Ikura Caves

A few weekends ago I went with my friend, Jess, to see a cave in the tiny town of Ikura, about an hour and a half into the mountains from the town where I live. It was a cold and snowy day and the town was almost entirely deserted. The first picture shows the shops that line the path to the caves, but they were all closed and dark. When we asked the people at the ticket office if there were any restaurants close by they told us that everybody was on vacation and our best bet was to walk slowly back to the train station (Ikura only has one train per hour) and eat when we got home.

It cost us 1000 yen (about 10 dollars) to get into the cave, and they gave us a map (with English translations) that named the formations we would see and also informed us that the cave walk is about 1200 meters long. The entrance to the cave is at the bottom of a cliff, close to the Takahashi River (which formed the caves) so we pretty much just walked up and up once we got in. The walk was very nicely done with lights and a little bit of music and recorded explanations playing (which we, of course, couldn't understand). Some parts of the path were a bit narrow and there was water everywhere but we made it through with just a few bumps on our heads and wet shoes.

The last picture shows a formation that may have been called 'soldier's pavilion' but I can't remember for sure. My favorite formation name was 'appearance to wear clothes of water' or maybe 'waterfall in which it hears only of sound.'

Thanks for reading! Soon I'll post about the Naked Man Festival, which I went to last weekend!

Catie