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Toby, one of our senior travel consultants in Bristol, shares his experiences travelling around the Yaeyama islands in winter. Far closer to Taiwan than Japan’s southernmost main island, Kyushu, he explores a lesser-known side of Japan in winter.
How many islands are in Japan?
If you are have ever searched “How many islands are there is Japan?”, a common answer is six thousand, five hundred and fifty two. Whether this includes islands within other islands (the enormous Lake Biwa in central Japan hosts several itself) is unclear, but either way it’s an astounding number.
I can safely say I haven’t yet visited them all…
The Yaeyama islands in Okinawa during winter
At the end of last year I was offered the opportunity to discover a few more by paying a visit to the Yaeyama islands in Okinawa in the south. It was already getting chilly in Bristol, where our UK office is, and my local park’s pond had frozen over a good two or three times.
If you looked up the Okinawa or Yaeyama islands with the same curiosity of your “how many islands are there in Japan?” search, you were likely treated to images of sun-drenched beaches and turquoise waters parading impressively across Google Images’ first page.
These were also the images going through my head. That was before I had thought a little more about the time of year I’d be there – winter.
Okinawa vs. Hokkaido
Cold weather in Japan wasn’t a first for me. When I lived there I was based all the way up in snowy Hokkaido which might as well be a different country to Okinawa! There are great conditions for winter sports and an annual snow festival during the colder months. During the short but sweet summer, wide open areas of countryside are perfect for hiking. To emphasise just how different Hokkaido is, you could compress the land mass of the many Okinawa islands within the centre of Hokkaido, and still be a good 100km from the sea in any direction.
After my experience there, I knew that I could handle a Japanese winter at its worst. I kept my fingers crossed that the latitude difference would make for a far balmier trip in the southerly isles.
Shirakawago
I didn’t head straight to the sunny south of this particular trip though with some time for a quick visit to some of the alpine areas not far from Tokyo. Despite only visiting en-route to Kanazawa, I found Shirakawago to be my personal favourite on my first trip to these areas. I took the picture above after stepping off the coach – as you can tell, I was still a long way from Okinawa’s beaches!
My confidence in Okinawa’s sunnier climes remained unshaken after this chilly first week. I left the mountains satisfied that I had brought the right clothes with me. Packing for both the snowy alps and Okinawa had been quite entertaining with a thick coat and sturdy boots alongside swimming shorts and sunscreen. Before flying south, I shed my winter layers and left them to hibernate in Tokyo, where I’d stop off before returning to the UK.
Travel to Ishigaki Island
My first stay in the Yaeyama islands was Ishigaki. I had looked at ferry times, thinking that arrival by boat might add to the atmosphere, but journey times of at least 25 hours to reach the closest part of the Okinawa island chain (let alone Ishigaki on the southern end) made me think again. Direct flights from either Tokyo or Kansai airport take a much more convenient two to three hours. I didn’t need any convincing to opt for this instead of the boat!
Ishigaki Island – Sunny in winter?
Upon arrival, the subtropical paradise treated me to…darkness. It was night time. You could feel the temperature difference though, even at 8pm, my jeans and a shirt almost felt too much. After checking in to my hotel, a charming cottage split into two guest rooms, I ventured down to the beach and soon realised that I could have worn with shorts and a t-shirt, even at night. To someone from Yorkshire, this was quite a novelty.
Having flown here from busy Osaka, I gradually noticed the lack of background traffic on the island. Despite a fair-sized town on the south side of Ishigaki, most of the accommodation is further along the coast with just one infrequently used road nearby. At night time all I could hear were the clichéd waves on the shore and, up until 11pm or so, the quiet clink of bottles from the hotel bar.
Bike hire on Ishigaki Island
In the morning I finally got to see Ishigaki in the sun and it was beautiful. Hiring a bike here is highly recommended, and having cycled in several other cities across Japan I thought I’d give it a whirl. To get in and out of town it did the job perfectly, and allowed me to explore most of the immediate area.
I realised how deceptively large the island actually is after that first day though and decided to get a car to do the northern half justice. It was well worth driving there on my second day. Compared to the more easily accessible south coast, I found the various bays there to be paradoxically more rugged in some parts and more tranquil in others.
Ishigaki Island – Kabira Bay
Perhaps the most photographed area here is Kabira bay, which I’d been looking for from the start. I was happy to see that even in winter it is still beautiful, despite the clouds rolling in. My own photo is not quite as bright, but still very attractive!
