Awaji Island

Akashi Kaikyo National Government Park

Japan is a country made up of various islands. There are about four main islands: Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku. We live on Honshu and had mostly traveled on this island until this trip! We decided to take a day trip to Awaji Island. Yup, that's right, a day trip and with no ferry necessary to get to Awaji Island. Awaji Island is the largest island of the Seto Inland Sea and it only takes about two hours to get to by public transportation from Himeji. We didn't have to take a ferry since the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge (we visited it last year) connects Kobe city and Awaji Island. We just had to walk about 15 minutes from the JR Maiko Station to Kosoku Maiko Bus Stop where we caught an express bus headed for Higashiura Bus Terminal and got off at Yumebutai-mae bus stop.

  

From the bus stop it was a two-minute walk to get to Akashi Kaikyo National Government Park. We visited it in winter, so it wasn't as green as it would be in spring, but there were winter flowers and plants to view around the park. I imagine this park gets quite packed in the spring, but on our visit there were only a handful of families visiting, amd we didn't mind the smaller crowd. At times it was almost as if we had the whole park to ourselves to explore. There was even a giant phoenix statute made of flowers; it is called Hanahidori. I found out it is a phoenix statue meant to pray for recovery from earthquake disasters. Awaji Island was actually the epicenter of the catastrophic 1995 Kobe earthquake.

Awaji Island's most famous produce is the onion! If you didn't know that before, you'll find out when visiting any store there. There were many products relating to onions such as onion chocolate and even onion ice cream! I decided to try a lunch item with onion and went for the more appealing Awaji Golden Burger while Blake chose a Japanese onion curry.

  

Once we had our fill of onions, we visited Kiseki No Hoshi Botanical Museum, also called the Miracle Planet Museum of Plants.This museum has six exhibit rooms, each with a different theme. It's called a museum, but it wasn't your typically museum with informational signage to read. The exhibits are set up so that the viewer can appreciate nature and the important benefits that it provides. I love seeing plants and flowers at greenhouses. It always makes me wish I had more of a green thumb so that I could be able to grow a variety of plants whether edible, for medicinal use, or just to add some beauty.