小値賀島

小値賀島

こんにちは。関西の大学生のけんいちです。日本人です笑 春休みで約2週間滞在しています。

仁淀川で出会った花子ちゃんとの"縁"があって島宿御縁でボランティアをすることになりました。そして、この場でもたくさんの人と出会うことができました。ここでの生活はとても楽しくて一日の密度がとても濃いです。まだ、一週間しか経っていないのにまるで1ヶ月滞在しているような感覚です。

ここでのボランティアはとても快適です。毎食ごちそうがでてくるのでとても楽しみです。特に刺し身は新鮮でとても美味しいです！しかもほぼ毎日食べてます笑

猫が可愛すぎるので猫と戯る時間が毎日あります。無料の猫カフェ笑　ただ、みんな風邪引いちゃってます。いつか絶対猫飼いたいって思いました。

観光地はやっぱり海に囲まれているのでビーチが最高です。透き通った綺麗なブルーでまるで南国の国の海みたいです。また、崖も大きく岩もカラフルです。

sunrise

Sunset on Ojika Island

Need another reason for coming to Ojika? I will show you one. It is called sunset! 

I don´t need to say much about it... just look at the pictures and enjoy!

I love the time right before the sun sets, when the sun is so close to the edge and the light is golden. 

The flooded ricefields reflect the last golden sunbeams. "Looks like one of those cheesy postcards."

The wind is rough today. The spray hits our faces as we walk onto a spit to watch the sun set behind another island, making our lips taste salty for the rest of the evening.

Doesn´t this belong on a canvas, hanging in a museum?

A good sunset needs clouds. These caught fire right in front of our eyes.

The sea is about to change it´s colour from turquoise to black as the sun is slowly vanishing. 

It is almost over. Time to go back.

Can you see why it is worth coming to Ojika?

花子

Nosaki Island

You heard about the church on Nosaki Island and are considering to visit the island close to Ojika? Here´s my experience on Nosaki. I can tell you already, there´s a lot more to this mystical place than only the world heritage church...
To get to Nosaki island, you will need to take a small ferry from Ojika port at 7:20 am. You will pay a fee of 500 yen per person once you are on the boat. The ride is about 20 minutes long and from the boat you will already get a nice view on Nosaki and get a first glimpse of the big stone tori of the Oki no kojimajinja shrine.

When you arrive on Nosaki island, you will join a quick introduction in the "visitercenter", where they tell you not to feed the deers an to "beware of the wild boars and snakes".  After that you are free to explore the island on your own.
First, we went to the now abandoned houses of kyu-nozakishuraku, the former village on Nosaki.

(a deer standing in between the ruins of a former house)

There you can visit the house of the last monk on Nozaki, the only building that is still fully standing.
We followed a group of tourists to the kitasakitenbojo, a great viewing spot. The surrounding is quite bizarre; it reminds of some sort of red savanna. You can really see that the island has a volcanic origin.

Next we started our hike to the kojimajinja shrine even though the guy at the visitercenter did not recommend to go, since they do not take care of the path leading there anymore. Against our expectations, the hike was doable and it took us 1 and 1/2 hours to get to the shrine. The path is leading you through the woods, where you will see many shy deers and passes by the top of the hiratake mountain, where you can peek through the top of the trees to see Ojika island from above.

(the path reminded us of the movie `my neighbour totoro`)

When we arrived at the shrine, we were surprised to find a group of japanese locals, that told us they were in charge of documenting the age of the different parts of the shrine to make it easier to take care of and restore them.  You can clearly see that the place has not been taken care of well in the last few years, but it is still an impressive view. We then climbed up some rocks and sat down on a huge one just below the stone tori to have the delicious sandwiches that Ume-san, the cook of the island Inn, had prepared for us. We had the best view over Ojika island!

( view over Ojika from above the shrine)

(perfect picknick spot)

After our little break, we walked up to fully see the stone tori. Apparently it is not clear if the tori was build by the islanders or if it was formed naturally. Either way, it is really impressive.
To go back to the port it only took us one hour, since the path is going down most of the time if you come this way.

(the stone tori)

Now it was finally time to see that mystical church. After a 20 minutes walk, the red stone building appeared behind former terrace rice fields. We were lucky, because right at that moment, the sun decided to peak through the clouds that had been bothering us the entire day.

We sat inside the church, enjoying the silence and letting our minds take us away to the time, where the church was still used.

Stepping outside the church felt like awakening from a dream.

Since we only had about an hour of time left at that point, we decided to visit the beach right beneath the hill on which the church was build. We wandered down the huge sand dunes towards the bright, sandy bay. We passed the time listening to the sound of the waves and eating some snacks.

Then it was time to go back to the port, from which the ferry leaves to Ojika at 3pm.

We still had a bit of time left, so we went to visit the former graveyard of Nozaki on the tip of a cliff.
On the way back by ferry (500 yen fee) we were able to see the white cross on the southern end of the island.
We arrived back on Ojika at around 3:30pm.
What a memorizing trip!


