Akiyoshidai is yet another cool place that I didn’t get to see in person. Take a look at my friend’s recollections. Please take a look at the original post to see all the photos! https://guyandgalphotoblog.wordpress.com/2015/08/29/akiyoshidai-cave/
By Rachel Kitai (Guest Blogger)
Rachel Kitai is a traveler and an artist, see her work here: http://rachelkitai.com/
On Saturday morning, the Cooper family and I loaded into the family car and drove from Hiroshima for about 2 hours to the Akiyoshidai Cave, Japan’s largest and longest limestone cave. After a short break at a gas station, we made it to the Akiyoshidai Cave! Or at least the parking lot relatively close to the Akiyoshidai Cave.
After we parked, there was a long walkway of sorts lined with shops on either side. These shops were full of rocks, gems, magnets, keychains, phone bangles, and more. There was one restaurant with a display of their food in display cases and an ice cream shop. The ice cream shops sell primarily one ice cream flavor with and then you choose what kind of syrup flavor or jimmies you want on top. At the end of this walkway was the ticket booth to buy the tickets to the cave.
We walked the 1 km of the cave and came up the other side after a very long flight of stairs. In reality, the entire cave is 9 km long but only 1 km is actually open to the public.
Unfortunately, I had to go to the bathroom and the bathroom on the other side was actually a bunch of holes in the ground. I really wish I had googled how to use those types of bathrooms online or that they kept a how-to pamphlet in the stalls. Regardless, I figured it out and I peed in a squat toilet. Unfortunately (again), there was no soap or paper towels and I was not prepared as I normally was with hand sanitizer. Whatever – life goes on; I survived. And we made our trek out and above the cave to get back to the parking lot.
