Visiting the Oya rock quarry

I had a natsukashii outing today.  Natsukashii means nostalgic.  Today the ladies in my English class and I visited the Oya rock quarry museum together and enjoyed the underground atmosphere of a now un-mined rock quarry.  And why was it nostalgic for me?  Because the last time I visited the Oya rock quarry was 9 years ago when I was down at the bottom of it when the Tohoku Earthquake hit on March 11, 2011.

Just walking from the parking lot to the quarry the air turned cool and misty.  The underground keeps a constant temperature at around 50 degrees.  We made sure we brought our jackets even on this very warm summer day!

So many memories of the day nine years ago came flooding back as I descended into the quarry with my friends.  During the past 9 years, the quarry, which was already a tourist spot back then, closed down directly after the earthquake and I could boast for a while that I was the last person of the public to leave the quarry immediately after the earthquake. 

Then about 5 years ago, the town of Oya re-vamped their efforts to bring more tourists into the area by making a lovely park near the mouth of the quarry and by renovating the souvenir shop that had held run-of-the-mill trinkets into a trendy cafe with a local hand-made crafters' shop.  For the next couple of years the cars were lined up to get into the museum and quarry and the bus stop had an overload of tourists coming in and out of the area.  There was no way I was going to visit the quarry or take people there again as it was just too crowded!
But since the pandemic, the crowds have thinned out considerably and my friends and I discovered that the trendy coffee shop was a nice place to visit where we could sit outside and be social-distanced from anyone else.  We noticed that there didn't seem to be the crowds of people going into the quarry either and so today we went down underground.

This picture was taken at the entrance to the quarry after going in through the stairway tunnel.  Along the left you can see the route down into the various chambers marked off by the yellow chains.  I was at about the second light on the left there, and ready to come out of the quarry when the earthquake hit.  I remember hearing a low roar that got louder but didn't realize it was an earthquake until I noticed the yellow chains swinging.  My friend Lorraine and I raced up the stairway and out of the tunnel and we were the last ones to leave!

Of course not much has changed in the quarry from 9 years ago.  Same walls and pillars and hole leading up into the outer world.  I took this same picture 9 years ago.

It seemed like there were more special effects of lighting in the quarry now.  Historically, after the rock was no longer mined, the caverns were used to keep military equipment during the war and more recently it has been used for rice storage.  There also have been numerous movie and television scenes filmed here as the eerie, mystical qualities make for interesting backgrounds to science fiction and adventure stories. 

I have heard that musical artists will make use of some of the caverns for concerts as the acoustics are wonderful and I think even a few art shows, fashion shows and weddings have been held here also.

 It was interesting to see the few places where natural light comes in from outside.

But most of the caverns are in darkness except for the strategically placed light.  The steps there along the wall were made in the lower regions of the quarry but traditionally, a walk way was built into the wall hanging over the quarry base.

Sorry, this was a picture from the museum that I didn't get in good light.  A couple of years after the earthquake I went down into another Oya quarry owned by a friend and walked along a similar (hopefully sturdier) walkway drilled into the walls.

This is the way the original planks were set into the rock walls and the walkway was laid over the planks.

When the quarry was first being mined, each of the blocks of stone were hand chiseled and levered up and away from each other but with the inventions of rock cutting circular saws, rock mining was automated.  There are marks left in the walls where the stone was cut into widths and then the circular saws cut through two layers at a time.

Ah!  Greenery out there in the real world!  The mist comes from the cool underground temperature meeting the humid summer of Japan.

Oya really is an interesting place.  As we left I mentioned to the ticket ladies at the entrance that I had been in it during the earthquake and that nothing fell inside (outside there was mountain crumbling) and thankfully the lights stayed on throughout the ordeal.  Can you imagine being down here with no lights!!!

If you are interested, this was one of the first blog posts I wrote after the earthquake and described escaping from the quarry on March 11.

Earthquake experience

And this post is about my friend's rock quarry, the REAL thing and getting down into the dark hole with him.

Rock quarry again