Akiyoshido Cave 7-5 2013

A few weeks ago we took a long 2 hour drive (okay not that long lol) to Akiyoshido or Akiyoshi-dai Cave. We had no idea what to expect and only decided to do it because it was right down the road from Safari Land. It was a really nice area with a strip of shops and a few places to grab a bite to eat and all you have to do is follow the blue tiled road to the cave! hahaha

A map of the cave

As you can see the water is very high! Gotta love the rainy season. I'm curious to see what it looks like when it hasn't rained everyday for a few weeks

At this point you could feel the temperature change from the cave. It was amazing how cold it felt despite the awful humidity

Such a strong current! I would not want to get caught in that!!

Just a quick background before we go in the cave :)

The Akiyoshido Cavern is the Orient's largest limestone cave, located about 100 meters underground. This huge cave, which took 300,000 long years to be formed into what it is today, was made by limestone dissolving away in the ground water, and it extends for about 10 kilometers overall. Only about a one-kilometer (0.621 miles) long section is open to the public. The cave is a constant 17 degrees Celsius (62.6 degrees F) Brrrrrrrr! Actually I thought it was quite refreshing... could be the fact that I was carrying Haylen though lol

Oh one more quick note... We don't have too many pictures. As you can imagine it was kind of dark in there 

Sacrificial Goddess of Mercy

This is called the One Hundred Plates (though it actually has about 500 plates)

It's called this because it looks like a set of many dishes

The largest "dishes" are 3-4 meters across and the smaller ones are only 10cm in diameter

Straw-wrapped Persimmon

King Pillar

Dry Fall

King of the Cave

Secret Passage of the Cave Dragon

The Goddess of Mercy

Of course writing up this entry I felt the need to do some research on the Cave and come to find out we missed a whole section of it. LOL You can actually travel to the top of the mountain and view the largest limestone karst plateau in Japan with a 360 degree view from an observation deck… sigh

Guess we will just have to take another trip out there :)