(no subject)
I visited a friend living on Yuge Island at the beginning of May. It`s a tiny island in the Seto Island sea, just next to the Shimanami highway and south of Onomichi (where Natsuki`s grandmother lived and I visited 3 years ago). On the map above it`s just above dead centre (Hiroshima is the bay to the left and Osaka is in the top-right corner). Here`s Onomichi.
Here`s the ferry to a completely different island. I got on, I asked if it was going to Yuge, showed the lady my map and pointed to a totally unrelated island on the other side of the map and she just said "100yen please". In reparation for this total disaster in international relations she did let me ride back for free though.
This is the right ferry, which runs with the frequency of astral conjunctions. It`s here that I got my first taste of the real wild, a spider had crept behind one of the curtains. After much hysteria from the women and children the captain managed to rescue it and throw it overboard. I say wild because I`d actually forgotten that spiders exist at this point and if you were to have been listening closely you`d have heard me mutter to myself "oh yeah, spiders".
Some islands.
Yuge island proper. I can`t even begin to decipher what it says here. Maybe something along the lines of "This is a big rock".
The official population of Yuge is something around 3600, but that`s including nearly 1000 students at the marine biology university plus a lot of people who don`t actually live there. It`s pretty empty and there`s a lot of abandoned houses and the population is still dropping. My friend has asked a lot of people how much a nice quiet house would cost him but everyone on the island dodges the question, I guess that it`s basically all worthless so the market is non-existent. (Like the mandarin-like mikan trees which cover the island)
There`s one convenience store on the island, one bar/restaurant and a handful of mini supermarkets. My experience and my friend`s experience of Japan have been basically at the extreme ends of the spectrum, he teaches 150 kids, I teach 150 kids a day. On a neighbouring island there`s a school and entire staff all for one boy (they ferry him over occasionally so he actually meets other children). Yuge`s isolation is what it`s inhabitants love best and also the sword over it`s head as people get older or head off for the big cities. Everyone knows each other and shouts hello, there`s no crime, no late night noise and no traffic lights. Once a year the police department hold a school demonstration on how not to die when using traffic lights. On a school trip to hiroshima his kids spent the first few hours saying hello to every single person they passed. At least half the people on the island are really ancient - just in the 3 days I was there, there was one funeral and one ambulance emergency.
Sandy beach shrines are almost as cool as snowy mountain shrines.
I have no idea what`s going on here architecturally.
We cycled around the island, pretty hard work but nothing compared to what was to come the next day. This picture doesn`t really convey quite how quiet and fresh it is from the clifftops.
And the reverse view. Again I`m not sure why or who came up with is one.
Shore erosion defenses which actually cause more erosion than they prevent...
Misty islandness.
Next day, we set out for a bike ride roughly along the highway route. We crossed 4 islands and traveled somewhere in the region of 40-45km of winding up and down roads.
This picture doesn`t quite convey the scale of things because the horizon is so low, but be assured that the road ahead is big, the bridge is big and the island on the left is totally big.
I thought this design was pretty unusual.
On the way to this shrine the road got pretty steep and winding and we got separated, only for me to realise that I`d emptied my pockets into my friend`s bag and had no money, phone, identification or even his contact details. Pretty lucky that we both managed to find the right shrine in the end otherwise I`d have been living in the mikan groves like some crazy hermit ape man right now. Attached to it was this bizarre museum whose genesis could only have been in getting a bunch of eccentric old people together and asking them to brainstorm ideas for a museum before taking ALL the ideas and putting them in one building. It had a really impressive selection of crustacean shells as well as bits of boats, trees, rocks, fishing, samurais and resonating crystals. Thanks to one enthusiastic museum goer I now also know the difference between pirate samurai ninja armour and ninja samurai pirate armour.