Wading with sharks...

My oldest son, Will, who's 11, is really in to studying fish right now. River Monsters is one of his favorite shows to Netflix, and he is constantly bombarding us with fish facts. He wants to be either an ecologist or a marine biologist and has even has created a fish journal to record all of his findings. Being the scholarly parent that I am, I figured a trip to the Oshima aquarium would be a good place to go last Sunday afternoon.

I had heard there was an aquarium on the small island of Oshima, about 40 minutes from Iwakuni, but didn't have details about Nagisa Aquarium until I went on to one of my favorite sites, Iwakuni Explorer. A fellow military family created this website in the spring to help out adventuring Americans such as myself. I highly recommend it.

Despite the threat of rain, the Guthries headed out to Oshima island, but we needn't have worried - the aquarium, all three and a half rooms of it, was indoors. Now, don't let the size of the aquarium allow you to dismiss this place. Although it is small, and nothing (including the signs telling you to stay out of certain areas) is in English, this was still worth an hour of our time and it was about $6 for all four of us to visit. A bargain, in my opinion.

Upon entering, you find yourself in the reception area, with a fish tank, a cashier and a freezer full of ice cream. Move in to the building and you'll find, basically, a concrete bunker with aquarium windows lining the walls. These appear to be local fish, although I cannot swear by it, because all of the informational signs were in Japanese and Latin, and I don't read either language. But here are some of my favorite fish:

I think these guys get the "Ugliest Fish" award.

These jellyfish were about the size of golf balls and just so relaxing to watch.

I felt bad for this guy. He's more than a yard long. It was just him in a tank about the size of a dining room table. No rocks, no other fish, nothing. He looked thrilled just to have someone stop by his tank. Well, as thrilled as a fish can look. 

My absolute favorites were these puffer fish... they were as curious about my camera as I was about them.

In the center of one of the two aquarium rooms was a touch tank the kids enjoyed playing in... but the real fun was in the last room.

Xan, who was curious, but left the real, ooh-ing and ahh-ing to his big brother.

Will did not want to pause to look at me ad smile for this photo. But I told him to cooperate once and I'd leave him alone. He cooperated once.

The final, and largest, room was where you could take your shoes off and wade with sharks. And sea slugs and sea cucumbers and starfish and crabs and sea stars and other sea life. It was a lot of fun. And we had to put a time limit on Will since we were getting hungry. I think he could have stayed there for days.

Touching a shark.

This guy was just trying to not get stepped on.

That area back behind the woman in the denim skirt is a wading pool you are not supposed to wade in. Apparently a sign in Japanese tells you this, but since I couldn't read it, I waded. And was told in decent English by one of the employees that I had to get out. Whoops! Chalk up one for the dumb American.

Someone who had no desire to stay there for days was Rodney. He grudgingly waded with the sea life for about 10 minutes before quietly escaping back to the benches when I was too busy being intrigued by the kids' delight in the feel of shark skin. But, at least he can now check "wade with sharks" off of his bucket list. (Author's note: Rodney just informed me that no such thing was on his bucket list. OK, fine. My bucket list for him.)

The water was a bit cold at first.

A case of "If I can't see you, then you can't take a picture of me"? I think not.

I asked Will to make sure he got our feet. I should have been more specific and told him to make sure to get both of each of our feet.

Escape to the benches.

After we got our shoes on and darted out to the car through the rain, we headed back off of the island, first stopping at the tasty Aloha Orange restaurant for some Hawaiian grub. A new favorite of all of ours. If you go, you MUST try the macadamia nut pancake!

Three Falls... three boys... and a camera...

In early June, I got the bug to go out and enjoy Mother Nature for a few hours. Those of you who know me well, you know that this is a rare occurrence. I enjoy Mother Nature for an hour or two at a time, unless I am sunbathing on a beach. Then, it can go all day if I have a good book, huge cup of iced tea with Sweet n Low (preferably from Sonic) and the lack of a husband who doesn't like sand or crowds (thank you Iraq deployments). If the husband is in tow, I'm usually ready to drop him back off at home in about 35 minutes.

Living in Japan, I have heard about some gorgeous hikes people can take if they are so inclined. I am rarely inclined to hike or camp, so I hear about these trips and I say all the things one is supposed to say, like "Wow! That sounds amazing!" and "What a great opportunity!" but I do not commit to actually participating in such activities. There is a valid reason. I have tried hiking, biking and camping (I was a Girl Scout and I went to college in Flagstaff, Ariz., home to thousands of tree huggers, er, forest-lovers) and I always end up having something terrible happen to me... like it being so dusty that I get sick and throw up in my tent, or need to go to the bathroom so bad I rush back to my cabin, fall in a stream and the water was so cold that I pee myself. Thank God I was already wet from the fall... no one knew... until now. Or the time when a stick somehow got stuck in my mountain bike tire spokes on a downhill path and I was launched over the handlebars and enjoyed a face full of gravel. Or the two times I have managed to flip an ATV... both times in water/mud. No, Mother Nature and I have agreed that as long as I only stay out in the (relative) wilderness for only an hour or two at a time, she will not subject me with anything too terrible.

So the family, plus 5-year-old Junior, our neighbor we were babysitting, headed out to Three Falls one Saturday in June, about 40 minutes away from MCAS Iwakuni, in to the mountains. These falls are actually called Futashika Umezu by the Japanese, but you know how Americans are... if we can't pronounce it then we just give it a new name we can pronounce. Like New York. Or New Jersey. Or New Hampshire.

There are, in fact, three water falls at Three Falls, so, at least the description is an accurate one.

