白石島のバカンス

Earlier this week Keiko and I went for a short trip to a small island in Okayama Prefecture called Shiraishi Island. It's a very tiny peaceful island and the only way to get there is by ferry. Only about 2 km long and 1 km wide so it's very easy to travel around the island and there's really only one actual road which runs the circumference of the island. All other roads are too small for cars and are only accessible by scooter, bike or on foot.

In Okayama Prefecture they have set up a bunch of international villas in various remote areas of the prefecture as a way to attract foreign tourists as well as Japanese to the countryside. One of the six villas is on Shiraishi Island and Keiko and I stayed there for one night and then at a more traditional Japanese style minshuku (tourist home), basically a normal house that has been converted into an inn. The villas are really cheap to stay at 2500 for a foreigner and 3000 if you're Japanese and the rooms are quite comfortable. The only downside is you have to bring your own food. At the minshuku dinner and breakfast the next morning was included. Dinner was a full meat, seafood and vegetable barbeque spread. The minshuku was right on the beach as well so of course we hit that up and did a bit of swimming. The water was right at that prefect temperature and the water was nice and clean, free of seaweed and other various crap that would make swimming less enjoyable. Being so isolated as well the beach was basically empty. There were maybe a dozen other people on the beach or swimming at any given time.

On the way back from the island we stopped off in Okayama city and checked out a famous garden called Gorakuen as well as the neighbouring Okayama castle. I love Japanese castles and I can only imagine how great it woulda been to actually live or work in one of them back in the day. Sometimes I think perhaps I was born a few hundred years too late.