I had plans to go to the Belgian waffle shop in the station for breakfast, but it was closed, so I went to 'Mister Donut' and bought some snacks there instead. They were much lighter in texture than something you might bjy from Gregs, and therefore did almost nothing to quell my hunger. I then gook a train to Mihara, changing onto the coastal line for Tadanoumi.
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| One of the small Hiroshima prefecture coastal towns |
It was another scenic journey, similar to that through Shikou in terms of rural villages and hills, but with additional bursts of seaside. I was impressed to see stretches of tropically sandy beaches under tall palm trees. I seemed to be a long way south of Tokyo!
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| The beautiful Sinto Sea |
I had barely got off the ferry port when I saw my first rabbit. The island was swarming in tame rabbits, and the rabbits were swarming with children. I was gratified to see that 90% of the tourists were Japanese, but obviously the secret had got out further afield, as there were a number of Americans too.
The bunnies were very cute. They weren't shy either, and let me get really close to take lots and lots of photos.
I hired a bike from a hotel, the only inhabited building on the island, and cycled around, stopping every hundred or so metres for a photo of the rabbits, the scenery, or... the poison gas storage tanks.
Okunoshiwa Island had been taken off the maps for a time last century, as the Japanese military used it to manufacture thousands of tons of mustard (blistering) gas and tear gas. When America occupied Japan, the gas was disposed of, either through being burnt or dumped in containers in the pacific(...) some sources I have read say that this was to hide the extent of it from the allies. Others say that it was done under American orders.
The presence of the bunnies on the islands also has two possible reasons. Rabbits were used to test the gas manufactured on the island (It's upsetting to think about, but what isn:t upsetting about chemical weapons?) They may have been released after the factory closed. Alternatively, it has been suggested that all the experiment rabbits were killed, but some schoolchildren released their pet rabbits onto the island after it had been abandoned. Either way, these founding rabbits did what rabbits do best, and now the island is covered with cute rabbits of every colour, size and coat. I didn't see any lop-eared rabbits though.
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| Most of the tourists had brought whole lettuces to give to the rabbits. I saw one woman with a lettuce the size of a basketball. |
As I wandered around feeding and stroking the rabbits, I began to notice that a lot of them had eye infections. Some of them had a blind white eye. Some of them had uncomfortable looking weeping eyes, and some of them had eyes too gross for me to really look at. As soon as I noticed this, I avoided touching the rabbits and washed my hands. I noticed that there were a lot of no-go areas on the island with large metal cylinders behind fencing, but the rabbits had hopped through or dug under it. Maybe they were experiencing disease as any creature in the wild might, or maybe they were feeling some ill-effects from their sinister home.
I could also smell something alien and unpleasant in the air. As I climbed higher up the mountain, occassionally being approached by rabbits as I walked (they had learnt humans were not to be feared, and provided lettuce), I began to feel that this island was a bit creepy. Everywhere there was the decaying ruins of gun batteries and poison storage tanks, I began to notice more and more the disfigured rabbits, and that smell was making my imagination run wild. What if I was smelling traces of the gas?
As I neared the top of the island on foot, I began to feel the rare sensation of complete physical exhaustion. I couldn't walｋ as fast as I was trying to, it was all I could do to keep moving with my backpack on. I wasn't tired or hungry, just weary. I knew this fatigue was coming from having travelled and experienced so much in so few days, but I was determined to last at least until the end of the trip!
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| Sakura |
As I cycled the last stretch towards the hotel, I saw a number of bikes parked outside a tunnel, and pulled up to take a look. Through the tunnel was the burnt out shell of the poison gas factory. It was utterly haunting.
Here on the coast, the smell was less strong. I returned my bike and couldn:t resist going for a paddle in te beautiful blue water, trying not to think of all the containers full of toxic chemicals which had been dumped somewhere out there at sea!
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| You can see why I was tempted by the water! |
I didn't paddle for long though because despite the beautiful weather, it was still March, and the water was turning my feet numb with cold! I got on the ferry back to Tadanoumi, the train back to Mihara, and then eventually rode another Shinkhansen to Hiroshima, where I would be spending the night.
It was raining lightly when I got to Hiroshima. The station waｓ packed full of baseball fans - I:d just missed a game at the Hiroshima stadium Not that I'd have gone if I could - I don:t know the first thing about baseball in my own language, let alone Japanese!)
I took a local train and then, when I stared at my map for too long, a local lady kindly guided me to a streetcar (tram) to get to where I was staying. I found it quite poignant to ride a streetcar, as I could recall from a documentary I had seen about the atomic bomb, that a survivor interviewed had been driving a streetcar for the first time when the bomb exploded. I recalled that she said her first concern was that she'd done something wrong.
It was an easy walk from my stop to the World Friendship Centre (WFC from hereon), and I was greeted by a German man who looked so perplexed that I momentarily wondered if (despite the glowing signs outside, and having exchanged emails with his wife earlier that afternoon) I:d got the wrong place. They soon warmed up though, and after I had put my bags in my room (a whole room to myself again, but this time with Tatami mats and Futon, and a shared bathroom with the man across the hall) we all went out to dinner together at a tiny local eatery run by two brothers.
One of the brothers spoke pretty good english, and both were very smiley to the only guests in their restaurant, and I drank some Japanese spirit (not Sake, but I don't think it was Whisky either. All I know is that it came from a sweet potato) with warm water, then ate a large amount of vegetables, some cold, and some battered as tempura.
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| Yummy Tempura (holiday calories don't count) |
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