TokyoPog: Sado Island

With a few days off I planned to visit Sado Island with my friend Tom. Sado is an island off the west coast of Honshu, the main island of Japan. It used to be a popular place of exile for emperors and noblemen who were dispatched indefinitely to this rather isolated but picturesque spot.

My particular interest was that Zeami, the grandfather of Noh theatre, was exiled here in the early fifteenth century. The island also has a very large number of traditional Noh theatres (dating from later) which I hoped to explore.

You can see the fault line responsible for the tusnami very clearly here.

In the end, Tom couldn't come, so a day late I jumped on the Shinkansen and headed off. I had planned to get the ferry across to the island but the only ferry left that day arrived at 10.30pm which I thought a little late to be arriving without any reservations. So I coughed up for the terrific jetfoil which whizzed across in a third of the time (at three times the price).

It turned out that even arriving at 7pm was a little late. At the port there were no taxis, no buses, all the shops were shut and only a couple of restaurants were open. I walked around for several hours trying to find some kind of hotel or guesthouse. I also rang the two hotels in my Lonely Planet but didn't get through to either.

This was crap.

So my only option was to locate a suitable spot to spend the night outside. It was perfectly warm and it doesn't get cold at night in Japan so it wasn't a totally awful thought (at this point I hadn't seen any snakes). I found a rather cosy looking graveyard by a temple and then pottered back into the meagre town to try my luck on the food stakes.

On my first-night perambulations I found this public loo. Amazing
to find such a hi-tech, un-vandalproof loo in the wild.
NB the ends of the loo rolls folded into points.

A shot of the well-hidden hotel from the outside
(this is an eight-storey building!)

As I sidled through the dark I spotted a single light glowing half-way up what must have been quite a tall building. With a hunch this might be a well-concealed hotel, I approached and was rather relieved to find it was an (exceptionally run-down) looking hotel.

When I asked the old lady in the deserted, gloomy reception how much it was for a room, she put her head on one side, looked up at me pleadingly and asked, '¥5,000?' Haggling seems rather un-Japanese so I decided to try a single shot at ¥4,000 (c.£35) and she willingly agreed.

My first night hotel. NB the tatami mats and the futon (directly on the floor).

The room was a vast Japanese-style tatami room designed to sleep four. I had it, and I am pretty sure the rest of the eight-storey building, to myself. On the top floor there was a sento (shared bath) looking out across the port to sea. I installed myself and watched the late ferry steam in.

View from the window over the quiet port town.

By daylight the town was not much improved. Sado has been on the down for many years. Its population is half what it was in the 50s and in 2008 the airport shut because it was unsustainable. The population is mostly over 65; there are few job opportunities and no university so youngsters tend to get out and stay out.

A vending machine where I requested a cold grape drink served me a hot one instead and I passed a cat with blood dripping out of its mouth. A strange man on a bicycle flagged me down to practise his English and tried to persuade me to rent a bicycle. He warned me about dangerous people on the island. 'Is it safe around here,' I asked. 'Oh, it is quite safe,' he replied, 'especially in China, but even there you get poisonings.'

Drying squid on the road side.

At the tourist information I attempted my best Japanese, 'Please could you help me?' but the thrill of talking Japanese to a stranger overtook me and I ended up asking the baffled lady, 'Can I help you?' It turned out that, despite the sign, they had no information in English; the Noh museum which had been a main attraction for me had shut down three years ago (it's still in Lonely Planet); and although the island is famous for its 30+ theatres there would be no performances for the entire week I was there. Quite a jackpot.

So I set off on a jaunt all over the island nevertheless. I did end up seeing four terrific theatres but I have decided to keep those photos (mostly) separate since they are rather a geek interest.

Here is the first theatre I located. As I strolled backwards to take this photo I nearly trod on a snake. I caught sight of it as I turned around to check my footing. I only saw half of it curling back into the shrubbery but it wasn't small.

Behind the theatre.

The pine trees are very symbolic for Noh. As enduring evergreens they
play off against the Buddhist notions of transience which permeate
Japanese aesthetics. They also help the masked actors locate
themselves on their way to and from the stage.

