From my journal:
Today we made the trek to the aquarium. It is around 66.2km from where we stayed, but factoring in traffic, road construction, stop lights, a break for lunch, and a packed parking lot, it took us almost 3 hours to get there. The scenery was awesome though!
The aquarium was pretty spectacular with a giant 4 story aquarium view at the end with 3 huge whale sharks, many different rays, and two dolphins – one that kept swimming behind one of the sharks, trying to bite his tail, and one that kept sneaking up behind fish and goosing them.
At the very bottom, the glass from the observatory sloped into the tank so you can look up at fish swimming above you. One of the rays would swim to the top of the curved glass and slide back down.
We spent over 3 hours walking around there!
The views outside were beautiful. You could look out over the ocean from where you entered. There were so many little gardens planted around, it seemed like there were flowers everywhere.
On the way home we took a back road that cut across and took us through part of the mountains. We drove through tiny farming villages with houses that looked like they were close to falling down, packed together in some areas along the mountain side.
There were little roadside shops set up along the road selling fresh oranges. We stopped and bought a bag from a woman. She kept giving us samples as we decided what variety to buy. 1000 yen for a huge bag of the sweetest oranges I have had in a long time…less than $10.
We eventually got back to the road we had come in on, and decided to take the expressway the rest of the way to save a bit of time. Julie said something in Japanese that made the man working the toll booth giggle…we laughed the rest of the night about that!
So many adventures!
This is why we always take the back roads. You never know what you’ll find a long the way.
iPhone photos of the day:
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Film photos:
