tsondaboy 0 Posted August 20, 2007 Share Posted August 20, 2007 How can you travel 1000 km and still be in Tokyo? The answer is, go to Ogasawara islands, officially part of Tokyo-to (Tokyo municipality). This place was on the top of my places I want to visit list for this summer, and I see my self becoming a regular visitor! The plan for this summer was originally to go back in Greece and travel to one of the islands there. Unfortunately my time is limited this year so I had to find a worthy substitute. We were thinking about either going to one of Okinawa islands or Ogasawara islands. We have a saying in Greece: if you didn’t board a ship in summer, even if you took days off you still haven’t had summer vacations. And since you have to fly to Okinawa, this was one of the reasons I picked Ogasawara. In order to get there, you need to do a 25 hours one way trip on a ship (still no airport in the island, other than an abandoned World War II corridor). There is only one ship every 3 days to go to/leave from the island, so everything works around the ship schedule. This also means that there are not more that 1000 visitors on the island at any given time even in high season, since that is the maximum capacity of the vessel. So it is the prefect place to go if you want to avoid the crowds on the slopes, eeeerrr, on the beaches I meant. So we too off on Sunday the 5th of August from Tokyo bay heading towards Chichijima, the main island in Ogasawara. Bye bye Tokyo We were lucky that the weather was good and there were no high waves during the trip, so no one got sea sick. There are very few cabins onboard, so most of the passengers have to slip in common rooms (max 200 at each room) Japanese stile, ie slipping on the floor next to each other. It’s not very comfortable, but makes for good PR and making new friends. The first tour we did was the “shim with the dolphins” tour! Our pension owner had his own boat and took us out all day, searching for dolphins and also snorkeling at coral riffs. Him self an expert spear-fisherman, he was one breath diving to 15~20 m to get our dinner! Here tsondaboy after the dolphins. And here at one of the nicest spots he took us snorkeling. Next day we embarked on a tour to visit the numerous WWII relics on the island. Due to its location, the island served as the main transmission station for the Japanese Imperial Navy in Pacific and was heavily fortified. At the time, more than 20000 soldiers were stationed there and there is still an extensive network of tunnels and forts on the mountains overlooking the bay. From what our guide explained to us, there was actually no soldier that died in combat on the island, but many dead from diseases and bad nutrition. We started the tour paying respects to the dead on a WWII tomb and wile hearing a few ghost stories we entered the jungle. After that, it was like getting back in time! tsondagirl in one of the old trenches. We had lunch that our guide prepared, on the edge of a cliff overlooking the bay. The view was breathtaking! The rest of the trip we spent it relaxing on the beach or drinking at the pension balcony. The beach next to it. Sunset from the balcony. Definitely the best beach on the island was Kominato. Due to the fact that very few visitors are on the island and that most of them are on a tour during the day, we had the beach for ourselves all day! and from a different angle. lots of other picks in the SJ photos section. http://www.snowjapan.com/e/insider/photo_section.php?userGallery=144&userid=tsondaboy Link to post Share on other sites
Yuki's Passion 1 Posted August 20, 2007 Share Posted August 20, 2007 woulda been a nice pic if yer mug wasnt killin the view sweet TR tsonda Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted August 20, 2007 Share Posted August 20, 2007 Thanks tsondamate. Great stuff. Link to post Share on other sites
gerard 6 Posted August 20, 2007 Share Posted August 20, 2007 Nice. I'd love to head down there sometime! Link to post Share on other sites
tsondaboy 0 Posted August 20, 2007 Author Share Posted August 20, 2007 Originally Posted By: Creek Boy woulda been a nice pic if yer mug wasnt killin the view Thx CB, I ll take that as a compliment. Originally Posted By: ger Nice. I'd love to head down there sometime! This pick made me also wanna head down to Kochi. Link to post Share on other sites
woywoy 0 Posted August 28, 2007 Share Posted August 28, 2007 Nice stuff guys ... I just had a week down in the Yaeyama islands, deep south into Okinawa-ken. Super beautiful down there too. Link to post Share on other sites
tsondaboy 0 Posted August 29, 2007 Author Share Posted August 29, 2007 post a TR NPM. (and lets go for some drinks) Link to post Share on other sites
NoFakie 45 Posted August 30, 2007 Share Posted August 30, 2007 My missus gets sea sick, so I'll probably never go, but it looks nice. Thanks tsonda! Link to post Share on other sites
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