Last weekend we went to Awaji Island. Its a great little place only about 40 km from our home. You can see the bridge that connects the mainland to the island from our deck on a clear night. I had been to the island with Sean once before. I had written about it because to get there you have to cross the world's largest suspension bridge. Tracy planned the whole weekend - kudos to her. We stayed at a great hotel there, this was the view from our balcony:
We arrived on Friday night after I got off work. On Saturday we did lots of cool things. The first was a trip down to the South end of the island. We wanted to do a boat tour and see the whirlpools that they are famous for - in the Naruto Strait. While waiting for the boat we did some walking around. One of the things that Awaji is well known for is great seafood. The picture below is a "snack" that I thought looked very interesting. Octopus Jerky, anyone?
This is Sean and I on the boat. The next photo is of the whirlpools.
After we got off the boat we went to check out the "Monkey Center". We had to drive about 30 minutes up the coast along a little road that seemed to be about as wide as a driveway. It was an amazing drive that made me wish I had my motorcycle. The monkey center was great, I love the monkeys. Its the first time we had been to a place where the animals were just running wild all around. Luckily they didn't want much to do with us.
After the monkey center we went to a ranch/farm that has horses, cows, etc. I think it was more impressive for the Japanese than a could people from Iowa. After all the running around we went back to the hotel to relax a bit. As you can see someone wasn't quite out of energy yet.
On Sunday we drove around the island and stopped at a great little park under the big bridge. Someday we can prove to Sean that he was once standing under the world's largest.
It was a fun little wekeend getaway. We will be going back many more times - especially to check out the beaches this summer.
