A day in Awajishima - Flowers and onions

Awajishima (Awaji Island) is nestled nicely in the bay between Shikoku Island and mainland Japan.  It's looks pretty close but thanks to traffic it takes a loooonnngg time.


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With a tiny population I wasn't expecting much.  Which is perfect.  I don't like places with people.  More fun for me.  However, being on the way to Shikoku, lots of people pass through and inevitably get off the highway to check out stuff. 

A popular spot is right as you get off the bridge.  Lots of souvenirs, foods, and photo opportunities-

I really liked the DIY BBQ corner-

And the fresh fish you could buy to BBQ-

There is one main road around the island and being a normal Japanese road combined with tons of stupid people on bikes, it was slow going.   After about twenty minutes of banging on the steering wheel, I veered right towards the center of the island-

Where I met slow traffic of another kind-

Mooooo-

I found some wonderful "roads" that brought us in the back way of a popular touristy flower garden place.  Since this is Japan, Awajishima has its own famous product naturally.  I wasn't very excited to find out it was.....onion. Boring old onion.  I love onion but really?  Are these onions better than others?  I didn't care to find out.

The flowers were very nice though-

Lots of families relax there-

Moving on, we stopped at a shrine (or was it a temple) that had this rather surprisingly nice Roadster parked in front-

With limited day light we pressed on with the South side as our goal.  The Nojima Fault, the cause of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, is located right on this island and that means more tourist attractions.  We stumbled upon the museum but thought better of paying a crazy amount of money to go inside. Especially when they had gigantic windows on the outside that I could look through at all the good stuff!  Of course, in Japan, no one besides a foreigner like me would do that.  Ugh. I saved $20 by looking through that window!

Anywho, here is a sake factory!

And, the bottom.  Across the water you can see Shikoku.  There was quite a line to get to the parking to this place and it was .....sorta worth it.  Its a famous vantage point from which you can see the Naruto whirlpools.  Everyone failed to tell me that they aren't like an IHOP and they sometimes close.

Coming back was uneventful.  Especially thanks to being stuck behind a slloooowww local farmer on that one road around the island.  With some pretty slick driving I was able to get around but, still boring.  Boom! Awajishima!