I just returned from a recent trip to Japan. It was so much fun and so awesome. For example when I met my friend to go to this hippy techno festival in the forest:
But one of the weirdest parts of my trip was my visit to Shiraishi island. I basically picked it at random by zooming in and out on google maps. I was in Osaka for the festival, and wanted to go to Hiroshima, and this tiny island was about halfway between. It was part of the Okayama prefecture, near Fukuyama, which are much more common places for people to go. It was even next to a bigger, more touristy island, but honestly the small, weird vibes of Shiraishi drew me in an I booked the beachfront motel for two nights.
At the ferry port I waited with a bunch of old Japanese people and we all watched the news together. A man with aviators who worked their spoke english well and helped me getting a ticket from the vending-machine style ticket machine that was all in Japanese. Everyone seemed a little surprised to see me there. When I got to the island I realised why. It was tiny, a population of 700 I found out later, although it felt like much less, and mainly old people. The port was beautiful, warm and serene, I arrived in the evening around 5pm, and I walked around from the port to my accomodation. I admit I was a little freaked out, conscious of just how alone I was but smiling to myself at the disbelief of my own free will: so I wanted to go to this tiny random island in Japan and now I'm just here lol? It felt very surreal.
The motel was dark inside with a big massage chair and lots of beachy decoration that looked as though it hadn't changed since the 70s: sunset postcards, a hanging wooden ornament with the words: 'just relax', and a big taxidermy lobster in a glass case (is it still taxidermy if its a sea creature?). I'm pretty sure I was the only person staying there. A Japanese auntie showed me to my tatami room, and pointed me to the restaurant next door: the only one on the island, and my only source of food, as I was now realising. "8:00pm close".
This also looked like it hadn't changed since the 70's. It was packed full: of locals drinking beer and laughing, laminex-wrapped wooden furniture, foreign bills pinned to the wall, piles of miscellanious items: folders, bowls, clothes. It smelled of old wood and fried fish. A sunset poster was on the back wall, above it, two wooden boat steering wheels, you know those classic ones. The menu was in Japanese. There a younger, very pretty woman who spoke english pretty well and gave me the english menu. I ordered he udon, the small fried fish and an asahi. "Sit outside?" I mean inside did seem pretty full but maybe she assumed I wanted to sit on my own, or was this her saying: "you're not welcome here with the locals?" I'm not sure. It did look pretty nice outside anyways, the sun was setting. "sure!' i replied.
Long lines of tables and white plastic chairs sat under several big white pagolas on the sand. I sat down on one of the many tables wondering: do these ever all get used? There was more debris outside: broken down motorbikes, cars, fishing nets, old rafts. One of the rafts was made out of a big plastic baguette. A strange sense of melancholy descended on me. I texted my friends on the motels free wifi, trying to explain the weirdness of the situation I found myself in, but nothing seemed to quite capture it. My fish and udon were delicious. I started to get viciously eaten by mosquitos and asked the pretty young woman if it was ok for me to move inside. She nodded profusely, all the locals had left.
The next day I went on a hike: because what else was I going to do. There were many maps outline the trail at the port and id taken a picture of the newest one. There were a few smallish mountains on the island and assumed thats where the hike would take me. I set off, the heat was sweltering. I saw a funny shaped temple, sort of a bulbous white thing with a long pointy roof, from my position heading up the mountain and took mental note to visit that later. I reached a viewpoint: it was beautiful. Clear blue skies, bays stretching out. I could see my motel but from here you couldn't see all the random debris. I could see all the houses on the island, a port, an old swimming pool, and a school! I had already finished my small bottle of water. There were small idols: please watch over me.
As I continued there were a few moments where I thought I might die. There was definitely no one else on that hike. The stones were worn in, physical evidence of people having walked this path for centuries, but not today and probably not for a while. I thought if I passed out from heatstroke, or rolled my ankle or something, who was going to find me? Maybe the people in the restaurant would think: hey, where did that random white girl go? I tried to take in the views regardless of my mental and physical distress.
