Wabisabi - Blog -

For some reason I really have been wanting to explore caves. With my children being of the right age, I decided to take my family to visit some caves in Japan.

The closest caves from Tokyo are the Abukuma limestone caves in Fukushima prefecture. It is a little misleading when I say “close” since the caves are still a couple hundred miles away.

The Abukuma limestone caves were estimated to have formed over a period of 8,000 million years-that’s a time frame that is hard to wrap your head around… But what a sight! The cave is roughly 2,000 feet wide. Large stalactites hang from the ceiling with others seemingly springing up from the ground like bamboo shoots-all in mysterious shapes, colors, and forms…..

While walking through the cave the path divides into two. One path is considered the “easy” route while the other one offers the visitor a more adventurous path. My wife and I decided to split up. I took my youngest son down the “easy” path while my wife took the two older children down the “adventure” path. The kids were scared at first but in the end really enjoyed the exploring.  There is another cave nearby called Irizuma Shonyudoh, which I will introduce, in my next entry. B

This entry was posted on Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 1:24 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.