Hatsujima I

This summer I traveled to a tiny island off the coast of Izu Hanto (peninsula). It was small enough to walk around the perimeter in little more than an hour. See the Google map here. (It is amazing what they will map in Japan.)

The name of the island is Hatsujima. I haven't the faintest clue of its meaning, other than jima means island. My Linux laptop doesn't allow me to type Japanese after many efforts to do so. *Sigh* When I discover, I shall update this post.

The entire island probably has less than 1,000 year-round residents and less than 2,000 in the summer. I never saw a supermarket. Where do they buy food? Maybe the locals take the forty-five minute ferry to the mainland nearby to shop. The fish is certainly local.

We stayed at a tiny Japanese home that is built as a hotel. They are called minshuku. It is like a pension, but the style is Japanese. Think: tatami (straw mats) and shoji (sliding rice-paper doors). The food was delicious. Seating, of course, was on the floor. This photograph features the main village. Many of the homes here are minshuku, where the owners live within, offering lodging services.

I traveled with a Japanese friend. Never once did the owner (a woman in her eighties!) make eye contact with me. Was it easier to imagine I was not present? Even during an extended conversation between the owner and my friend, she never acknowledged my presence. I wonder if she has had foreigner visitors before? Hatsujima, while small, is relatively close to the mainland, so it has a regular stream of summer travelers. Surely, foreigners must have visited at some point.