Finally I started to descended into a bamboo forest which felt like I could finally breath again, feeling the coolness of the forest reach my skin. Although it didn't last long, the descent in a way was more challenging as my legs were doing the jelly thing and the path was loose and gravelly. I had a one track mind set on reaching the beach and diving in. When I finally did, it wasn't quite as I was expecting. Less like the mediterranean more like Port Melbourne after a storm. The water looked sort of dirty and there were lots of jellyfish. The sand was grey-ish with shells and rubbish dispersed. I walked around the bay to a bit that was shaded by a tree, ripped off my sweaty clothes and jumped in the water. It felt a little sticky and gross but I was grateful to cool down my body temp regardless. I briefly pretended to be someones fiancé that had washed up on a deserted island after their honeymoon cruise-ship had sunk. There was an old boat with an actual big metal anchor, like in the cartoons, washed up on the shore. I took a close look at all the rubbish on the beach to try find something interesting. There was a lot of broken pottery, i couldn't really tell how old it was. But I found a little ceramic pot with a purple lid, maybe it used to have cream in there or something, buried in the sand, which i cleaned in the sea and put into my backpack.
Back in town, I went to a cafe that I walked past earlier. It was big, clean and beautiful, with big clean wooden tables. I felt a bit awkward coming in all covered in sand and saltwater, still recovering from my near-heatstroke experience. The owner chatted with her friend at the bar but welcomed me in when she saw me, told me to sit and talked me through the menu. She was maybe 40, and beautiful, with broad cheekbones and a wide smile, she also surprisingly spoke english really well. I ordered a freshly made doughnut and plum soda, made from plums picked on the island.
Her daughter came home from school, she must have been 6 or 7, with her little backpack. The woman's friend wanted to talk to her but she felt shy. She was mixed race which surprised me, as there is barely any cultural diversity in the cities, let alone a tiny rural island. She was so cute, someone came passed on their bike, maybe her tutor or something like that, they were trying to convince her to come with them, and so was her mum, but she didn't want to go. I watch the group of them chatting friendly, and through there much be such a great sense of community on the island. But also the type of community where everyone knows everything about each other.
When I was paying the woman asked me how I found out about the island, she seemed surprised that I was there, as I felt a few others on the island were too. I asked her how long she had been living there, she said 7 years. Her and her husband moved from Osaka because he is Tanzanian and couldn't find work because he's black. So they tried to become farmers on the island, but realised they couldn't make much money doing that, so she opened this cafe and another accomodation on the island called 'the international villa'. I was thinking of staying there but it was more expensive than the motel. I asked if they got many visitors and she said not really, so maybe we will have to move somewhere else. She spoke english so well because she spoke english with her husband. I asked where else I should go on the island, she said to the temple if I haven't already. When she was explaining the directions of how to get there, I taught her the turn of phrase 'fork in the road'. I thanked her and said it was lovely to meet her. Sometimes you just feel that connection with someone, I felt as though we could be friends. I admired her beautiful face. Ill always remember her little family on the island, and wish I could've met her husband, but then, maybe that would've spoiled it.
I walked up to the big temple complex. I couldn't believe how many temples there were for such a small island. They were all tucked in the dark of the mountainside: the whole complex was cool and forested, covered with moss. Some of the temples had big boulder roofs. I remarked on the spiritual energy of the place, it felt thick with spirit, I looked up at the towering trees with their big windy trunks. I found an idol that spoke to me, it looked like a woman idol, someone had tied a pink apron on her, something id noticed on some of the other idols (that goes to say, i think it is an idol thing not a woman thing), and she had pink and red flags moving gently next to her head. I prayed for the three people that I knew that died recently, the only three people who I knew that have died in fact: my grandpa, my mums friend Lou, and Zigi's mum Mardi. I put a coin in front of the idol for each of them. I didn't have three coins of the same value so i tried to just randomly pick which coin I used to pray for each person, aware that the gods may make it a little easier for the deceased ones friends and family if I offered 50 cents instead of 1 cent.
That night at the restaurant I made a friend. She was young and pretty, she just quit her job as a directors assistant to travel to travel Japan, starting with all these little islands and was going to make youtube vlogs of her trips. I found all this out through the help of google translate. We took photos of each other in front of the sunset, and I offered her some of my radish and fish dish.
I must admit the next morning I was keen to leave: I caught the 8:30am ferry which meant I couldn't thank the owner of the motel and the pretty girl at the restaurant which I felt a little bad about. I took the ferry with the same young disabled boy with thick glasses who i had noticed on the way there. It was just me and him and one other guy on the ferry. When we got to the mainland someone met him at the port; maybe his mum or an auntie, it made me want to cry. I was so happy to be back in civilisation: I quickly bought a melon bun and a vanilla iced latte from the 711 before getting on the train to Hiroshima.