Ishigaki Island- Sculpture park
As with Shirakawago, it’s sometimes the smaller areas that surprise us the most and leave the strongest memories. One of mine was visiting the mini sculpture park where a local has been working for several years to display their colourful works.
The creatures on display are loose interpretations of the area’s guardians, known as shisa. There are plenty of miniature decorations involving these lion-dogs mounted on gateways leading to houses, or on the roofs of the buildings themselves. They come in pairs, with one opening its mouth wide and the other grinning through a closed mouth. They never made it to mainland Japan, so worth looking out for whilst here. Below is a more typical example of one, with myself for scale.
With it being being an over-sized garden you’d perhaps feel swindled if there was an entrance fee to see it. You simply drive up and have a short wander, but it’s not a reason to go to the island itself and I’d made a quick circuit in just ten minutes or so. Despite this, I came away loving the island all the more for having experienced it.
Taketomi Island
After visiting Ishigaki, it was time to distance myself from civilisation by another degree with a trip to Taketomi Island. The main settlement is slap bang in the middle of the island, featuring cottages typical of the area. There are also a disproportionately high number of bikes available to hire. I love cycling, but with such a small island, I couldn’t convince myself that it was worth picking up a bike for the one night I was there. Just half an hour’s walk from one side to the other, and only reached by ferry, this was somewhere I could properly get to grips with by foot.
Taketomi Island – more than beaches
The beaches here are the most famous in the area and they certainly are pleasant for a stroll – it was starting to get cooler and not quite swimming weather. With more time spent in some of the areas I saw on the way to and from them, I discovered two more things I’d had no idea about. The first being the cows, and the second the graves (no relation, I hope). A good chunk of the island is set aside for cows – I hadn’t realised how popular Taketomi beef is there! Although I didn’t get around to trying this myself, from what the locals have said it does sound good.
There were sets of ornate graves on both the north and the south side of the village. It’s impressive that the locals on such a small island as this had gone to such effort to honour those they had lost. With such a low population, they have more space to do this than in the major Japanese cities. Some of them had fresh flowers laid out in front of them and it was beautiful.
Iriomote Island
Iriomote Island, the final leg of my trip, is the most undeveloped of the three islands. In Mount Koya, up in Wakayama prefecture, there’s a vast cemetery with three bridges to cross to the centre. Each bridge is said to step deeper into the world of the spirits, and by the last one photos aren’t allowed because the inner sanctuary is so sacred. With my trip, every ferry I took was indeed one step further away from the living. Particularly with the internet reception becoming increasingly unreliable!
Everything on Iriomote Island is slightly overgrown, which lent to the wildness of it. Statues had grass growing up them and signs had faded. Even the usually impeccable bus service in Japan let me down ever so slightly when it was almost a minute late. To be fair to the bus service, there was only one every two hours, and it did have a lot of ground to cover. If this was the heart of rural England, I would have been happy to see a bus arrive at all.
Making the most of the islands
On reflection, I feel I underestimated Iriomote and paid the price for it. I did stay there for a while, enjoying my accommodation (although I didn’t brave the outdoor swimming pool!) and going on walks in the local area. I also managed to see the museum documenting local wildlife, and even watched one of the ox-driven carts make its pilgrimage to nearby Yubu island, joined by a land causeway just under the surface of the water. But I only managed to scratch the surface of this island.
If you were a keen photographer you could easily spend days here perfecting an album on the mangroves, coastline, and perhaps catching a shot of the elusive wildcat. Outdoor types can also go trekking, kayaking, and even paddle-boarding up the river.
Of the three, it’s the one that I feel the most need to return to.
Final thoughts on the Yaeyama islands, Okinawa
I returned to the Japanese mainland after my time in the south wishing for more. Always the best way to end a trip! I’m hoping to go back one day, whether in winter again, at their quietest and most tranquil. Or perhaps in the summer when the temperature reaches highs that my homeland never will.
The thing that stood out to me most about the islands was the amount of open space. Even the towns themselves seem uncrowded, with wide streets and large gaps between buildings. I’d thought that northern Hokkaido and southern Okinawa were polar opposites, and in many ways they are. The one thing they do share though is that feeling that you can step outside your door and lose yourself from the world.
Nowadays many places have a story of humans gradually encroaching on nature. In these parts of Japan, and Iriomote in particular, it genuinely felt like nature was fighting back, and winning.
If Toby’s experience in the Yaeyama islands has left you wanting to explore the road (or island) less travelled in Japan, have a look at our Japan Island-Hopping self-guided adventure. For more information email us: [email protected] or call: 0117 370 9751
