Linking Maine and Japan

Hooray Red Sox!  Wow!

I have been away from internet access for 3 days.  So many things to share.  I spent wonderful two days with my kind and generous host family.  The man is a junior high school principal, the woman is a former teacher.  The couple took me to their “Holiday Home” on Awaji Island.  We rode on the longest suspension bridge in the world, 3.91 km.  Can you figure out how long that is in miles?  The bridge links mainland Hyogo prefecture to Awaji Shima, the largest island in the Seto Inland Sea after Shikoku.  I stayed on the south west side of the island.  Our house was on the top of a mountain overlooking the sea and the bridge.  There were 15 huge windmills for generating electricity on the top of the mountain near the house.

On Sunday we went for a boat ride to see the famous Uzushio whirlpools in the Naruto channel of the sea.  The Naruto whirlpools are produced by one of the strongest swift currents in the world.  The channel between Ooge Island and Awaji Island is very narrow.  The swift current is caused by a difference in water levels between the Seto Inland Sea and the Kii channel.  This is caused by the two different tides meeting, with a maximum difference of 1.5 meters.  I read that the speed of the current here is the fasted in Japan and the third fastest in the world.  The slow part of the current slides next to the fast current.  It was pretty scary, but very exciting to ride out in the currents and whirlpools.

We also went to a toy factory (good story here!) and a bunraku puppet theatre.  I am so lucky that my host family took me to so many exciting things in Japan.

Mrs. Grumbling