Roving Japan

Day 43 Photoset

This morning we found one of the more interesting onsens we’ve seen so far. How about taking a hot bath in a sail boat on the roof?

Then we explored the islands famous “Angel Road”, which is a little sand path that is only accessible at low tide. It was nice for a couple pictures.

However we spent most of our day in the Olive Garden area on Shodoshima. This rest area has a large olive grove, a large windmill, an herb garden and a gift shop full of various olive related merchandise.

The olive gifts were interesting. Olive chocolate, olive cookies, olive soap, olive cream etc… There were a couple bottles of olive oil, although no actual olives. The main draw seems to have been the olive chocolate. We tried some, and it basically tasted like white chocolate that had been dyed green with food coloring.

The lack of actual olives and olive related food on the island is telling. The real reason for Shodoshima’s olive groves dates back to the early 1900’s when the Japanese government got tired of importing olive oil for the fishing industry. They put out a mandate for 3 different prefectures to attempt to grow olives. Shodoshima was the only successful location. So Shodoshima’s olives aren’t for eating, they are for making oil to be used in the fish packing industry.

Shodoshima’s historical specialties are actually somen noodles and soy sauce!

On our way to the olive grove, we wandered into a somen noodle factory where the employees were busy making noodles. This place was a blast because the noodle making process is really quite beautiful and the finished hanging noodles are really cool to look at.

We talked to the owners wife a bit, and she said that they have been in business for 30 years and they think that they are just now getting the hang of it. Also we found out that Shodoshima island has been making somen noodles for 400 years! Take THAT olives!

When we were about the leave, the owner surprised both of us by asking if we wanted to try stretching out the noodles! We nervously accepted the invitation, excited to give it a try, but scared that we might mess up and break something.

The process is kind of hard to explain, but basically you use two chopsticks to stretch out the noodles, and then hang them on a big wooden apparatus to dry. It was really fun!

Later in the day, we wandered through the town of Umaki (I think). This area is known for all the soy sauce factories. We got here kind of late, so nothing was open. Tomorrow we will see more of the soy sauce.

Tonight we are camping in our sketchiest location yet. We were going to try to camp in a real campground, but the guy wanted $26! So instead, we are camping between some bushes behind a gym. There are a bunch of people playing volleyball, so it’s a little loud right now, but the sign says that they close around 10, so it should get quiet.