Whirlwind through Japan (part #2)
It was almost 4 PM on the 4th when we landed in Tonoshō on Shōdo-Shima. The island gets a paragraph in one of our books and a one page section in the other. “Shōdo’s craggy mountains are spectacular, and its seacoast equally so for the contrast of ruggedness with sandy beaches.” The two main attractions are a nature park in the center and Monkey Land, another park where more than 700 small monkeys roam free. Either would have been great to see were it not for two problems that have been plaguing us throughout our trip. Firstly, most tourist sites close between 4 PM and 5 PM. The public parks close at 7 PM. Secondly, in early October, the sun sets before 6 PM. Moreover, while the books spoke wonders of the buses that cover the island, neither mentioned that they do so only once every two hours. We had no choice but to head to our ryokan.
“On the bus route west to Kami-no-ura, this inn sits on a plateau with a view of the Seto Naikai and Shikoku’s distant mountains.” The inn turned out to be a small resort. With ~30 rooms, the main building would elsewhere have been called a hotel. Outside were a network of locked-up cabins and a closed karaoke bar. That evening we shared an establishment that could have accommodated multiple tour groups with three other guests and two very friendly staff people. The young waitress kept on blushing and cracking up as we failed to communicate with her. While the carpets were worn out and the electronic door locks disabled, the souvenir and snack counter was fully provisioned. The hot spring which we used later that night was very soothing although the dark clouds and the stained windows blocked the view. If the top of the hill was deserted, at the bottom was a sports complex with a water park, tennis courts, a covered gathering area and a playing field. We walked down in time for the start of the kids’ soccer practice.
There we found the small local modern art museum next to a convenience store. We also discovered that, at the beginning of the century, olives were introduced here in Japan from Spain. The shop sold all kind of olive derivatives: oil, jam, cookies, mochi, chocolate, etc. We bought pepper-stuffed olives (which tasted like regular green olives), olive-flavored chocolates and olive chocolate mochi. Sadly there was no olive tapenade.
Since there was nowhere to eat, we went back up for the set menu of the inn’s cafeteria. After the visit to the hot spring we retired early and got on the 9 AM ferry back to the mainland the next morning. A few hours later we were at Miyajima.