Cabining in Oshima... Day 2

Please note, there is a prequel to this post... Cabining in Oshima Day 1. I recommend reading it first because there are several references to the information in that post in this post.

When we woke up Monday morning, it was a special day in our family. It was Xan's birthday. So, I woke him up singing (more like yodeling with some scratchy yelling) our family's traditional birthday song: "Hippo, Birdies, Two Ewes". It was from a birthday card my Dad got years ago, one with a hippo, some birds and a couple of sheep, and it's just stuck around. Plus, we don't owe anyone royalties when we sing it.

After breakfast, it was present time... even for Will , who wouldn't celebrate his birthday for 10 more days. Yes... both of my boys were born in April, the month of the Military Child, and the month that has a diamond birthstone. I have two pair of diamond earrings my husband awarded me in the hospital after pushing each of them out. Winning!

So Xan got his gift first... one that he had asked for months before but, I think, forgot he had asked because he figured he would never get it. But, with big brother going off to junior high next year, and him sometimes walking home alone from school because of that, plus his excellent responsibility when it comes to his other devices, the spouse and I did something we never thought we would do... gave a 2nd grader a cell phone. And I think you can see how surprised and excited he was:

So, now all four Guthries have cell phones. Scary... but efficient. It's pretty easy to find and communicate with each other... even if one of us is simply in the bathroom.

Then it was Will's turn. Anyone who has spent more than five minutes with him probably knows he is obsessed with fish and other slimy creatures. He enjoyed fishing with friends and family in Illinois the past couple of summers, so we figured we'd enable his interest with a fishing pole. You can see how surprised and excited he was. Until he tried to actually use it.

Please note the utter redneck-ness the spouse is displaying. We are on vacation. I am on vacation, which means 1) he did not have to wear his cammies to work and 2)  I gave up trying to dress him for a couple of days. And also note this plastic box the fishing pole came in... this will be important later.

So, off we went to fish. I was going to send the guys off for some "man time" so that I could finally enjoy some quiet reading time, but was guilted in to coming along so I could take pictures. Fortunately, it was a quick excursion. We drove down to the beach below our cabin and walked out to the manmade jettys, or concrete piers.

I had found a bamboo fishing pole for 105 yen and the Daiso, so that Xan wouldn't feel left out. The line on his pole managed to reach the water with about six inches to spare. But, it turns out, he had it better than Will did. Will's line tangled every time he cast, resulting in a huge mess. So... we fished for about 15 minutes before everyone was cold and bored. We headed back to the cabin.

Which was fine by me because the deal was that if they got to do what they wanted to do (fishing), I got to do what I wanted to do, which was explore the island. And have lunch at Aloha Orange. If you haven't eaten at this Hawaiian restaurant, you should. And I don't care what diet you are on (unless, of course, you are on the "I am allergic to nuts" diet), you must have the macadamia nut pancakes. Order it with your meal because it takes awhile for it to be made.

So here is a map I took a picture of, with numbers that I added as to where we went to explore... all of it for free, with the exception of fuel for the car. Click on the picture of the map to enlarge it.

So, Number 1 is Katazoe Beach, where we were cabining. There are plenty of walks to take along the beach and up through the hills, and a few jelly fish to poke sticks at. Be sure to go back to the previous blog post for the details about this great place to "get away."

Number 2 is Aloha Orange. And Iwakuni Explorer has a good write up about it, so I won't bother.

Number 3 is a shrine we found when we followed the Jutendo sign to a grocery store. We need to buy some things, like salt and a spatula, and figured that somewhere near a Jutendo (gardening store) would be a grocery store. And we were right. There was a grocery store next to Jutendo. That's a good thing to note of you are planing to cabin anytime soon. As you drive around the island, away from the green bridge that brings you to the island from Iwakuni (you will have turned left after exiting the bridge on the Oshima side) you will look to the right little ways after passing Aloha Orange and you will see an orangey red Jutendo sign with an arrow pointing inland. Follow the sign. Go to Jutendo (The grocery store is to the right of Jutendo, just FYI, as is the liquor store). And, instead of pulling in to the Jutendo parking lot, turn left on the road in front of it, and then right at the next major intersection and follow it around for less than a kilometer. All of a sudden, you will come upon this:

And this... minus the Guthries.

Park your car in a sort of small parking lot across the road in front of this gate and start walking through the gate. You will pass this building that looks like it is about to keel over...

