Beach bums

For Saturday 8^th October

After another big Japanese breakfast, we headed off this morning with onigiri (rice balls) and two bottles of ice tea supplied by our lovely minshuku lady. 

We took the road over the range of hills, eventually dropping down to the sea on the other side, then road around to Miyanomori Beach.  This was a lovely pebbly beach with see-through water and some nice shelters to sit in while admiring the view and listening to that very relaxing lapping water sound.  We stayed there for a while just taking it easy and reading our Kindles on yet another blue-sky day.

Our trusty steeds at Miyanomori

My relaxed husband at Miyanomori

Good thing we didn't want to go surfing!

The minshuku lady had given us a brochure about an art exhibition so we went for a walk to look for it.  It was just a few minutes down the road from the beach.  We were a bit confused, as we could see that the building we were going in to was an elementary school and it wasn’t obvious where the exhibition was.  We went in anyway and there wasn’t a soul in sight.  After we peered around for a while trying to find out where to go, a man appeared and took us upstairs.  He switched on all the lights in the exhibition room and let us in. 

The exhibition was amazing!  It consisted of the work of several Japanese artists including Kasamatsu Hirotomo, a Goto local.  After we’d been looking for a while, a man who spoke very good English turned up and explained to us about the artists and the exhibition.  The school is no longer operating as a school, having amalgamated with a Junior High School, and is now used as an arts centre.  The man had come over from a shed/workshop in the grounds of the school and told us that he was over there doing pottery with a hobby potters group.  He said that we were welcome to go over and see them at work when we’d finished.  We spent a while viewing the pictures which were of a great standard – a very unexpected addition to our sightseeing agenda for the day!

We then went over to the potters and spent some time admiring their work and their huge on-site kiln.  They were all very friendly and we were able to convince them to pose for a photo.

The hobby potters at work (or play?)

Naru is shaped like a butterfly, with the town as the central ‘bug’.  Our accommodation and Miyanomori Beach are on the right-hand wing, so we came back through the town to cross over to the other wing, after stocking up with some fruit, nuts etc. to go with our rice balls.  We rode around exploring the ‘West Wing’, stopping for lunch by the sea.  Around every corner was another lovely view of sea, hills, boats and hovering kites (of the bird variety).

Across the road from our lunch spot by the sea

We found our way round to ‘Beach Rock’ which is an area of pebbly conglomerate.  The pebbles look as though they could just break off, but they are actually firmly cemented together by lime.  Apparently this took place about 6000 years ago.  The conglomerate contains fragments of ‘cord pottery’ from the Jomon period (you can find this on Google or Wikipedia if you so desire). 

At Beach Rock - the end of the road!

The black lines on the road are shadows from power lines,

 not rubber marks from us skidding to a halt!

We finished off the day by going back to Miyanomori Beach and just relaxed and read in the fresh air.  There are some very interesting bird noises around here.  As well as the crows, which seem to speak Standard Crow, there are the horse-birds that start off with a bird noise that transforms into a whinnie at the end, something else that goes 'myuck, myuck, myuck' and an 'Aussie, Aussie, Aussie' bird.  The latter goes 'Oi, Oi, Oi', so I put in the 'Aussie, Aussie, Aussie' and we had a good conversation.

More calm sea views than we ever imagined!

Back at the minshuku, we had a bath and dinner and blobbed the evening away.  This is the life!


[note: during our travels, I referred to Miyanomori Beach as Miyanohama.  I hope I have now corrected this in all places where I had it wrong]