On Saturday Mason had arranged for us to take a trip through the Yakota base ITT office. The trip was a 2.5-3 hour bus ride to a traditional Japanese country village, an ice age, wind cave, and bat cave. We had to be at the base at 6:45am, so we woke up early and were able to catch a taxi to the front gate and then walk a couple of blocks to the meeting spot. When the busses arrived we realized there were two different tours that day and that this was a quite popular way for people from the base to see different parts of the county. I was most nervous about how the bus rides would go with the little guys, but fortunately they went really well and felt faster than 3 hours by the time we had a rest stop and got on our way. There were some amazing views of Mt. Fuji on the way as well, so that was lots of fun.
The Villiage, Saiko Iyashi-no-sato was really interesting. It was a relazing environment and we had a few hours to check it out. Some of the homes in the village had local art displays for sale and had some very nice art. We weren't able to take photos in several of the rooms with art work for sale, but I was quite taken with one artist who had several carved owls. Many of the people in our tour group stopped at one of the locations to dress up in kimonos and take photos, but we enjoyed watching them while looking around. We saw different pottery, paper workshops, fabrics, a shrine, a water mill house and many other things.
There was a small market set-up as we left and it was interesting to see the different produce available for sale. We skipped the squid, but a lady gave me a sample of a Fuji apple. After getting back on the bus we headed to our lunch location which was a really nice buffet. There was a mizture of Asian foods, American foods, and desserts. The boys were happy to have pizza, the green drink, access to the chocolate fountain, and Mason enjoyed some Asian chicken.
The kiddos were most excited about the upcoming caves, although I am not a huge fan of caves, so I was a little nervous. We went to the Narusawa Ice Cave first and were disappointed that Max and I couldn't go with the group (another two families had the same situation) because babies were not allowed in the cave. There were a pretty cold location and a super narrow/low area, so our tour group went in and then luckily they waited for the rest of us moms to take a turn to go through. We got to wear cute hard hats and the kids went with me after they got to go with Mason. There was definitely a narrow spot, but seeing so many elderly people emerge made me feel encouraged that I could do it. It did get cold in the ice cave, but it was so neat!
We then headed to the Fugaku Wind Cave which was a short drive away. This place was fun because we had to walk a short trail through the forest to get to the entrance. I have to say, I just kept thinking of Tennessee and the hiking we've done in the past. It smelled great, the trees were amazing, and I feel empowered when we get to go into nature. The kids had so much fun! Inside the wind cave we got to see more ice structures and it was actually used as a freezer at one point in history. Mason and the kids definitely enjoyed the caves, and it was fun to have this as an end cap to our vacation.
The last cave was the Saiko Bat Cave. The boys, Woodrow especially, was convinced that Batman lived in the bat cave. It was pretty cute! They did have a small batman where we picked up our helmets too, so that was exciting. We walked along another path here and were told that inside the cave there was one route with a very low passage and the "basic route." We started off together and then Mason and the boys went along the low passage and Max and I followed the basic route, which did end up meeting back up. Mason reported that it was pretty low, ha! We didn't end up seeing any bats though, and were told that before entering. There was actually a door in the cave that the guides said the bats were behind way deep in the cave. Ask Woodrow about the bat cave and he'll tell you a pretty funny story all about how Batman is sleeping back there with the bats.
While we were cleaning up and waiting for our tour group to gather the kids and I grabbed some ice cream to share. There were different stops that we saw throughout the day, with different flavors. I had heard that the purple flavor was very good, but this stand had corn flavored ice-cream. I just had to try it. We ended up getting a corn/vanilla swirl cone. Not a flavor I'd like to eat every day, but it wasn't too bad. It mostly tasted like buttered popcorn. We hopped on the bus and headed back to Yakota. We were back a little early and fortunately the traffic wasn't too bad at rush hour. We ended up walking from the base to our hotel room, about a mile, and then we pretty much got cleaned up and organized for the morning.
On Sunday we were up very early to head back to Tokyo to catch our flight. We had about 2 hours of train rides to get there. Mason navigated us well and it wasn't too crowded on the trains which was nice. That way we were able to sit. The morning went smoothly with travel, checking in, and getting to our gate. Mason was upgraded again and again offered the seats up to Max and myself. It was quite nice and I'm getting super spoiled with air travel. Max had just fallen asleep when we were getting ready to takeoff and he slept for a little while, although I had hoped that he would have slept longer, but he of course woke up right when the meal was being served. Fortunately, the people sitting next to us didn't end up with food on them. The flight went smoothly for everyone, I even got to watch the new Beauty and the Beast. The only downfall to the day was having a dead car battery when we got back to our car in the parking lot, but we got it worked out and made it home sweet home!
For more pictures:
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