... and an auto repair shop with a blue sign to find this:

 And this:

 And this:

This, too:

Ready to work off those macadamia nut pancakes? Start climbing! It's worth it! (There is away to drive up to the shrine above, but we didn't go looking for it. The map near where we parked the car may help if you're not a stair climber.)

At the top is a small shrine, and the cherry blossoms were still blooming while we were there... it was very pretty.

But keep walking... on the path to the right of this shrine... because there is more... stairs. And more shrine to see. I won't ruin it for you, but here are some fun highlights:

I am sure this shrine has a name, but I did not learn what it was. But, if you can find the Jutendo, chances are you can find the shrine. Just look for this:

After burning off the pancakes, there was still plenty of afternoon left, so we headed off to Number 4 on the map above... a wind park. I do not know what the wind park is for, since there was nothing going on that day. The picture on the map above has some hang gliders, so there you go. But the building at the wind park does have a grassy slope on one side of the building that gives you a great view of the Oshima foothills.

While I don't have a picture of it, from this slope, we could see a clock tower to the left of the view above with some steps or seating around it. The spouse wanted to check it out, so we drove over there next. There wasn't much to see, so we drove past and started to look for a place to turn around... and came across a glass beach, seemingly untouched.

Until we got there and climbed down... no stairs... it is definitely a bot a of a drop, but my Big OK butt managed to do it. With assistance from the Big OK spouse, but really, nothing I couldn't have managed to do alone, but I know how he likes to feel needed . ;)

We stopped and collected all sorts of treasures. The glass and ceramic pieces we found were all sanded down smooth by the salt water and there were so many colors and patterns! Anyone who enjoys collecting sea glass would enjoy it here. Xan even found a discarded frying pan. Lots of treasures for everyone!

Number 5 on the map was actually something we did on the way home to Iwakuni the next day, but I'm going to add it here. As you drive along the coast of the island, past Aloha Orange and Jutendo, but just before the tun off for Katazoe Beach, you will find this market and visitors center:

Nothing is in English, but it is fun to look around, shop and eat. And go island hopping. There were pictures and maps that explained this in the visitors center, otherwise I would not have known. If you park and walk behind and to the right of the building you see above, there is a wharf, where you can follow the sea wall in an "L" shape until you reach a sandy peninsula. And then, you can walk out to the "island." Warning: There is a lot of discarded trash around, so if you have toddlers, keep an eye on them. They might find a rusty bucket or twelve. But the views are gorgeous... and the trash, interesting.

And the kids said the rock climbing was superb.

So, after we had our exploring adventures, we headed back to the cabin. We had hot dogs to roast and a birthday to celebrate!

Now, I realize that I did not share pictures of part of the cabin in the last post. This is the inside of the front door.

When you enter the cabin though this door, you are immediately greeted by this:

And I mean the huge window, not the redneck with the barbecue and large child. There is a window decal on the glass because I am sure some drunk Japanese guy tried to walk through one of these windows once. I almost did and I was sober. Margaritas are hard to find in Japan.

As you are staring at the window, you can turn to the left and find the bathroom sink area:

To the right of the sink is the shower room.. which Rodney and I are considering installing in our next home. But with higher amenities so that Big OK people can fit better.

 And to the left of the sink area is the toilet:

All of this is important in the story I am about to tell. The cake had been eaten, everyone was in bed. Rodney was playing games on his iPad and listening to music with his headphones. I was reading a book on my iPad. The boys were asleep. Before I settled in to go to sleep, I decided to use the bathroom so that my uncomfortable sleep wouldn't be disturbed. I tuned on only the lights necessary and did my business. I came out to head to bed and was greeted by this:

Now, this is a picture of a huntsman spider that I pulled off of the internet, but it looked like that. Very common in Japan, apparently. Especially when cabining. I was too busy yelling and running to get a picture of my own. It was the size of a drink coaster. Not kidding. I shrieked... a lot... and ran. The spider ran, too, right in to the shower room. I yelled for Rodney... who did not say a word and definitely did not come running to my aid. I ran back to the bed and found him happily humming along to his music. He had his headphones in and couldn't hear his damsel in distress. I ran over to him, yanked his earphones out and told him that he obviously didn't hear my shrieking. Neither did the kids, apparently, because they remained fast asleep through the whole thing.

Of course I told him about the huge spider, to which, he sighed, nodded and got out of bed to remove from my presence. His demeanor definitely suggested that he believed I was over reacting. I stayed where it was safe - on the bed - and let him go kill the spider alone.

