24 October 2010

We all slept well for a good nine hours, without waking at all, with Emily finally coming round at 6.30am. We lay on our futons while she roamed the room, until it was time to get ready for breakfast. This was served in the same dreary room downstairs. Again the surroundings diminished my appetite and I just picked at most of the usual fish, rice and accompaniments laid out. After hurriedly packing up we checked out with the same doleful chap on reception and got on our way.

It was very gloomy outside to start with but continued with our plan to begin with a walk on Mount Mihara. A switchback road took us from sea level to the car park at the edge of the caldera, several hundred metres above.

Emily was really tetchy at first and complaining about being cold despite several layers, but thankfully her mood improved, even as the weather also took a turn for the better. By the time we had ambled up to the lip of the caldera it was coming through blue and sunny and we ended up stripping down to T-shirts while in the shelter of the flat half-mile or so between caldera and crater rim. We all walked along a few hundred metres of the path through the scrub and black lava rocks and sand, but then it became obvious that Emily would not make it much further and as we didn't have the carrier I told Nick to go on so that at least one of us could ascend far enough to see the main crater and steaming fumeroles.

Emily and I strolled back towards the car, collecting many interesting leaves, berries and sticks along the way.

Coming towards us, I was not that surprised to see the gaijin family again. After a while I spotted a distant lone figure coming back down hastily, so we waited for Nick to catch us up. He was quite sunburned as he hadn't taken his hat and there was no shade on the exposed path.



It was only a 20 minute drive over to the eastern side of the island and Oshima Park, which has an extensive camellia wood and also a small zoo. Emily loved the many ring-tailed lemurs and also the farm animals.

The staff had some guinea pigs and a rabbit out for petting, and Emily got to hold the fluffy grey bunny on her lap. I'm not sure who was the more nervous!


I thought she would like the lesser panda best


but I think hunger had taken over by then as she seemed uninterested, and we whizzed around the other exhibits (giant tortoises, emus, llamas, parrots) before heading back out to eat lunch. The area we had hoped to eat at - with grassy slopes leading down towards the sea far below - was out of bounds due to large-scale redevelopment of parts of the park, so we pulled up a bench outside the small kiosk and had our picnic there. A cat came over to inspect us and Emily enjoyed throwing it a few tidbits. It started to spot with rain and as we needed to get on anyway we packed up and got back into the car.


By the time we had driven the 20 minutes back to the port it was bucketing down and did not relent the rest of the day, so we considered ourselves very lucky to have had a pleasant morning. Emily fell asleep on the drive to Motomachi, so we had to park at the car rental return place and sit out the rest of her nap. When the announcement came to board the jetfoil we scuttled out onto the unsheltered quay and took our seats in the busy boat. The journey back felt longer as we couldn't see out of the steamy windows, but luckily I had planned ahead and brought the iPod, so Emily was happy listening to her CDs on there most of the way. We were annoyed to have to wait quarter of an hour for a taxi at Takeshiba, because the other passengers were picking up passing cabs up the road and not at the designated taxi rank (unusual for Japanese to flout the rules like that but due to the rain it seems it was every man for himself this time).