Our room in Wakamatsu
After we checked out of our minshuku this morning, we rode down to the park at Wakamatsu Port to have a lazy morning by the sea. The dock area has lawned areas with shady rotundas – just what we needed to sit, relax, read and watch the boats come and go. Today is a public holiday, so people were out and about enjoying their day off. We located the supermarket (just in case we ever felt like eating again after yet another marathon breakfast).
These nice old timers had a good chat with us.
The one in the white shirt looked just like a Buddha statue!
I'd like to put him in my garden and polish his head every day.
Youngsters enjoying their day off.
(If you squint and look really closely,
you'll see that the middle boy has caught a fish)
We experienced some interesting noises during the morning – firstly we heard more of the ‘horse birds’ that we have been hearing during our stay on the Goto Islands. We don’t know what they look like but I’m picturing a small bird with a long mane and tail. The other noise sounded just like the Tardis landing, so we waited for Dr Who to appear, but this turned out to be just a couple of barges rubbing up against the docks whenever any waves caused by passing boats caused them to rock.
The Wakamatsu dock area from on high
The dock area has an interesting system of railings – there is one set of posts and chains for the high tide level and another set which is under the water at high tide, but exposed at just the right level at low tide.
The lower railings emerging as the tide went out
The 'high tide' railings are on top of the wall
John performed a good deed by rescuing a spiky sea urchin creature that became stranded when the tide went out. It was a very ugly creature, but we thought its mother probably loves it and it would be better off in the sea than gasping on the concrete path. [Stop press: I just found out that sea urchin roe retails for $450/kg!]
We dropped in to the supermarket at lunch time and bought a sandwich, bun and fruit juice. It turns out that we did become hungry after all and it was very nice to have familiar food. It seems that the minshuku operators want to offer us every possible item of Japanese food that exists. We will both be quite happy to leave the big plates of sashimi behind and as for the jellied grey things, I just don’t want to talk about it! I have a theory about something that we’ve been eating while on the Goto Islands, but I’m going to keep it to myself until nearer the end of the holiday as I don’t want John to become aware of my thoughts just yet.
The lady from tonight’s minshuku said that she would come over to get us at 3.00 at the place where we stayed last night, so she could escort us to her place. Good plan! We would never have found it on our own. After offloading our bags and having a cup of tea with the lady (who can’t speak one word of English) we went for a ride out to the western end of the island. This was a lovely ride in the cool of the late afternoon with more of those great ‘sea and mountain’ views.
Back at the minshuku we were presented with an enormous dinner which we didn’t have a hope of consuming. We just made sure we had a bit of everything and hoped we didn’t cause offence. Once we’d conceded defeat and said that we were full, the dear lady proudly presented a plate full of peeled persimmons – which is another of John’s dislikes. There was no way that I was going to eat the whole plateful by myself, so I managed to convince John to force a couple of pieces down and I had the rest. I don’t mind them, but it was rather more than I wanted to eat. My Japanese phrase of the week is "Onaka ga ippai!!" which means "my stomach is full".
Keep on eating!
I’m really struggling with sitting on the floor to eat as my arthritic hip is particularly painful at the moment. It’s impossible to get comfortable whether I put my legs to the left, right, underneath or out in front, so after having a soak in the bath to ease it a bit, I’m now typing this laying on the floor on my futon with the computer propped up on my belly (that’s the big round thing that’s full of interesting sea creatures and persimmons at the moment).
Tomorrow night we’re staying in an ordinary hotel and we’ll be able to go out for dinner to have a normal human being’s sized meal of our choosing. It’s been interesting being exposed to this lifestyle, and the experience of travelling around Goto has been amazing, but we’re now both ready to return to normal beds, tables and chairs and identifiable food items.
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