veggiehikertravel: Awaji 淡路

On Saturday the 7th of March we took a day trip to Awaji Island with 5 other teachers. Here we all are in the car, ready to go!

We drove across the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge to get to Awaji from Honshu. This is the longest and tallest suspension bridge in the world and was opened in 1998 after 10 years of construction. This bridge is a great feat of engineering for many reasons, but what amazes me the most is that the epicenter for the Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake is very close to the bridge. Apparently the earthquake forced the engineers to add 3 feet to the length of the structure.

Our travel crew at the Awaji rest stop, the bridge is visible in the background. From the left, me, Joe, Inoue, Derek, Hollie, Takako, and Nakatani.

Among the vending machines at the rest stop was a coffee machine with various languages, including Kansai Dialect! Japanese-English-Portugese-Korean-Chinese-Kansai.

We also sampled edamame (soy bean) ice cream. It was surprisingly tasty.

From the bridge we headed to the southern tip of the island. Here we are goofing around, Shikoku Island is in the distance on the left.

Joe sampling some onion soup. Awaji is famous for onions.

The Naruto Bridge that connects Awaji to Shikoku and spans the Naruto Channel and it's famous whirlpools. In the bottom right corner of the photo below you can see the ripples on the water to get an idea of how fast the current is moving. The tide pulls water back and forth between the Inland Sea and the Pacific Ocean twice a day, creating whirlpools in the narrow channel.

The tidal whirlpools of Naruto.

Travel crew on the bridge.

It was hard to photograph the whirlpools, as they were constantly changing.

My Hello Kitty charm of Naruto.

Some beautiful flowers on a sunny day.

We had lunch at the nearby science museum, which had a restaurant with a view of the Naruto Channel.

Joe's lunch at the museum restaurant, Uzushio.

My lunch, a rice bowl and the local wheat noodles. Everyone's lunch included a "salad" of local raw onions.

We watched the 3D movie about whirlpools at the museum. Here Hollie and Takako sport their 3D glasses.

A model of how the whirlpools work.

There are cameras atop the bridge that are streamed into the museum.

The museum compex also includes the Naruto Memorial Museum, which includes exhibits the puppet theatre of Awaji, Ningyo Jyoruri. We watched a presentation on the puppets, which were operated by three people.

Masks at the museum.

Joe playing the shamisen! The puppet theatre included a narrator and musician.

Costumes for the puppets.

While driving across the island we saw monkeys!

Some Awaji scenery. The island was quite mountainous, and the views of the sea and ocean were beautiful. We saw lots of fishing boats and fish farms in the coastal waters, and tons of onion fields as we drove around.

Our last stop was the Hokudan Earthquake Memorial Park.

This facility commemoartes the Great Hanshin Awaji Earthquake of 1995. As a result, the gift shop sells earthquake preparedness kits.

Preserved inside the facility is part of a road that was destroyed in the earthquake. You can see the asphalt surface at the center, and the gutters along each side that were once straight.

The separation of the once flush earth along the fault.

They also have a preserved house with what the kitchen looked like after the disaster. All the cabinets had opened, their contents on the floor.

The exterior of the preserved house with the once straight wall. Perhaps the more frigtening part of this exhibit is that these are the structures that survived. Plenty of other houses completely collapsed during the earthquake. We also were able to experience an earthquake simulator that put the 7 of us into a room and recreated a 7 magnitude earthquake, complete with the low rumbling sound that such an event creates. Terrifying.