Adventures in Japan

Day Eleven: I ask Carla where we went today and she sez Setoda and Tomonoura

We did two things today. Both required a couple different modes of transport to get to, both really could have used some better, more informative signage to help travellers actually find what they're looking for, and both were totally worth all the aggravated wanderings it took to find them.

Let's start with Setoda. On the island of Ikuchijima (for those of you playing along at home: Yes. Jima does mean island). To get there, we took a train and then a ferry. Carla did fairly well, she didn't get sick or anything. I did pretty well too, considering we didn't have enough time to grab any breakfast. And it was raining.

We wandered around in the rain for a while (which was kinda stressful, cuz we were on a tight schedule, damnit), only going the completely wrong way once. We finally stopped and asked directions from a nice old lady who then walked with us (in the rain) until she could point us in the right direction. She was cool.

We were on this island to see a temple.


Nope. Haven't got sick of 'em yet. Might as well see them all now, while we can. Canadian shrines just don't compete. Maybe some rich Canadian can take a page out of Kanemoto Kozo. He was a rich industrialist in the earlier part of the century just past. He also really, really loved his mother.

When she died. He lost it. And found religion.


He resigned from his company and used all of his money to create a suitable resting place for his mother. To do this, he cherry picked all the best bits from all the temples around Japan and recreated them in his Kousanji temple park.


I mentioned before that we had a schedule to follow. And we did. We left way before either one of us wanted to, it would be easy to spend a whole day there. There are about ten halls, three towers, four gates, an underground cave, a huge statue of Kannon (the Goddess of Mercy) and a massive mound of marble. There is also a cafe. And an art museum. The place is nuts.

You don't get the sense of history from Kousanji that you do from most other temples, but you can sense his mania. In a good way. Everything is turned to eleven. The colours are so bright and then embellished with gold. Why have one carving of a dragon when you can have twenty?


But the best part, for me, was the massive marble mound. I only say that for the alliteration.

It is more like a hill (Hill of Hope is its name, actually). A hill of marble. With all sorts of marble sculptures along the path to the summit.

Standing on that summit...

The rain had stopped, but mist still clung to everything. Standing on top of a spiral of white stone, with all the surrounding hills disappearing into the sky...


I don't know what I felt, but I know that it felt good.

Which made it hard to leave. But leave we did. We had a plan to follow.

The ferry ride back was about the same as the ride out, but the ferry itself was way more awesome. It was obvious that the decor had not been changed since some time in the seventies.


A lot of brown and orange. It was cool, baby, cool.


Then onto a train and from the train onto a bus and from a bus onto a ferry. No time to stop in between any of that. There was a fishing show to see, and it wasn't about to wait for us. All of this transit, and not a bit of food in our stomachs. Last thing we ate was okonomiyaki at around eight last night. The fishing show was at one thirty. Sorry, we did have a bit of spare time around Tomonoura, but they had nowhere to eat. Nothing but souvenir shops. Grr.

So hungry.

For one month out of the year, this month, the people of Tomonoura have a... fishing festival? They fish like they used to from way back when. First there is a bit of pomp and circumstance. The old ladies of the town get all dressed up and do a dance.


Then the old dudes drum and sing. Then a lady in a kimono comes out and does a few dances herself. I may have gotten the order a bit mixed up there, but whatevs.


After all the chanting and the dancing, all the tourists are herded onto a boat. Our big ferry boat followed their small fishing boats. Their first stop was at a shrine on a very small island.


Then they sailed around in circles for a bit. The men chanting and the kimono lady dancing.

Then they sailed out further and the fishing began. Like a lot of fishing, there was a lot of waiting. There were two fishing boats.


For the previous bits they had been tethered together but now they separated, trailing their shared netting behind them. They made a big circle with said net and then joined back up together. The net having been set, the men began hauling it back in. The old fashioned way. Hand over salty, sore, soaked hand.

Chanting all the while.


Eventually the massive circle of net was gone. In its place was a bunch fish, caught between the two boats, thrashing wildly. Then the two fishing boats (with the fish betwixt them) met up with our boat.

Right: at some point during all this, Carla won for us a bottle of hooch. I hope it's not made of fish. Who am I kidding? I'd still drink it.


So the passengers from our boat made their unsteady way onto the fishing boats to buy the exceptionally fresh fish? How fresh? After your money hits a fisherman's hand, the business end of a claw hammer hits a fish's brain.


That's a small target.

Sometimes the hammer guy missed.

That hammer got a good workout that day.

After all the fish were gone, we decoupled from the fishing boats and made our way back.

We got a special, historical bus ride back to town. Some old Japanese dude went on and on in Japanese about the bus and the town and the history and the...

Carla and I both have problems with moving vehicles. She gets motion sickness. I get sleepy.

We ended our day in Okayama. We walked a few blocks, in the rain, checked in and zonked out.

Now we have to go, our 3 hour block of internet time is almost up. Yeah, we caught another overnight bus. And yeah, this one sucked too. If you have a motorized vehicle that I have trouble sleeping on, you have yourselves a piece of junk.

Later.