What's
better than a top ten? Two top fives! Rather than face the daunting
backlog of documenting my ten highlights of the past year come
August, I've decided to give you my five best days of the first half
of my fourth year in Japan, i.e. the period from August 2012 to
January 2013 (inclusive). And since the blog is otherwise dormant, I
may as well stretch it out into five separate posts. Strap in!
5.
Oshima, October
On
a bit of a whim, Amber and I ventured out to Oshima (literally, “big
island” - inspired naming there, guys), the most proximal of a
chain of volcanic islands that stretches south for hundreds of miles
into the Pacific. (Interestingly, these are all technically part of
Tokyo prefecture. If only Japan embraced the concept of pub quizzes
more, I feel sure this fact would be well worth knowing.) Perhaps the
most notable thing about Oshima is that its volcano is where the
eponymous fictional monster is entombed in The Return of Godzilla.
It
was very much a trip of two halves, the first of which was an
unmitigated debacle. We arrived by overnight ferry from Yokohama,
which entailed sleeping as best we could on a big communal floor.
Stumbling bleary-eyed off the boat at 6am, it took me a while to
realise that we were not at the main port. It turns out they switch
the port according to the weather/tidal conditions, and we were at some
nowhere outpost on the north of the island, with an hour to wait for
the next bus to civilisation. However, there were several cats, so
Amber was happy.
Once
we finally made it to the island's main settlement, we set off for a
refreshing morning onsen. I should point out that it was raining
fairly heavily by this point. The first place we went to didn't open until 1pm, but we expected as much from our Wikitravel research. However,
when the other one turned out to be closed all month for maintenance,
it came as a crushing blow. There was nothing for it but to trudge
back into town in search of breakfast.
This
too proved to be more of a challenge that we'd anticipated. Nothing
in the tiny sleepy town was open yet. Most shockingly of all, the
entire island appeared to be devoid of konbini (convenience stores).
Living in Japan, one gets very accustomed to being able to buy noodle sandwiches, crème brulees, nasty fried chicken, or pornography, 24
hours a day at your local 7-11 or Family Mart. We eventually decided
to give up on breakfast and find the campsite to pitch our tent.
The
place Google Maps led us to looked like it might have been a campsite
at one point, but didn't give any strong indication of fulfilling
that role any longer. Certainly, no-one was camping there. Dejected,
we walked back, once again, to the ferry terminal that we hadn't
arrived at. Spirits were low and tempers were getting frayed. See, this
is what happens when you're spontaneous and neglect to plan things
properly, I pointed out to Amber, helpfully. Having arrived at the
ungodly hour of 6am, it was now approaching noon, and we had achieved
exactly nothing. We needed to get it together, and step one was
sorting out transport.
After
fruitless enquiries at a couple of car rental places, we found a
friendly couple hiring out 50cc scooters. They had none left
(naturally), but would have some from 2pm onwards. They recommended
a soba restaurant that we hit up for lunch in the meantime, and then
we had time for a quick dip in the now open aforementioned onsen. The
sun had even come out. Things were starting to look up.
We
picked up the scooters, and with no time to lose, sped (or rather,
travelled at a maximum of about 55km/h) around the coast to a
campsite that the helpful motorcycle purveyors assured us actually
existed. With just a few precious hours of daylight left, we erected
the tent with what I felt was commendable efficiency, and set off
uphill towards the volcanic peak that dominates the entire centre of
the island. The road became became steadily less and less suitable
for our puny vehicles, so when it became no more than an
ill-defined volcanic grit dirt track, we dismounted and continued on
foot.
The
scenery was truly astonishing. We found ourselves in the volcano's
lava field, a barren wasteland of sharp black rocks. Neither my words
here nor the photos I took can do justice to the vista we saw. It was
just so dead and empty, it was easy to imagine that we were on an
alien world, or perhaps Earth millions of years ago. We were on
the rim of the outer crater, giving us a clear sight of the central
peak. Sadly, the sun was setting so there was no way we could go for
a closer look. Back on the scooters, we took a circuitous coastal
route through the dusk to the campsite. On the way we stopped off at
the closest thing we could find to a supermarket. It was a weird
little independent place, stocking few fresh goods because of the
island's isolation. I felt like we were buying “provisions”,
rather than “food”; it reminded me of the little shop in the
static caravan park of my childhood family holidays. Then it was back
to the tent with our haul for a feast of cheese, crackers, crisps,
and booze, and then an early night.
We
awoke bright and early, rapidly packed up the tent, and had time for a
power hike up to the peak that had eluded us the previous day, before
dropping off the bikes and getting the 10:50 hydrofoil that whisked
us back to Tokyo in time for lunch.
No comments:
Post a Comment