October 16th (traveling from Ishigaki to Yakushima)

This morning we ate at the hotel because the breakfast started at 6h30am. We checked out and took a takushi to the airport. It's when we arrived that I realized that what I had heard was true. Most taxis in Japan have automatic doors! You don't have to touch them to open or close them :)

We took the plane from Ishigaki back to Naha to transfer to Kagoshima (both about 1 hour flights). In Kagoshima, the mascot is a small volcano. I'll explain why later ;)

Waiting in Naha for our next plane

From Trip to Japan

Kagoshima's mascot

From Trip to Japan

From Kagoshima airport, we took a 1 hour bus to get to the port of the city (the airport isn't in the city). we walked 20 minutes and bought our tickets for the jet foil ferry at the port.

While we waited for our boat to leave, we ate some ramen and went outside to take pictures of Sakurajima. Sakurajima is a volcano right across the bat from the city. They call Kagoshima the Naples of Japan.

Sakurajima

From Trip to Japan

The ferry took about 3 hours and when we arrived we headed straight for the "rentaca" (rent-a-car). It was around 5h30pm.

Pictures from the boat

From Trip to Japan

Arriving in Yakushima

From Trip to Japan

From Trip to Japan

When we arrived, there was nobody there... Just a sign in Japanese :S I took a picture of it and went to a store next to the rentaca.

From Trip to Japan

The guy spoke no english. I managed to make him understand and showed the picture of the sign. He got the rentaca guy on the phone. He was waiting for us at another port of Yakushima...

We had 30 minutes to wait for him to get back so I decided to go "drain the lizard" in a bush. I almost put a big spider in my face because I was looking where I was putting my feet. I don't know if it was poisonous or not but it looked scary :P

From Trip to Japan

The guy finally arrived. We rented the car and drove to our "minshuku" (kind of like a B&B) named Manmaru. The car was equipped with a GPS and even though there aren't that many roads on such a small island it was very useful !

When we arrived, supper was waiting for us. The minshuku was a family run business and the hosts were a family consisting of a father, mother, daughter (late 20ies) and son (late 20ies). We ate local food like flying fish and some kind of seashell. Rice, chicken, sashimi, other kinds of fish. It was excellent and very well presented. The farther of the house also offered me some awamori :)

We talked a bit with the other guests and the hosts. One of the guests was an old lady and she asked us when we wanted to take our bath because it was a mixed and shared bathhouse. We told her we wouldn't take a bath (all we had done was sit all day). She seemed really surprised and didn't seem to accept that we didn't want to take a bath. She asked us like 4 times the same question!

After she had left and we had finished drinking and talking, the daughter told us that we could take a bath together (me and Nath, not all 3 of us :P) because the bathhouse was empty. We gave in but we were really happy we did. It was really nice with a nice view on the moonlit sea.

We went to bed around 10pm. We had to get up at 5am the next morning for an estimated 10 hour trek in the woods to go see a 2500 to 7000 year old cedar: Jomon-sugi !

Picture of a spider at the minshuku

From Trip to Japan

Our room

From Trip to Japan