Awaji Island

Today, myself and a group of 3 other teachers went to Awaji to check out the location that we will be planting rice later on the month. From Kobe, it took us about an hour to get there. The location is actually on the way to Takamatsu, so I have seen it from the bus many times before, but today I actually got to see more of it!

We left in the morning, so we had some time to spare before we had to meet up with a staff member from the location. The first place we stopped at was あわじ花さじき, which is a famous place for flowers. Although, right now is kind of an off or transitionary season, do there weren't so many flowers, but there were some snap dragons and verbena, which were pretty! We stopped there for a while to enjoy the flowers and take pictures.

View at あわじ花さじき

Together with Anna and Miki

Not lavender! -- Verbena!

 

Butterfly!

Catepillars in the pansies

 

Can you see the 2016 (with monkey) and the dinosaur?

 

After that, we stopped and got local ice cream. I had いちごモナカ, which was strawberry ice cream between two shell shaped pieces of cone. Dessert first! 

Ice cream, ice cream, let's eat ice cream!

Then we went to get lunch...we went to a place with local food (even the rice we had was Awaji rice! The meal I had was the only cooked option--焼穴子 or fresh water eel. And everyone's meal came with miso soup. It was so yummy!! Although we had to wait about 45 minutes after ordering to get our food because they were so busy. One of the other teachers also bought us some of the giant tempura onions to share. Awaji is also famous for its onions. Which are GIANT by the way.

*Photo by Aiko

Busy, busy restaurant

Lunchtime -- Awaji specialty foods

I'm telling you - they're HUGE!

Aiko, the GIANT onion and me

 

Lunchtime view

After lunch, we made our way to the venue and checked it out, asked questions and thought about how the trip will go with our students. Should be fun for them, but will be SO muddy! I'm sure there will be more on that later!