"Holy $h!t!!!" is what I heard from the bathroom. Mmm, hmm, yeah. Remember, I'm not prone to over-exaggeration when it comes to the size of things, dear. And then I caught "Bring me something to kill it with! This paper towel isn't enough!"

I glanced around the cabin.. iPads... no... chopsticks.... no.... rice cooker... no.... plastic box from the fishing pole... yes! I grabbed the yard-long plastic box and tossed it to the spouse before climbing back on the bed.

BAM-bam-bam-bam-BAM! BAM! BAM! "Ugh! He's getting away!" BAM! Bam-bam-bam! BAM! Bam-bam-bam! "He's running for the door!" Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-BAM-BAM! "Got it!" And then the paper towel came in handy so the not-so-small corpse could be disposed of.

I cabined instead of camped so I could avoid large creatures with too many legs. I am going to assume this was just our lucky night with arachnids and say that yes, I will cabin again. The fact that there is a lovely view, flushing toilet and warm shower makes it tolerable... but I will definitely be bringing air mattresses and possibly a maid. Between all the cooking, bed-making and spider-finding, I didn't get as much quiet reading time in as I had hoped.

Cabining in Oshima, Day 1

Each spring break, we try to take a little family trip. Last year was Sasebo. This year was cabining. And I say "cabining" because, and I am using third person to place emphasis on this properly, Jessica does not camp. I tried camping in Girls Scouts about three times: 4th grade, 5th grade and 6th grade, and the experiences progressively got worse. These experiences included icy winds whipping THROUGH our cabin all night (to the point where we were so cold, we were a shade of blue and got to sleep in the facility's cafeteria the next night), vomit and menarche. Add to that overflowing porta-potties, having the lyrics of "Pour Some Sugar on Me" written on my arm in Sharpie, and dust so thick you couldn't breathe, and I'd had enough by junior high. I do not camp.

Cabining, however, is something I might be able to appreciate... if I brought a maid along with me. Let me explain.

As a Christmas present, our neighbors took the boys cabining a couple of months ago and they had a great time, The boys were eager to share this experience with us, their parents, and asked if we could go for Spring Break. The spouse, who is from rural Illinois, felt the need to get back to his woodsy roots and was willing to go. That just left me as the party pooper, and, if you haven't learned anything from these posts, it's that I am willing to try nearly anything once. So, I agreed to try cabining. After getting information from the neighbors who put this idea in the boys' heads, I headed over to the ITT (travel) office on base, found in Crossroads Mall. There I told them where I wanted to camp, Katazoe Beach on Oshima Island (about an hour from base), and they used my cell phone to make the reservation. I could have done it myself, of course, but I do not speak Japanese. For a 4-person cabin, it runs about $130 a night. In my opinion, this is cheap, considering that Japanese hotels charge per person, meaning we spend more than $200 a night in most cases. ITT also gave me a map to the campground, and a list of all the amenities the campground had to offer. Our cabin had a kitchen, so we could cook meals there. We also rented a grill for 1,000 yen ($10) for each day. Yeah, that's expensive, but they clean it for you afterwards. Bonus.

So, not having been camping in my adult life, I definitely needed think seriously about what to pack. We brought food for five meals (one meal we were going to eat at Aloha Orange, a Hawaiian restaurant on the island that I recommend - be sure to get the macadamia nut pancakes), items to grill being the top staple. We remembered eggs, cereal and fruit for breakfast, hotdogs, hamburgers, ketchup, mustard and the things needed to make s'mores, but forgot salt and pepper. While sheets and blankets are provided, you need to bring your own bath and kitchen towels, as well as bath soap... we did forget bath soap, but, luckily I had some soap left from a hotel stay a few months back. Mom saves the day! Essentially, by the time we were done packing to be gone for 48 hours, the four of us had filled the back of my large sedan.

So much for packing light. But we were on the road a little after 1 p.m. so we could check in around 3 p.m., the earliest you could check in to your cabin. While the staff does not speak much English, as long as you have your yen in hand, everything else kind of works itself out as you check in. You hand over the yen, they hand over sheets, a cabin door key and a pass that opens the electronic gate to the campground. A gated community, no less! But definitely have a Japanese translator on speed dial... I had to use my "Phone a Japanese Friend" option about an hour in to the cabining experience.

Spring break was an excellent time to go. The weather was cool but not miserable and it is not a popular time for the Japanese to camp, so there were only a few other people there. A Japanese family was truly camping... in a tent and everything. And there ended up being a group of Japanese men cabining on the hill above us. Other than that, we had the place to ourselves.

