Spelunking... such as it is

Eating breakfast on the train... gasp!

Kiyone Station waiting for our connection

With the plans of my parents coming to visit becoming a reality, and during a time when I don't a lot of holidays from work, I have been searching for fun things to do in Japan that qualify as weekend or day trips. One such place I located was Ikura-do or Ikura cave which is situated in northwestern Okayama. Since Laura wasn't feeling up to a trip, Theo and I decided it would be a fun father and son outing. With this in mind, we packed up a few snacks and what not and headed to the train station. We had two options for getting there by train; the more direct route would have been Fukuyama station towards Okayama with a transfer to the Hakubi line at Kurashiki straight to Ikura or the more scenic route. On the way there we opted for the more scenic. We started at our local station of Bingo Honjo, and even though Bingo Honjo is on the Fukuen line we managed to catch a train bound for the Ibara line, which is what we would have had to transfer to at Kannabe. From Kannabe we continued on the Ibara line till Kiyone Station in Okayama and from there transferred to the Hakubi line.

Ikura Station

Entrance to Ikura-kyo, the area around the cave

We finally reached Ikura station about one hour and forty-five minutes after we left, which is about as far as I would want to travel by train with a four year old.
Thankfully the cave itself is only a 10 minute walk from the station making it really accessible for those of us who don't own a car and like to do our traveling by train. Ikura itself is just a small mining town, and unless you knew before hand that the cave was here you would think you had gotten off at the wrong station. The area around the cave though is nicely done with a few restaurants specializing in some kind of trout from the Takahashi River and of course the requisite tourist shops selling memorabilia.  The cave itself is located in the 240-meter tall vertical precipice formed by slow erosion of the limestone by the Takahashi River that runs from it's headwaters near the border of Okayama and Tottori Prefectures to Kurashiki City. The total length of the cave is 1,200 meters. Theo had a lot of fun being an explorer on an adventure and continually reminded me during the entire 45 minutes that we were in the cave. For anyone who is even remotely claustrophobic I would not recommend this cave as the majority of our "adventure" required me stooping down to Theo's height and only occasionally did it open up to something a little more comfortable. That being said it is a beautiful cave and though some of the installations have seen better days it is well worth the ¥1000 admission price. 

Entrance to the cave

Because of the lighting many formations had moss growing on them

This cave was definitely Theo size

Halfway through there is a short cut tunnel carved out for people who want to quit early

Like so many attractions we have been to in Japan this one has not escaped having money thrown at it for good luck

A beautifully lit pool called "the Inland Sea"

And finally what Japanese attraction wouldn't be complete without a shrine. This one was called the marriage shrine, though who would want to get married in a cave is beyond me.

The area around the cave is also quite scenic, especially now with the onset of autumn and the leaves beginning to change colors. In the same area is another cave Maki-do, which at 450-meter-long is relatively smaller than the Ikura-do, but is characterized by an underground lake at the farthest end of the cave. The red Ryugu-bashi bridge and the many other bridges built on the lake are illuminated to entertain visitors. This cave however is further from the station so Theo and I did not visit it this time around. On the way back we took the more direct route through Kurashiki.

If you love flavored soft cream this is the place for you, though you might want to avoid some of the stranger flavors like wasabi or soba noodle.

Theo enjoying his black sesame soft cream and me with chestnut flavor.

Rodents of Unusual Size

One critter that we see fairly often on our bike rides is the nutria, or coypu (Myocastor coypus). They seem to be everywhere in the canals and in the Ashida River that flows through the city. As you can see from this shot of one I took this weekend, they are a semi-aquatic rodent are about the same size as a beaver but with a long, rat-like tail.

I am surprised this one let me get so close

Originally from South America, they have been introduced to every continent except for Antarctica and Australia for their fur. Nutria were introduced to Japan in 1910 and the military promoted small fur farms to raise nutria. When the price of the pelts dropped, many nutria were released into the wild where they happily procreated, due to a lack of natural predators and lots of prime habitat. Since 1963, nutria have been hunted in Japan to control their ballooning population. When looking for population counts in Japan, I discovered that Okayama has the highest number of nutria in the country. It is about 9.5 kilometers from our apartment to the border of Okayama Prefecture, so it makes sense that I see them so often.

Super cute baby nutria

The foraging and nesting habits of the nutria have an incredibly detrimental effect on the health of wetlands and water systems in the countries in which they are introduced. They destroy nesting habitat for native species and cause massive soil erosion by eating marsh plants and burrowing through root systems. Places like Louisiana (are you surprised?) have created a 5$ bounty for every nutria shot in an attempt to decrease their population. Some countries are even trying to popularize the sale of nutria meat for human consumption. The meat has euphemistically been named "ragondin", the French word for nutria, and has been found to be much leaner, higher in protein, and lower in harmful microorganisms compared with farmed conventional meats. If you ever manage to get your hands on some ragondin, there are lots of recipes out there that will help you make the most of it.

Shooting them for fur, meat, or even a 5$ bounty may seem cruel, but in many of the countries to which they have been introduced, humans are the only predator able to lower their populations. The wetlands they are destroying are incredibly complex and fragile habitats which play a critical role in maintaining water quality and species richness. In many countries, hunting, whether done by individuals or the government, is one of the few viable options for controlling their population. I say, if you are going to shoot it anyway, why let it go to waste?