To Aoshima

Hiromi got up early and snapped a picture of the volcano from the room. This is at about 4 am

Then she went to the public bath and took a few more pictures. It's not surprising there is no one around at that time of the morning.

Down south there are lots of orchids.

To get to Aoshima we had to take a train and then this little trolly, that stopped every ten minutes or so. It took a while.

Aoshima means "blue island." Aoi is blue, and shima is island, so Hiroshima is "white island," kagoshima is "volcano island" and Iwo Jima means "sulfur island." It was a bit late when we got there, and I don't think I took many pictures. Hiromi went out for a walk.

The next morning she got up early and took this shot from her room. We didn't have an ocean view this time, but she did.

There is also a public bath on the top of this hotel. Here is a shot from the outdoor tub

Aoshima was the one place we went just because it had a nice beach.

Not far off there is a peninsula. The edges are called covered with this rock that has pushed up on itself. Hiromi says it is called the washboard.

That is our hotel, furthest to the right.

At the end of the peninsula is a shrine.

People pay a couple hundred yen (about $2.80) to get a fortune. Some are good and some are bad. If you get a bad fortune, you tie it up and it won't come true.

Here is another watering site, you must wash your hands before going into the shrine.

You could write your wish on this board. Most of the wishes are in japanese

This one is in english

They don't allow picture taking inside the shrine

After the walk and the shrine and playing in the ocean, we had a huge dinner.