Having finished in the port town, I headed off to the bus stop via this loo. As I snapped this baffling sign which appeared to be saying not to put loo paper in the loo on my phone, I realized I had left my charger in the hotel. I ran back to get it and just made the bus in time.

The buses have an unusual fare system. You take a ticket from a dispenser when you get which bears the number of your stop. When it comes to alighting, you check the number against this table by the driver (updated at each stop) which tells you your fare. The driver doesn't check and you just pop the money in a honesty box-type thing on the way out.

Purple hair for Mum.

This was my second hotel room. The bed is behind the screen. The small raised tatami section is rather unusual. After I arrived I went to visit another nearby Noh stage. I stopped to ask a man gardening for directions and he jumped in his car and gave me a lift. Exceptionally kind.

I visited a 500 year old temple which was rather impressive especially as it was wooden. As everywhere else, I was the only visitor. On the way into the grounds the lady warned me that there were hornets and snakes in the grounds and helpfully added that I shouldn't touch them. I asked if there was any particular place to be cautious and she said, 'No, they can pop out of anywhere at any time.'

Having finished at the temple I waited for the bus and suddenly realized that, for the second day running, I had left my charger in the hotel. I had to walk 2km back to get it, missed my bus by a few minutes and had to wait 2 hours for the next one.

I stopped off at particularly beautiful Noh stage with a thatched roof.

These tiny frogs (he could sit on a 50p piece) were everywhere.

I eventually arrived at the island's southern port, Ogi.

This sad, discarded puppet rather summed up one side of the island.

I was amused to see the Manneken Pis in triplicate outside this rather
run-down looking primary school. NB the turtle in the pool below.

The island was a strange contrast of sad buildings and sights like the two above and beautiful countryside and shrines, like this one below (the people were all very friendly, too):

Grandma and grandson heading home from the small festival at the shrine above.
NB he is voraciously clutching an enormous bag of candy floss.

I found a youth hostel up in the hills to stay in. It was raining and I didn't have an umbrella and a strange lady started trying to talk to me as I set off to find it. At first I couldn't understand why I was unable to understand a single word of her Japanese. Then I realized she was quite mad. I stopped to look at a small shrine and when I passed back onto the main road she was standing there with her knickers around her knees. I hurried on.

The youth hostel was on a small farm. I was the only person there. The three rooms were traditional Japanese style, all along one corridor with sliding doors. The dear old lady who owned the place was almost bent double like a great deal of Sado's population. (Many still work in the fields and spend all day bending from the waist.) She literally went up the stairs on all fours.

She kindly pointed me in the direction of the nearby onsen which had magnificent views out across the port. A great improvement on my local onsen in Tokyo on the scenery front although this one had rather green walls.

On the way in there was an ominous 'Japan's most wanted' poster which made one imagine the fugitives hiding out in the baths. Rather than by murderers, I was nigh-on assaulted by a large group of young boys on their way out. You can't imagine a bunch of English children choosing to kill their Thursday afternoon in the bath together but they definitely had the right idea. I sat soaking and watched the sun go down over the seascape.

The buses, very good when they came, were few and far between. There was a 5 hour wait the following morning to get a bus to the local museum (just out of reasonable walking range). So I hired a bicycle and set off. It turned out it was one of those power assisted bicycles which was really terrific. Not used one before but highly recommend it. I paid just ¥500 for 2 hours (under £4) did not have to leave a deposit and shot off power-assisted up the hill.

The museum, set in a disused wooden school building was crammed with tens of thousands of artifacts of everyday life. There wasn't a single explanatory card - not even dates - and the items were just stacked on shelf after shelf. You could touch everything and there were no curators. Just a cat.

One schoolroom had been preserved.

The main feature of the museum was a huge, full-size reconstruction of an old Japanese trading ship. This alone was very well explained with a terrific 'making of' video.

This gets paraded around on red letter days.

One of the huge rooms of stuff. NB the extremely long fish spears
in the centre. They are over 10ft long.

Approaching this Archimedes screw from the other side, I went
to touch it and it mewed.

I wonder if J K Rowling ever passed through?

Geta ice skates. Cannot imagine how one would stay up on these.

