet, sweet sushi.
While the fresh fish market is really
designed to entice you to try the platters of thinly sliced fugu (puffer fish),
my eyes were immediately drawn to the salmon nigiri with basil and a thin slice
of lightly grilled cheese draped sexily over it. The market was busy and
bustling and I felt a little lost at first with my plastic plate about to be filled
with fish that had been singing `Under the Sea` an hour ago but soon I felt the
rhythm and the rhyme of the place and started stacking up some of the best
sushi I have ever eaten. Next I took my catch of the day up to the second
floor, sat down at one of the seats lining the entire market and entertained
myself with the sights of the vendors, some wearing puffer fish hats and
customers going about their business down below.
As the sushi settled into its new home,
Roland and I jumped into the Daihatsu and bounced that Krusty Krab for our
second location. Now I love a good cave, provided I do not have to scuba
through tiny tunnels, undoubtedly filled with cave monsters, or climb slick,
high walls with only some worn out chains hastily hammered into the stone to
keep me from meeting my maker. Akiyoshido did not violate any of my cave liking
conditions and so the biggest cave in Japan was the next stop on our journey. I
had but walked two steps past the enchanting entrance perched over a clear
turquoise pool before my hair frizzed to full orphan Annie from the humid air.
I had little time to mourn the loss of my neatly blow-dried locks though as I
was too busy staring at the massive cavern I was now standing in. The thing
that really messes with your mind is the still lake next to the walkway that
reflects the surrounding rock face, damn near giving you vertigo as you look
down at that unending abyss. What the cave lacked in stalactites and
stalagmites it made up for in rimstone pools that looked appropriately like
rice fields and enormous halls of stone that thoroughly tests your ability not
to shout Baruk Khazâd to hear what that echo would sound like. At the end you
can take an elevator up or climb out using a tunnel decorated in lovely anime
panels depicting evolution all the way from a single celled organism to a
bright-eyed traveler proudly standing next to his Winnebago.
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| Awesome entrance |
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| Stille waters, diepe grond, onder draai die duiwel rond! |
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| Rimstone pools |
The last stop before hitting that hotel bed
hard, was some Karst topography or to be a little less fancy, a grassland
dotted with lots of pretty white pinnacles. Yamaguchi was a very gracious host
and as I still have bridges out of antiquity and many other sites to see, I
will surely make a return trip as soon as I have deleted a certain song about a
snowman from my road trip repertoire.
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| It would not be a Japanese attraction if there was not at least a little anime |
