Shodoshima - where are we going??

11th November, 2007

Steve and Marie had to work today so Lauren and I decided to head to place which we had never been to before. Shodoshima was that lucky place. We did some research and found out that we had to catch a ferry to this island which was situated about an hour and a half away from Himeji. We worked out exactly what we wanted to do there and we set off for the day.

We arrived at the port ready to catch the ferry across to the island. We didn’t actually realise how big the ferry was actually going to be. It was HUGE - a monstrosity. I couldn’t believe it. Lauren and I were first to board and our mouths just dropped. It was amazing. I had never been on such a big ferry before. There were lounge chairs, a cafeteria, video games, big carpeted areas - it was unreal. We grabbed ourselves some comfortable lounge chairs so that we could relax and enjoy the ride.

The HUGE ferry

Inside the ferry


The ferry was quite full and as room was running out the area where we thought was just going to be us sitting soon wasn’t. A tour group came up and invaded our space. It was quite funny really because at first noone wanted to sit next to us but then eventually there were about 5 old people that did. They were prepared with their little bento boxes and just started talking to us in Japanese the entire way to the island. Lauren and I were just laughing so much as this was just totally unexpected. We used the Japanese that we knew to try and have a conversation with them. One of the men was really drunk and he just kept giggling and trying to speak to us. He kept telling us that we were beautiful. His wife was telling him off and trying to calm him down but he wouldn’t listen to her. They kept getting their tour photographer to come over so that they could all have pictures with us. It was quite entertaining and I think we were the talk of the boat especially since we were the only gaijin on it.

Once we reached the island we said goodbye to our new friends and set off to do the things that we wanted to do. The main things were to see the gorge via the ropeway and to see the olive park. Well this proved to be more difficult than expected. Our main priority was the ropeway so we asked how to get there and it just seemed very confusing to everyone. Buses were very infrequent and so a lot of waiting was involved.

We finally hopped on a bus not really knowing where we were going but hoping it was to the ropeway, It somehow ended up being a tour bus - who knows how or why but it was. They kept stopping at different places where we could get off and look around, but because we didn’t really know what was going on or where to go we just stayed in the area. The scenery from the bus was beautiful. The coast was amazing but because we were on the bus we couldn’t get many photographs.

One of the stops was a look out which was amazing. The autumn colours made it so much better. We were absolutely freezing though so luckily we were only there for about 5 minutes.


We eventually made it to the ropeway after about 2 hours of getting to the island. We couldn’t believe it but the main thing was that we got there. The cable car ride was fantastic as the view of the mountains combined with the autumn trees was magnificent.
The view on the way down

The view at the bottom - I just love the autumn trees, so beautiful!!

Once we got to the bottom we had to wait another half an hour to catch the bus back to the ferry. We were on a very strict time limit as the ferry and busses were very infrequent. We bought a coffee and enjoyed it sitting in a gazebo type thing while we waited for the bus. We never made it to the olive park but at least we did one of the things that we wanted to do. We got to the ferry just in time and were able to relax for the rest of trip home.

Although it felt like we spent a lot of the day on transport and waiting around it was a beautiful island and we saw some fantastic things. I think it would be good to go in the summer time so that you could actually swim there. Also I think spending a night there would have been better.
Lauren and I had a great time trying to figure out what was going on and where we were going. It will definitely be a day trip that I wont forget in a hurry.