We got Cabin #5. And this was the view from our back porch:

For thse camping in tents, the building seen in the picture above is the bathrooms, showers and laundry room. Maybe this isn't "real" camping after all. No toilet paper leaves necessary.

This was the front of our cabin.

And the back... the spouse is already dressed in hunting gear, with a cigar, starting the grill. He looks happy, doesn't he?

This was a cabin behind us, which was easer to take a picture of. Ours was on a bit of a cliff, so getting a good shot of the porch was difficult.

Once all the required gear was brought in to the cabin, the males in the family scattered, leaving the housework to the lone female in the family. I supposed I could have gotten dirty with the boys or smoked a cigar with the spouse, but I was more of the mind to sit quietly, read and enjoy the view. Plus, there were perishable foods that needed to be put in to the (tiny) refrigerator, and iced tea to be made... I was thirsty. The beds needed to be made and storage was scarce, so I had to find a place for stuff to go so I wouldn't trip on it everywhere I moved. This where the maid would have come in handy.

Here is the one-room living area:

The kitchen:

The boys loved the bunk beds... they each have their own window!

Another plus to cabining: There is air conditioning and heating, with a remote control thermostat attached to the wall. There is another console on the wall near the front door. My neighbor who took my kids camping had explained that I needed to go to the console near the door to turn on the hot water for showers and cooking. I pressed every button that I could find on the console on the wall by the front door... no hot water. Rodney confirmed that my button pushing wasn't producing the required results. All of the buttons were in Japanese and the instruction booklet that comes with the cabin is... all in Japanese.

Hmmm... time to phone a friend. A Japanese-speaking friend. I texted a photo of the console to my friend Chie, along with a brief explanation of my predicament. It was a terrible quality photo and she called, asking if there was anyone there she could talk to about my predicament since she couldn't read the buttons on the photo. I told her I would call her back and made the 1-minute drive to the campground office. When I got in to the office, I called her back and handed the phone over to the guy at the front desk. His face was priceless. He looked at my phone, looked at me and squinted in disbelief. I said, "Please," and put the phone to my own ear in an attempt to show him how to use my iPhone. Sometimes sign language goes a long way. I handed the phone to him again. He took it delicately in his hand (I think he might have thought I had American cooties or something) and then said mushi-mushi, or whatever it is that means "hello, begin speaking" in Japanese. Chie explained my lack of hot water and Japanese reading and writing ability in a matter of moments, and I soon had the campsite guy following me to my cabin to show me how to turn the hot water on. Turns out, there is a whole other, third console in plain sight that I completely missed. He showed me how to turn on the hot water and then waited to make sure that I did, indeed, get hot water. I thanked him profusely, and then he headed back outside... and around the corner of the cabin to where my husband to grilling to ask him in limited English if everything was OK. Why he didn't ask me, I have no idea... maybe the (mostly untrue) rumors about dumb blondes has reached the island. Just because I couldn't find the third console in plain sight, geez. But I would not quibble... I now had hot water for a shower. Yet another benefit of cabining.

So here is how the afternoon went after we acquired hot water: Rodney was manly with the grill, the boys got dirty and found random "treasures" and I learned how to use the Japanese hot plate.

While I made all the beds, the guys were playing catch outside. While I put away the groceries, Rodney was "manning" the grill while the boys searched for just the right sticks for roasting marshmallows. While I made iced tea and cut produce for the burgers, the boys played tag outside and Rodney lit a cigar while stoking the grill. I didn't really get in my reading time like I had hoped. Again, a maid would have been nice.

We did go for a stroll down to the beach, but the sun was going down and it was quite chilly. We still had plenty of fun looking at weird plants and poking things washed up on the beach with a stick.

The spouse grilled hamburgers for dinner, followed by s'mores, which I had not made or eaten since Girls Scouts... they are actually quite tasty when you haven't set your marshmallow on fire. Not that Xan would know...

 I got a birds-eye view of dinner from the top of the bunk beds (with their own windows!)

While the boys were excited about the sleeping arrangements, Rodney and I were less so. Basically, the beds were tatami mats with thin futon mattresses. Thirty-something Americans aren't designed for these. Especially the spouse, who somehow convinced me it was better to sleep together on a narrow space with two futon mattresses stacked beneath us. Sleep was.... difficult. Let's just say that if we cabin again, we will be bringing air mattresses and sleep separately.

Day 2 is when the real adventure began...