Walking Goto Islands: Day 1
Travel diaries: March 2nd - arrival and visiting Egami Church in Naru Island.
Good morning,
I am writing this sitting in my room at Hostel Ta Bi To, in the tiny town of Tomie on Fukue Island, the largest of the five islands of Goto Islands Archipelago.
I just finished my breakfast in the cafe next door, Te To Ba, which is also run by the hostel owners. The owners who moved to Goto Islands from Tokyo right before the pandemic did an excellent job converting two traditional Japanese-style houses into a hostel and a cafe. Not only does their initiative makes Tomie a wonderful and attractive base for travelers who wish to explore Fukue and other islands of Goto by offering a cozy alternative to the standard hotels located in the center, but it also adds greatly to the liveliness of this tiny town where the cafe, with delicious Japanese style breakfast/lunch and baked goods, relaxing music and friendly owners, serves as a daily hang-out venue for the locals (who also seem to always happy to come across a foreigner visiting their modest fishing village).
This is the first of my travel diaries that I plan to post on a daily basis during my nine-day stay in Goto Islands, where I plan to do some island hopping and walking as much as I can.
In my latest Letter from Japan, I named Goto Islands my favorite island destination in Japan:
What I love about the Goto Islands is the opportunity to experience traditional rural fishing village life while having access to beaches on par with those in Okinawa and historical sites linked to a critical phase in Japan`s history not very well known to the outside world. When you visit an island off mainland Japan, you get to experience one or two of these facets (traditional rural life, nature/beach, and historical sites), but rarely all three.
I have been looking for an excuse to return here since my first visit in March 2022. Thanks to an email from the HR department at my office reminding me that I have some paid leave days that I must, by law, use until the end of March (music to my ears), I am now back here.
After a relatively cold winter in Tokyo, where my physical activity was limited to a treadmill in the gym, I was looking for a place where I could do a lot of walking without any planning. Hiking in the mountains was not really an option; in early March, there is still snow, and even if not, the scenery is not yet very enticing. And I did not want to visit a city. So Goto stood out as the perfect option: milder weather than Tokyo for outdoor walking, decent accommodation options for solo travelers, and low traffic on the roads (that pass through fishing villages and beautiful farmland), making it easier to use your legs for transportation rather than the bus as much as possible, and many cultural sites (mainly linked to Hidden Christians of Japan) that I could set as day's walking goal. Thanks to a reliable ferry network, there are also plenty of opportunities for day trips to smaller islands where I can also do some walking/sightseeing. So here I am.
On this second trip to the islands, I skipped the more conventional way of traveling to Goto Islands (flying to Nagasaki and then getting on a ferry/jetfoil or another short plane ride). Instead, to save some money and cover the distance at night to not lose daytime and more than anything, for the experience, I first took the 5.30 p.m. Shinkansen from Tokyo Station that took me to Hakata/Fukuoka in five hours.1 I then took a taxi and caught the Taiko night ferry departing from Hakata (Fukuoka) and traveling to Fukue in eight hours through the night (with stops at Ojika, Shin-kamigoto and Naru Islands).
Traveling on a ferry in Japan feels like time travel, and I highly recommend trying one. The small arcade featuring various video games, the carpet floors, and the velvet-covered sofas make you feel like you are traveling in a museum. But it is a very living one - all the facilities on the ferry are enjoyed to the fullest by the passengers. When I walked onto the ferry at 11 p.m., the vibe felt like the opening hour of a bar and/or off-main street casino (not that I have ever been to one). The ferry Taiko departs daily, and I naively thought there would be very few passengers, given the more convenient and quickest modes to travel to the islands and the season. In my shared room with eight capsules, all but one were occupied.
In night ferries, you can book a private room, get a sleep capsule in a shared room (as I did on this trip), or book the floor-style seating in the common area. The price difference between a capsule bed and a common area sitting was only 2.000 Japanese Yen. The capsule came with a TV (!), an electricity plug, and an adjustable reading light. Honestly, I was not expecting any of it.
While the first 2-3 hours of the ferry ride were very challenging due to the choppy waters, I could still get 4 hours of sleep and felt ready to start a new day when the ferry docked at Fukue Harbor a little after 8 a.m.
After putting my luggage in an automatic locker and getting some breakfast (sashimi) from the nearby supermarket, I boarded another ferry that took me to nearby Naru Island in 30-minutes. The sky was mostly cloudy with sudden bursts of sunshine occasionally, and the weather was unusually cold for the Goto Islands - icy wind, almost requiring a face mask (not that I had any).
My purpose in visiting Naru Island was to visit Egami Church, often referred to as one of the most beautiful wooden churches in the country that I did not have a chance to visit during my first trip to the islands. The four-hour round-trip required to walk to the church from the ferry terminal felt like an ideal plan to kick off my first day on the islands.
Designed by architect Yasume Tetsukawa, who was responsible for the design of many of the churches from the same period- Egami Church is one of the twelve components of sites listed as UNESCO World Heritage under the heading of Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region. Egami Village, where the church is located, was once home to a community of Hidden Christians of Japan who moved to remote Goto Islands to avoid persecution during a period when Christianity was banned in Japan. The church was initially built in 1906 by the villagers soon after the lifting of the ban on Christianity using materials that would suit the climatic conditions of the region. In 1916, it was renovated according to Tetsukawa's design.
I visited many of the churches located in the Nagasaki region that were built during the same period. And I think Egami Church, with its idyllic location by the ocean, its simple yet alluring design, and the trees that affectionately hide it (as if Christianity is still practiced in secret), is the most beautiful one and worth the trip to Naru Island.
The route from the terminal to Egami follows the ocean almost the entire time. I wish it were a sunnier day so that I could enjoy the scenery more.
After my return to Fukue, I did a quick grocery shopping and moved to Tomie to settle in my room. I wanted to have an early night, but my body and mind, after a long night of traveling, a good walk during the day, and the excitement of the trip, were too wired to give up to sleep easily. But when it did, it was sure a delightful and deep one.
Thank you for being here and reading my travel diary. I will be back tomorrow. And here is a link to the page where all Goto travel diaries are listed.
I booked my ticket two weeks in advance online and got a good discount - 17.000 Japanese Yen (where the one-way airfare to Nagasaki or Fukuoka would cost me a little above 30.000 Japanese Yen). And the night ferry (including the capsule bed) cost 7.000 Japanese Yen.
I shouldn‘t read this. It only makes me want to visit Japan! 😆
Fabulous. I know it really isn’t the point of the travels but I am fascinated by the overnight ferry. I’ve never done one but have heard similar—it’s kind of fun, like boarding an all night izakaya should you wish to treat it that way.
Love the photo looking out onto the deck.
I’m looking forward to more reports!