I cycled on to a small village right on the coast which has been made some kind of heritage site because of its traditional buildings. I realized at this point I hadn't left my phone charger in the youth hostel. Something of a shame because I happened to cycle right past.

I then went to visit the Sado gold mine, hiring another of those brilliant bicycles which helped me pretty much fly up the mountain to the entrance. This was quite interesting but the photos I took inside aren't worth posting. As with nearly everywhere I went, I was the only tourist. Being down a gold mine on your own is a bit sketchy. Only saw a few of the old tunnels but the museum afterwards was simply terrific with an enormous scale model of the entire mine and town as it was in the seventeenth century. It was filled with very amusing little details:

Man struggles with daikon.

Old man at the onsen. He even had painted pubes.

Breast feeding while sifting gold dust.

I'm sure it was.

A piece of rock. The gold and silver ore was found in the quartz veins
running through the mountain. The little specks which do not
glisten in the photo are flecks of native gold.

Enormous ruins of the mine's later technology

I returned to Ogi for a quick lunch before heading off for my final night. I was recommended a soba shop just by the port, eventually tracked it down and entered to find everything - stoves and lights - turned off. So I shouted 'excuse me' loudly in Japanese to no response, waited and tried again. Suddenly a voice said, 'Daddy?' A brief pause. 'Daddy, is that you?'

It took some time to clock this voice, which sounded acoustic, was coming from the TV behind the counter. Eventually the owner appeared, no it wasn't his day off, he'd been saving electricity because of the earthquake and please would I sit down.

He served me some delicious noodles and it turned out surprisngly that he had worked in Tokyo when he was my age and used to play Mah Jong in the very (small) town where I live. This was rather like going to Skye and meeting someone who used to play croquet in Reigate.

He asked me where I lived, I said England, he said which part, I said near London. 'Oh,' he replied, 'near Holland.'

Excellent soba.

Waiting for the bus out of Ogi I had to take a tourist ride in one of the traditional tub boats called taraibune (たらい舟) in the harbour. The boats are quite stable and the women used to use them to harvest seaweed and other treats. No gondala but quite fun.

The youth hostel I found for my last night was an absolute gem. One of the nicest places I've ever stayed. The family had lived on the site for 300 years; they had set up the youth hostel 50 years ago; the building had been knocked down and reconstructed (in a traditional Japanese style) just 5 or so years ago. It was in a tiny little fishing village right on the sea. Here is a shot looking down on it from the hills:

The hall, looking through to the dining room.

As usual I had the whole place to myself. The mother cooked my a very fine Japanese meal (which I ate kneeling à la Japonaise - there wasn't really a choice but it felt right anyway) and I retired to my superb room. The sea was about 50 metres away with nothing but greenery between me and it:

From my bedroom window.

The Sea of Japan is bafflingly calm. The waves do not break. As I lay in bed I could hear them gently lapping the shore. The pièce de résistance was the most astonishing smell of flowers wafting in. It wasn't until the morning that I could see there was a row of violets in high flower planted under the window. Safety is not really a problem in Japan (the front door of the hostel didn't even have a lock) so I slept with the window open. Peering out in the moonlight with the sound of the sea and the smell of these flowers was quite extraordinary.

The following morning I nipped down to the sea to swim. It was pleasantly warm, I lost track of time and almost missed my bus. There was a 6 hour wait until the next one. But the dear lady at the hostel had flagged it down for me and kept it waiting while I hastily threw everything into my bag. I didn't have time to say a proper thank you.

Of course, in al the rush, I had left my charger in the room for the third time in four days and I sat on the bus thinking what a come down it was after such a splendid night. I'd have to buy another one as soon as I got back to Tokyo because my phone is my alarm and they aren't at all cheap.

Well, can you believe, about fifteen minutes later, the bus stopped in the middle of the road, the door opened and who should walk on but the lady from the hostel clutching my charger having chased down the bus in her car! And then she was gone again.

The bus drove on along the coast and twice little old ladies on mobility scooters driving towards us - on our side of the road - loomed up suddenly out of the cloaking white mist. They ride their scooters to their plots and then spend all day on their feet bent double.