Golden Week pt 2: Sado Island

Sado Island isn't a common tourist destination, even for Japanese people. It's a beautiful place, not yet totally ruined by civilisation, but because it's so remote, without some Japanese ability at your disposal, you'd really struggle to get by.

My Japanese is still far from being remotely good, and I'm still a long way from being able to communicate freely. However, there are occasionally some moments where I realise how much I have learnt - like in a soba (noodle) restaraunt on our first night on Sado Island. I initially mistook the small restaraunt for a nursery, given that there were so many plants out the front. The owner was a very friendly guy, quite interested in us, and he lived just on the second floor above the restaraunt. We were the only customers, and ended up chatting to the owner the whole time we were there. It wasn't until we left the restaraunt, bellies full and satisfied, when we realised that we'd just spoken Japanese for the last two hours.

We stayed one night in an old lady's house. Strictly speaking, it was a minshuku - a Japanese-style bed and breakfast. She lived on the first floor, and we slept in the spare rooms upstairs. It was quite an experience; she was a funny little lady, obviously very nervous to have foreigners as customers (she didn't know a word of English), and spoke a million miles an hour. As an experienced old person, she was very good at fussing about little things. Our curfew was 8:00pm (which actually didn't bother us, seeing as we were staying in such a small, local town that everything had closed by 6:00pm anyway). She ran the bath for us at 8:05pm and made our breakfast at 7:30am the next day; but despite the fact that she seemed to be in a stressed-out overdrive the whole time, she looked after us. When we left the next morning she discounted the cost of our stay, and didn't let us leave until we'd assured her that we were capable of finding our way to our next destination.

Actually, we didn't know what our next destination was. We spent our days mostly travelling around the coast by bus, getting off to explore whenever we felt like it, and generally having no plans at all. This became rather interesting when we caught one bus to the end of the line and found ourselves in a town with a population of about 100 (if that), no restaraunts, and only one shop. The shop was so small and so out of the way that when we walked in, we actually woke the owner up. I honestly do not know how that place stays in business. I've seen wardrobes bigger than that shop. There was almost nothing to buy there, as you'd imagine. Our lunch consisted of a strawberry jam roll and chips, which was the best we could do in the way of any edible food. Anyway, we actually stayed in that tiny village for one night, after we managed to find a small hostel hiding just 30 meters from the beach.

But wait - if this was the end of the bus line, how did we get around? Oh, my friends, you underestimate us. We hitchhiked! It wasn't easy; we had to follow the road on foot for an hour and a half first, up into the mountains. Finally, a friendly midddle-aged couple stopped to give us a lift and a cold drink. As with pretty much everyone we met, they relaxed when they saw that we spoke a bit of Japanese. They weren't locals; like us, they were visiting the island in their short vacation. We decided to go to a couple of sightseeing spots together, and thankfully I got a photo with them before we parted ways. We were only together for maybe half an hour, but it was a lasting memory.

Some people are so damn kind that you forget you're a foreigner in their country. When all those walls are down... that's one of the most amazing feelings about being in Japan.