花子

朝焼けを見る冒険

〜 An adventure to see the Ojika sunrise 〜

I arrived on Ojika Island excited and ready for two months of what I hoped would be some of the best moments of my 6-month trip across Japan. Instantly welcomed in by Taiyo (who runs Shimayado Goen Inn) and a great gang of other volunteers, I was buzzing to begin my life as an islander in this picturesque little paradise. 

That evening at Karaoke (of course), I found out that we were expected to start work at 7.45, which was a slight shock to the system as I had gotten into a very lazy routine of sleeping late and waking up even later. But the next day I got up, drank a few strong cups of coffee and managed the first full day at work- cleaning rooms, washing up, and doing a lot (a lot!!) of hoovering*. The work was fun and not too strenuous, but I was pretty exhausted by the end of the day; not used to waking up early, my body was knackered and a bit confused about what was going on. 

*Hoovering is British English for vacuuming. アメリカ人が使うvacuumingという言葉はイギリス英語でhooveringですー（勉強になりましたね^.^）

すごいワクワクな気持ちで、小値賀島に到着した。日本全体旅行をしているのだけど、小値賀に住む二ヶ月が一番いいかなーと思っていた。島宿御縁を経営している太陽さんと他のボランティアする人たちから温かい歓迎を受けていて、アイランドライフを始めるのが本当に楽しみだった。

あの日の夜、みんなとカラオケバーに行って、歌いながらボランティア活動の詳細について話した。午前7時半ぐらいに仕事が始まると聞いて、わああー早いーと思ったけど、小値賀に来る前怠惰な生活をし始めたから、新生活を作れるいい機会かなーと思った。

次の日、起きて、コーヒーを飲んで、宿の掃除、バキューミング、洗い物の片付けとかを楽しくできた！そんなに大変じゃなかったけど、終わった後疲れてきて、ベッドに入っていたかった。

Suddenly, I hear from the other volunteers that they are planning to wake up around 5.30 the following morning to see the sunrise. It only being my second proper day on the island, I was pretty hesitant; but as we were all staying in the same room, I was very likely to be woken up as they left, AND I knew deep down that I should really make the effort to witness something so beautiful.... So I said I would join the gang on their adventure. 

ベッドの白昼夢を見始めた瞬間に、他のボランティアが「明日日の出を見るために5時半におきるつもりだよー」と言った。まだ眠いし、小値賀にいるのは2日目だし、実はしたくない感じがつよかった。しかし、みんなともっと遊びたかったし、怠け者してるし、行ったほうがいいと思った。「はーい、私も来るよー」と言った。

6am

Somehow the four of us all managed to get up, and we began our walk to Kuroshima (where we would get the best view according to the locals). At first, we thought the clouds might be a little too low to see anything (can you imagine!!), but we soon realised that we had just arrived a little early. The sky was already a beautiful array of pastel colours, and so for a while we just enjoyed the scenery... eagerly awaiting what was going to come next.

なんとかして５時半に起きて、地元の人がオススメした黒島 に歩き始めた。着いた時、低く垂れ込めた雲が多すぎて何も見えないかもと思ったーそれだったらやばいね！！でも、たぶんもうすぐ見えると思って、日の出前のきれいなピンクと青い空をゆっくり見た。

きれい〜

Also, it was time for a little snack break... Bring out the chocopie!!!! 

小腹がすいたと感じて、チョコパイタイムになった！！！

Very happy bunnies 〜  食べる時は幸せね

Choco-pie, Choco-pie, We Love Choco-pie!

Snacks finished, we waited some more...

食べた後、もうちょっと待ってた。。。。

Then slowly and suddenly, a beautiful red light began to emerge, perfectly over the peak of an island mountaintop. 

で、きれいな赤い丸がだんだん山頂の上に上がってきた。

The entire sky changed colour, and......

急に空の色が変わって。。。

Sugoooooiiiiii------ The sun rose up from behind the mountain and spread its orangey-pink glow across the morning sky. It was easy to see why Japan was called The Land of the Rising Sun, it was just gorgeous.

すーーーごいいいいーーーーー太陽の光が見えていて、山の上にオレンジピンクな輝きが広がっていた。その瞬間、日本が日出づる国だと言われたことを本当にわかった。すごく美しかった。

After gazing in awe for a while (and taking a lot of pictures) we decided to head back home, very proud of ourselves for making the effort, and still beaming from the beauty we had just seen. 

沢山の写真を撮ったり、恐れおののいて凝視したりした後、嬉しくて満足の気持ちで、家に帰った。

Yayy we did it!! (Can you tell I was tired though???)

It was a really lovely start to our day, and I hated to admit that missing those two extra hours of sleep was so worth it. Just look at the smile on Kenichi's face????

本当にすごい朝だった。睡眠よりいい経験だと自分で認めた。賢一の陽気な笑顔を見るとわかるだろう？

If you're ever in Ojika, you really should make the effort to see the sunrise, you won't regret it! 

小値賀島に来る機会があれば、ぜひ朝焼けを見に行ってくださいー

GO TEAM! <3 

〜Abbie 

アビー