Falls 1 and 2

The Japanese apparently aren't too worried about people falling in to the shallow water with river rocks, or lawsuits from injured parties, or anything like that. There are very few rails, and those that they do have are simply a metal pipe to grab on to (see in the above photo), that may or may not be rusted. To get to the very end of the falls area, you have to climb up a steep metal ladder and some of the steps are chewed up by rust. But there wasn't a lot of "hiking" per se. More like "uphill walking" in some areas, and the kids managed it all just fine.

Falls 3, with Falls 1 and 2 framed in the background

No crowds + no sand = happy hubby

Proof Will and Xan were there.

Proof Junior was there. And so was his ninja bandana.

Proof I enjoy finding wildlife in when in the wilderness. And that frogs do a pretty good job of blending in to their surroundings.

Proof I was there and with people who had no patience, so I couldn't take the time to get a great exposure, and I had to use my camera flash, so now we look like we were poorly "Photoshopped" in to the shot, which, I assure you, was not the case.

As you can see from the photos, the area is beautiful. We hung out for about an hour before walking back to the car, about a 20 minute effort. In all, I was in nature for less than two hours. None of the kids fell in to the water, I did not pee on myself and there wasn't any sand for the spouse to complain about. That rates the trip as a success in my book.

Oshima Island: Dead ends, scenic views and floating trash...

My friend, Marilyn was kind enough to play tour guide for me Monday, taking me across the "big green bridge" about 40 minutes south of Iwakuni to what is actually called Suo Oshima island. We were going to eat lunch and attempt to drive around the island to take in the views of the Seto Sea.

There is a big Hawaiian influence on this small island and the favorite place among Americans to eat there is a Hawaiian restaurant called Aloha Orange. We ate there for lunch... While all of the food was good. I highly recommend completing you meal with the macadamia nut pancakes for dessert. They were fabulous.

Of course, I forgot to take photos of all of my food, butt hat just means that if you're in the area, you'll have to check the place out for yourself... word of warning: They are closed on Wednesdays.

This is also the place where I finally had no choice but to use a Japanese-style toilet. I had just told my mother than morning that I had lived in Japan a year and had managed to avoid Japanese "squatty potties." But, I drank too much oolong tea and had to go. Long story short... I managed not to pee on myself, but I am not sure if the people before we were as fortunate. There was wet and dry urine all over the floor. I have no idea why anyone would think these holes in the ground are more sanitary or easier to use than western-style toilets, but my knees and my shoes disagree.

After gorging ourselves on chicken, pork and pancakes, we headed out on the road... without a map, without using GPS, to drive around the coast of the island. We stopped every so often to get some photos. There was one beach that was exceptionally scenic from the road:

But I was a little disappointed once we walked down to the beach itself. There was trash of all kinds, everywhere along the beach and in the water:

As you can see from the very corner of one of the pictures, there were people happily swimming in the water. Moms wading with their toddlers, dads fishing with their kids, grandmas splashing. The trash did not seem to bother them at all. All I could think of was that if I saw this stuff, what small stuff that I couldn't see as easily was out there? I left my shoes on. Being from Southern California, and having lived in Pensacola for four years, I guess I was surprised. The American beaches I have frequented are much better maintained than this one was, surprising because the Japanese seem to take very good care of their resources.

But after my initial shock, we moved further down the beach (not too far, the beach was not large by any stretch of the imagination) and managed to keep the trash out of our cameras' frames to get these shots:

After about 20 minutes, the heat and humidity has already done their worst to us, so we trekked back up the stairs to the road where we parked, so we could get back in to the car, which featured fully operational air conditioning. I, forgetting what country I was in, stepped off the top stair, on to the main island road, a few steps away from the path of a Japanese semi truck. I was looking for traffic coming from the left instead of the right, and not really thinking straight. Fortunately, this all happened in less than a second, so I was able to quickly turn and take that step to my left, just as the semi truck blasted hot wind on the side of my face as it passed harmlessly by. Although Japanese semi trucks are only two-thirds the size of American ones, I am sure I would have lost that battle handily. Luckily, I lived to laugh at my sheer stupidity.

We jumped back in to the car and headed off on our trek around the island. What we assumed was that there was a road that went all the way around the island along the coast. Um, no. As you can see from this map, the island that has Yashiro Island along the south of it, is Suo Oshima. The yellow road we were on, 437, ends. Quite abruptly.

And this is what it looks like when it dead ends:

The road ends in somebody's driveway. I bet that guy is really tired of random, lost Americans visiting his house. Either that, or he finds it hilarious. I did not see anyone peeking out of the curtains, snickering, so I can't be certain.

So, Marilyn and I turned around and headed back to the last little village we passed on our journey, about 10 minutes back. In that village, there was a sign that looked like this:

We had already gone the Amafuri way.... we knew that was wrong. So, we attempted to go the Yuu way. Yuu is the city on the mainland that the "big green bridge" connects to, so we figured it would get us home. The trick was that there were three roads that veered to the right where this sign was. And one of them was NOT a kilometer away. We already saw that. So, we went with the theory that we had to veer now and go 1 km to meet the 60. OK... no problem. Except Road 1 took us back toward Deadend #1, Road 2 took us to this bamboo forest in someone's front yard:

and Road 3 took us up a hill to more front yards. I guess we were not meant to drive in a loop around the island, rather a straight line, back and forth, which is what we ended up doing, with a brief stop at 7Eleven for the bathroom and peach sherbet balls in a bag.

While the day's agenda had its ups and downs, I was with good company, so when you have good company and you're both willing to roll with the "Japanese adventure" punches, such as deadending everywhere you go while you have to pee pretty badly, you have a great day. And I did have a great day. I am looking forward to deadend-ing and avoiding beach trash on the south side of the island next time. ;)