August 8 Part 1: Kayaking
On the 8th, Jiuna and I both woke up quite early, due to the sun shining brightly into our room and the noisy cicadas (and a crow, says Jiuna). We got breakfast at the nearby Family Mart and ate it in Tabi-tabi's kitchen area. After that we packed up our stuff and waited for the kayaking company to pick us up (so convenient!).
The kayaking guy showed up pretty much bang on-time, and it turned out that we were the only ones booked for today! I didn't know that Jiuna didn't know this ahead of time until later; I thought she'd booked a private lesson ahaha.
There was apparently a typ(h)oon nearby, and the waves at the beach we went to first were too large. Our guide said that he'd drive us across the peninsula to the West coast and bump back the end of our trip by the same amount of time. That actually ended up working out great for us, as our accomodation for the next night was on the West coast, and after the tour was over the guide just drove us to our ryokan, as it was about 5 minutes away from the beach.
Kayaking proved to be a rather interesting experience in many, many different ways. First of all, the waves were smaller where we ended up going (Tago beach and the Dogashima area), but they were still impressive swells such that you could really feel yourself rising up and falling down. Both Jiuna and I got a little bit dizzy from the constant motion from the large swells and the multi-directional smaller waves on top, but luckily no one got seasick. :D
Next, once we were about 10 minutes away from the bay we started out in, our guide pointed out a fin sticking out of the water and said it was a shark. O_O We asked what kind and he said "Hammerhead". D: We were visibly alarmed, so he told us that where we were was too shallow for the adult ones, and the only ones we would see were harmless juveniles. I wasn't totally calmed by that, because you always hear in the news "two tourists were eaten by an X that uncharacterisically did Y", and I most certainly did not want to die in that manner at this time. D:
We broke for lunch on a beach near where we would be staying that night, and our guide told me and Jiuna that we could swim while he cooked us pasta. We snorkeled around for about 15 minutes, and saw some little blue fish that were quite pretty. The water was a little stirred up and cloudy, so it was a little hard to see.
Lunch was a red sauce pasta with some king oyster mushroooms. It was pretty good, and it came with cold tea, which was highly welcome in the hot sun. :D Our guide also brought some tokoroten, which is a jelly made from boiled seaweed, and is a regional specialty. We had it with kinako (soybean flour) and black honey (some kind of sugar syrup deal). It was absolutely delicious! We had it again later at our ryokan, but it was a more refined, savoury version and was not quite as exciting.
After eating, our guide told us we had about 45 minutes before we needed to start heading back, and so Jiuna and I went swimming again. We decided to swim across the quasi-bay (there was a shallow area that is at times above water). We did so, and it was a relatively pleasant swim over, but we misjudged the strength of the waves, and sort of beached ourselves. O_O We laugh when we talk about it now, but there was serious potential for injury there. Both of us were having trouble holding onto the rocks when waves came in and I had a fair bit of difficulty getting back out into deeper water again, and was bowled over a couple of times. I'm very thankful that I didn't bonk my head, as that was a very real possibility. Note to selves, next time you go swimming in typ(h)oon driven open ocean swells, do not beach yourself on a beach full of large, kind-of-sharp rocks. >_< Both Jiuna and I are in one piece, and weren't much worse for wear (a few scrapes on knees and a couple of finger cuts), though it did mean we swam back across the apparently shark-infested waters while bleeding (if slightly).
It's almost 2:30AM now, and I really need to get to sleep, but I haven't blogged forever, so I think I'll just post what I've gotten written down from last night and tonight. >_< It's pretty difficult to find the time to blog, because Tokyo stays awake late into the night, unlike Hayashi. I'll try to get the rest up when I can.
Night!
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