Wabisabi - Blog -

During the weekend I had a chance to visit the Oya Cavern in Tochigi prefecture. I’ve been looking forward to visiting this spot ever since I heard about them.

After paying the entrance fee (always a fee) you follow a narrow path that seems to take you far, far underground. At the bottom the path suddenly dumps you into an enormous space about the size of a baseball stadium.

This cavern was created through years of mining with 50 other locations, similar size, in the area. The total amount of excavated minerals is estimated to be about 10 billion tons. These enormous caverns were also used as secret ammunition dumps and underground factories during World War II.

While standing inside this enormous cavern you can’t help but feel overwhelmed-like you are in an illusion. It is a really strange feeling and probably similar to being inside the pyramids. Inside the caverns the temperature averages a cool 10 degrees Celsius. Even during the height of summer the caverns stay nice and cool. In fact, it is so cold inside you start seeing your breathe (eventually you need a jacket). But it was definitely a nice change from the stifling summer heat we were enduring above ground. It takes about 20 minutes to loop around the cavern at which time you start longing for the warmth above.

Enormous rock cliffs still remain around the caverns (picture).  Some have been carved into enormous Kanon statues.

（2009.10.13）

This entry was posted on Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 1:50 PM and is filed under Travel into local japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.