Shodoshima Island Group Trip

Day 1 - July 24, 2020 Friday

Our trip to Shodoshima was planned by one of my cohort's members. Usually Blake and I travel by ourselves, so this was the first time in Japan that we'd have a group trip (with the exception of our previous trip to Wakayama, but that was with people we didn't know). Shōdoshima is an island in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea, so we were excited to be getting off the mainland. We had to wake up early and catch a bus from our apartment to Himeji Station. Once at Himeji Station, we caught bus #94 at 6:40am to Himeji Port. There are various ferries that leave from the port and we needed the Olive Line that heads to Fukuda Port on Shodoshima Island. They have a limited schedule, so we caught the ferry at 7:15am and arrived to Fukuda Port at 9am. We were meeting with the rest of our group at Tonosho Port so we caught a bus to take us to the other side of the island in about an hour.

Olive Line Ferry at Himeji Port

  

                  Olive ice cream                                                  Lunch at Pizza Kamos

Once we met up at Tonosho Port we explored the surrounding area. One of the big things in Shodoshima is olives. There are many olives grown on the island and one of the area's most famous olive-based products is olive ice cream. I'm not a huge fan of olives but I was definitely intrigued by olive ice cream and had to try it! It was delicious and only had a very faint olive taste. It reminded me of matcha ice cream more than olives.

After dessert, we went searching for lunch and found a pizzeria, Pizza Kamos. It was a beautiful restaurant with rustic modern decor and a brick oven. You could even watch the chef as they prepared your food. We had a wonderful time at the restaurant and the food was fresh and delicious.

We walked around and did some souvenir shopping before catching a bus to our guesthouse. There are only four buses a day that head to the guesthouse so we did not want to miss the last one. Sen Guesthouse is run by an American and his family.

Day 2- July 25, 2020 Saturday

 

Breakfast at Sen Guesthouse was homemade bread and onigiri (rice balls). We walked half an hour from the guesthouse to the Twenty-four Eyes Village. The Twenty-four Eyes Village is a fake town that was created for the 1987 remake of Twenty-four Eyes Village movie from 1954. We had not heard of the film before visiting Shodoshima but were told there was a small boat that could ferry us over to the other side to visit the Olive Park and Olive Garden (not the restaurant).

Boat ride from Twenty-four Eyes Village to Olive Garden (500 yen)

Olives have been a Shodoshima product for about 100 years. The Olive Garden has a gift shop, restaurant, herb garden, a Greek windmill, and art installations throughout the area. It is also the setting for the famous anime movie Kiki's Delivery Service. In the film, Kiki is a young witch in training who sets up a delivery service once she learns how to fly with her broomstick. There were quite a few guests dressed like Kiki and walking with a broomstick for photo ops. I had heard of Kiki's Delivery Service before coming to Japan but have not had the chance to watch the film. It is a classic anime film from 1989 and it's on my list of films to watch!

 

Of course, we had to eat some more olive ice cream, this time in a waffle cone! Given the limited bus schedule, we caught a bus around noon to check out the Yamaroku Soy Sauce Factory. The place might  sound familiar because it was featured in an episode of the Netflix series "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat."

There was a brief tour where we got to see the giant wooden barrels containing soy sauce that are going to be fermented for about two years! This process is the antique way of making soy sauce and only a few places continue to make soy sauce this way. 

 

I learned there are quite a few different types of soy sauce depending on the type of flavoring you want for a certain dish. They even had a soy sauce to add to your ice cream. We had to try try it and got vanilla ice cream with beans and soy sauce. It was an interesting pairing, one that I never would have though of, but it reminded us of caramel ice cream. It had the sweetness of the ice cream and saltiness from the soy sauce - it wasn't bad.

 

After our visit to Yamaroku Soy Sauce Factory there was only one bus left for the day that would take us back to the guesthouse, so we made our way towards the nearest bus stop.

 

Sen Guesthouse had a private beach we could use and we definitely wanted to take advantage of it - when would we have a beach all to ourselves again? They even had hammocks and kayaks you could rent for the day. After spending the evening at the beach we went back to the guesthouse for some dinner and caught a spectacular view of the sunset over Shodoshima.

Beautiful sunset view from Sen Guesthouse.

Day 3- July 26, 2020 Sunday

The next day the guesthouse owner was amazing and gave us a lift to Kusuda Port and let us know which bus we needed to catch to go to the Kankakei Ropeway.

Video credit: Jenny

The view from the ropeway reminded us of Jurassic Park and we even had the cable car all to ourselves on the way up. This place is considered one of the top three gorges in Japan. I don't know what the other two are or how the three were selected; lists of beautiful spots or travel destinations like this are quite popular in Japan.

 

The views from the different lookout points were nice despite it not being a super clear day. Before heading back down we ate some maple ice cream. I didn't know I was going to be eating so many unique ice cream flavors in Shodoshima!

We headed back down and ate udon for lunch and had more unique desserts flavors - this time in the form of gelato. We tried soy sauce crumble, Japanese honey apricot, and salty cocoa cookies. We said goodbye to Shodoshima and headed back to Himeji.

Video credit: Jenny