Awaji Bus Tour

Awaji Island Bus Tour
Saturday, October 20, 2007

5:30 am comes really early, especially a long week with late nights working on lessons at home before I could even thing of going to bed. I don’t know the last time I got up that early…maybe the day that I left for Japan. Whenever it was, I’m sure I wasn’t happy, just like I wasn’t happy when my alarm went off. I had no choice though, I had to get up and take a shower because Naoko was going to be at my apartment to pick Tara and me up at 6:10 whether we were ready or not. We made it out the door and to the car and we were off to the bus station along with Naoko, Ayaka (her 7 year old daughter), Naoko’s mother, Naoko’s father’s cousin, Yumi (a head teacher), and Misaki (her 7 year old daughter).
When we got to the bus station to get on our bus tour, Tara and I realized that we were early…almost an hour early. Don’t get me wrong, I am punctual and I would rather be early but it was 6:30 on Saturday morning after we had worked all week and we were two tired Americans. We were not amused in the least. We were appreciative to be invited on the trip so we stoop there and waited for the bus, sleeping with our eyes open.
Our trip started out okay. We boarded the bus and left the station. I had already managed to fall asleep in the most uncomfortable position but I woke up when the guide got on the microphone to tell her that we had to turn around and go back (after driving maybe 30 minutes) because she had left people thinking that they were just not there…no, they were there and had been there, she just left them on accident. It was her first tour I think. Naoko did day she was a “freshman.”

I managed to fall back into the uncomfortable sleep and stay that way for awhile. We stopped a couple of times at rest stops and to grab food and then finally got to the first real stop of the day: a jewelry store.

Me sleeping
Ayaka

Ayaka and Misaki

This was not just a jewelry store where they sold pieces, they also made them. First we took a little tour and looked at things like crystal balls and I was expecting Harry Potter to pop out from around the corner at any moment but he never did. We went into another room and got to watch people who were making some jewelry. A couple of them were working on rings, sizing and things. We saw all kinds of stones that they use. They were beautiful.
Next we sat through a presentation about the jewelry and how they make it. Of course Tara and I didn’t understand anything so Naoko translated. Pretty much we all sat in the back and just cracked up when they said that the necklaces had healing powers and Naoko said she didn’t believe it. Good for her. She’s been to America enough to know what’s what. Haha
We shopped after that, although we couldn’t afford anything. Everything was WAY over the many thousands of dollars range. I had fun trying on rings and things though. Honestly, many of them were really gaudy, not my style. There were a few necklaces that were gorgeous though. After the shopping, we boarded the bus and pulled off. Many of the ladies from the store came out to the parking lot and waved us off and bowed to us. They waved until we were gone.
We spent some more quality time on the bus before arriving at our next destination: the hotel. This was our lunch stop and afterwards a relaxing onsen experience. If you don’t know about onsens, please email me and I’ll tell you all about them. I’m sure you would LOVE my description.

Waving us off

Our lunch was a traditional Japanese lunch. When I uncovered the bowls, there were many little sea creatures with their eyes staring back at me. I’m not into eyes; it’s really just something that I can’t handle. I had to flip the fish over because he wouldn’t stop looking at me. I couldn’t eat too much of him because Tara made a joke about having to dig out the body cavities to eat and that was enough for me. I stuck to the soup and avoided most of the rest of the food. I’m sorry, Japanese cuisine is just not my thing.
After lunch we headed downstairs to relax in the hot water of the onsen. Misaki and Ayaka liked the statues that were around the outdoor tub, but I can’t talk about it on here. It’s just not for mixed company. It was definitely not Japanese and but it was hilarious. Naoko and Yumi left the girls with Tara and me so that they could go shopping but when Tara and I had had enough relaxing with the 7 year olds, we said it was time to go. They understood us but made it quite difficult to leave. They were not ready and thought that they could make us stay longer. We did a little shopping in the hotel shops (I added two more Hello Kitty charms to my collection) and then it was time to load the bus and leave.
Every time we boarded the bus I fell into the most uncomfortable sleeping positions you can only imagine. All I wanted to do was stretch out, but instead I was slumped over. To make matters worse, the lady behind me kept grabbing my chair which meant that she would grab my hair. She would also lean up close to me every now and then and breathe on me or talk. She wasn’t talking to me, but it was really creepy.
Our next stop was a fish market. We watched them make some sort of fish thing on bamboo and we bought our prefectural food so our family and friends. It’s a Japanese tradition that when you leave your prefecture to visit another one (these are like states sort of), you buy special food from where you visit to bring back to close friends and family.
Misaki, Me, Tara, Ayaka

Our last stop of the day was the ferry. We rode the Taco Ferry (taco means octopus) across the water, underneath a huge suspension bridge. It was gorgeous. At night the bridge lights up. It was really windy and we thought Ayaka and Misaki were going to blow away but they didn’t. On the other side of the water, we boarded the bus and drove home.
It was a long but fun day. Tara and I decided that the bus wouldn’t be a bad way to travel around and see things. Little did we know that this was going to start our first of three bus weekend trips in a row.