Trip to Moriumius, Oshika and Kinkasan - Day 2
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| Belinda the Goat |
A chilly breeze blew alongside us as we commenced our first activity for the day, cleaning. It was a wholehearted experience as we used brooms and mops to make the activities centre squeaky clean. Whilst cleaning, we spotted Belinda the goat, who was to my surprise, gigantic!! As she slowly made her way around chewing both grass and cud, we could see an expression of peace and contentment on her face, even allowing us to touch and pat her.
After a hearty and sumptuous breakfast made by the Moriumius staff, we grabbed our jackets and towels and headed out to do kayaking in the sea!!
I was very excited as, though I had done kayaking before, this was the first time I was going to do it in the sea. At the beginning, I thought the waves might capsize my kayak but on reaching the beach, I realized that as Japan's coastline is funnel shaped, the sea comes a considerable distance into the mainland hence, there are almost no waves. A fun fact I learnt from our guide was that after the tsunami, only thirty people still live alongside the beach and whenever they go out, they leave their houses unlocked and their doors ajar!! This shows the amount of trust they have in each other😁
After going through the regular life jacket and security checks, I got into my kayak. The seating space was small with two pedals at the far end of the kayak on which we could firmly rest our legs on. I was a bundle of nerves as my boat got pushed into the water. When we started, I kept going off direction and did not know how to steer; but as time progressed, I got better and better, and became the fastest and best at kayaking in my class. Kayaking was an amazing venture for me as I paddled alongside the slight drizzle, the spray of the salty sea water and the omnipresent rocks.
Following the morning session, we ate our "bento"(Japanese lunch) and boarded the bus to go for our afternoon activity, tending a rose garden. To be honest, that was what we were meant to do, except the skies opened up at the last moment giving way to heavy rain. Nevertheless, we reached the garden which is run by the teacher who we met on the previous day. We trudged inside a small building in the garden and we found out that it also had a coffee shop and was a meeting place for the old people in town as they would sit and talk together, along with tending to the plants.
As we could not go outside, our first indoor task was to clean the rust from the plant trimmers using aluminium foil. Whilst performing this task, we heard someone wishing us. When I looked up to see who it was, I gasped in surprise and almost fell out of my chair, it was the First Lady of Japan and wife to the Japanese Prime Minister Mr. Shinzo Abe, Ms. Akie Abe. I presume she had visited Ogatsu to supervise the building of the tsunami walls and had visited the rose garden on invitation . I was too stunned to even speak, as she wished us best of luck and left. Though we met her only for a few minutes, I will always cherish my encounter with her.
Then, we were given a plastic bag and three whole bunches of the lavender flower. Our job was to pluck the flowers and collect them together. This would later be made into a bouquet.
Though I had seen lavenders before, this was the first time I could actually smell them; it had a heady scent and made me fall drowsy. After somehow managing to finish my task along with taking huge gulps of this aroma, we thanked the teacher for so kindly letting us work in the rose garden and we returned to Moriumius.
We took a relaxing bath in the hot spring and following a reflection session and a tummy-bursting dinner, we hit the bed which resulted in me to falling asleep before the lights were turned of.
If you want to know how my visit of the Kinkasan island and my campsite night went on, please stay in tune to catch my next blog😃
Amazing blog kannan,keep writing.
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