Going Batty.

Being cooped up is fine by me. Time to catch up on stories from a bygone era.

A few weeks ago, before all this nonsense developed, a friend I ventured to Abukuma Cave for a bit of spelunking. Even before entering the chasm, the view was spectacular and I love these little statues surrounding the parking lot.

 

 

It is recommended that if you have the following conditions, you shouldn't try cave crawling. Can you figure out each one

First up, some rather bland shots.

Then the coloured lighting kicked in.

 

Ooh. Monster Tower.

 

I didn't have to worry about it too much because I'm short. Goliath may need to duck.

So smooth...

Several of the structures were named, most of them in Japanese only.

I love these little guys!

Ooh, some stalactites!

Ooh, a stalagmite! (What's difference? A stalaCtite comes from the Ceiling and a stalaGmite comes from the Ground.)

 

 

 Aaaah! A hairless mole rat!

 

I have a feeling that some hijinks occurred at some point in the past.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On to the Dragon Palace...

 

 

Christmas Tree!

 

Cool, a wine cellar.

And that was it for the cave. Wonderful and not at all exhausting. Sooo...we decided to go to another cave! Welcome to Irimizu Limestone Cave!

There's an A, B, and C course. Since B and C require flashlights and swimming gear and a lot of crawling through freezing water with NO source of lighting, we opted for A only.

This cave isn't as famous as the one we went to earlier, but it was discovered first and used to be popular. One cool thing that this cave has that the larger one doesn't is a colony of bats! These nocturnal chiropterans were snoozing most of the time but occasional could be seen flitting around. Not for the squeamish, for some of these guys were hanging around right over one's shoulder.

 

The cave itself was not as impressive but it was more of a challenge. Crawling through tiny places (if you have more girth than I, it's not recommended), stepping across rivulets on stepping stones and climbing up steep inclines were but some of the trials.

Here's where course A ends and, from here on, for B course you need to provide your own lighting.

Bye bye bat!!

On the way back to the highway, we espied a cool little shrine and pulled over to check it out.

 

A Kaiju-creature made out of tree branches!

 

Bow wow!

 

We popped into a Mandai clone en route back and I was sorely tempted to buy this but didn't succumb.

 

I'd be remiss if I didn't show something to do with Batman, so here is a Batmobile that I recently received from LootCrate.

Finally, a bit of sick humour courtesy of Norm MacDonald...



I didn't eat any of the bats I found in the cave, and neither should you!

Addendum, by a happy coincidence a vampire movie with bats just came on the tube after I finished writing this. Daybreakers!