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Cameron Dueck

Dawn is still several hours away when we arrive at Ogi Port, on Sado Island’s southeast corner. The town is dark and silent as we cast our lines ashore and secure the boat.
As soon as the lines are made, we fall into our bunks, exhausted after a three-day voyage north through the Sea of Japan, or East Sea.
We plan to rest for 24 hours and then carry on towards Hokkaido, Japan’s main northern island, to escape the summer heat and typhoons of the country’s southern waters.
After several hours of sleep, we walk into the town of Ogi in search of a late breakfast, stopping at Origine, a tiny six-seat restaurant where all is quiet, with no chef or customers in sight.

“These are the croissants I read about in the online reviews,” my partner says, pointing to a tray of flaky pastries. Fresh croissants after days of stodgy on-board meals are too much to pass up, so we sit down and wait, given hope by the fact that the kitchen counter shows signs of recent activity: used mixing bowls and cutting boards, ingredients chopped and ready for the stove.
Fifteen minutes later, just as we are about to leave, the chef steps inside from the street, surprised to see he has customers. Soon, we are drinking fresh coffee and enjoying a French-inspired brunch.
While we eat, we chat with Kaoru Ito, the chef, via translation apps. Sado, he tells us, is going through a renaissance, with tired professionals from Japan’s big cities coming to the island in search of a quieter life.
“It’s a beautiful island with a lot of nature,” he types, describing the mountains, ancient shrines and history of art and culture that drew him to Sado from a previous life in Tokyo and other mainland cities.

“I need to visit my baker to pay for those croissants. He speaks English. Do you want to come along and meet him,” he asks.
We have nowhere else to be, so we pile into Ito’s car and drive to the nearby village of Hamochihongo. There, we meet Marcus Soto, a baker from New York who moved to Japan decades ago. After chatting for a few minutes in his shop, T&M Bread Delivery, Soto asks us what our plans are for the coming days.
“Well, we were planning to leave tomorrow, but …”
“I’m hosting a dinner party in a few days,” says Soto. “You should join.”
And that is how our love affair with Sado begins.
The S-shaped, 855 sq km island (330 square miles), which also resembles the kanji character for “work” (工), if you look at it sideways, holds a complicated and dark place in Japanese history. Although it is only about 30km (19 miles) from the main island of Honshu, it long served as a place of exile for dissidents and political losers. Emperor Juntoku (1197-1242) and Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1443), a master of Noh, the classic form of Japanese masked dance theatre, were both banished from Kyoto and sent into exile on Sado.

Another chapter in Sado’s life began in 1601, when gold was discovered in its mountains, which soon became home to Japan’s largest gold mine. The mine closed in 1989 – its tunnels and ivy-covered concrete structures have since become popular tourist sights – but was recently back in the news, when South Korea protested its designation as a Unesco World Heritage site because about 1,500 Koreans were conscripted and forced to work in the mine during World War II.
The story of forced labour has largely been brushed aside in Japan’s telling of the mine’s history, but the stain remains.
Sado has also suffered from the depopulation that has afflicted so much of rural Japan. The island’s population has fallen from 113,000 in 1960 to below 50,000, leaving it littered with abandoned farms and homes, known as akiya (“empty house”).
Despite those challenges, the intellectuals and artists who were exiled to Sado helped it develop a strong cultural identity, which endures. Sado has more Noh stages per capita than anywhere else in Japan, and it is home to a vibrant taiko drumming community, which includes Kodo, a group that tours the world.

Warm and cold ocean currents meet at the island, creating an ecosystem rich in plants from both Hokkaido, in the north, and Okinawa, far to the south. As well as seeds, those currents bring a bounty of marine life, from bonito and yellowtail tuna to squid, creating rich fishing grounds.
On Sado, mountain ridges hem in the Kuninaka Plain, which, during the summer months, is bright green with some of Japan’s highest-quality rice.
Ito and his wife, Sayuri, take a day off from their restaurant to lead us on a tour of the island. They show us the Seisui-ji temple, founded in AD808 and now gently rotting away in a forest of swaying cedar trees. We sip sake at Gakkogura, an unneeded school that has been refurbished into a brewery and cafe that hosts a sake-making course popular with participants from around the world.

That night, Ito invites us to join a summer solstice party at the shrine in Ogi, where we meet more of their friends: writers, actors and entrepreneurs who have brought an urban sense of style and ambition to the rural island.
After months of cruising Japan’s coastlines, from port to port, where we rarely meet the same people twice, we are glad of the social interaction. Few of our new friends speak enough English to carry a conversation, so we again rely on translation apps, our stilted conversations lubricated by sake and laughter.
Soto’s dinner party takes place in a grand old house in Aikawa, a seaside area that was once the administrative centre for the nearby gold and silver mines. Grand old homes here are interspersed with museums and relics of the mines: the decaying, ivy-clad processing plant, alongside a bell tower and a replica of the magistrate’s office, where gold was graded and stored.

Many guests at the party share a similar story – tired of high-stress, career-driven lifestyles in Japan’s big cities, they have come to Sado to become sommeliers, restaurateurs or farmers. Each one, in their own way, is contributing to the magic we feel on the island.
One morning, a week after arriving in Sado for our “24-hour rest stop”, we prepare to cast off our lines to return to sea. Just as we are pushing our boat off the dock, Ito and another friend appear with a giant drum and cymbals. They bang out a traditional taiko farewell and shout goodbyes as we steer our boat out past the sea wall.
“We’ll be back!” we shout across the water.
We spend the summer in Hokkaido, but everything we see and do is held up in comparison with the warmth we felt on the S-shaped island.
Four months later, with Japan’s summer heat having dissipated, we make the return voyage south, our boat seeming to steer itself towards Ogi Port.
This time, we stay with Tsuyoshi Ito (no relation to Kaoru), in an akiya that he bought, together with a large parcel of land, for the equivalent of about HK$300,000 (US$38,256).

Like many rice farmers on the island, Ito uses sustainable farming practices, with fewer pesticides and fertilisers, while relying on a labour-intensive method of hanging the rice on racks in the field to dry under the sun, which enhances its flavour. We pitch in, labouring in terraced fields surrounded by steep green hillsides and hanging the rice stalks up to dry.
We recognise familiar faces at the supermarket and see the same friends at social events. At a noodle-making party hosted by an enthusiastic collector of vintage Japanese noodle machines, we meet more people who are adding to Sado’s creative spirit, including a music composer and a kimchi maker.
Just down the coast from Ogi Port, on a tiny island in a protected bay and accessible only by walking bridge, stands Teijiro Yamamoto’s former villa. Built from driftwood and other timber scraps in 1911 by the first national-level government minister to come from Sado, it had been abandoned and fallen into disrepair until a few years ago. Refurbished by volunteers, it now hosts small cultural events and parties.
We visited the structure on our first visit, and met the people who were lovingly restoring it. On this trip, friends invite us to the villa for a moon-rising party, to celebrate October’s full harvest moon.

The simple house, with its twisted driftwood beams and raw-wood finish, has panels that open to sweeping views of the sea and surrounding forest. About a dozen of us sit on tatami mats, sipping tea, bathed in moonlight. Everyone speaks in whispers, an eye kept on the slow rise of the silvery orb.
The next morning, we once again untie our mooring lines and sail out of the harbour. This departure feels more final, as our travel plans will steadily take us further away from Sado in the coming months. We wonder if we’ll ever see our new friends again.
Ten months later, we are sailing through Setonaikai, the inland sea at the heart of Japan. We are far from Sado, but it is still on our minds. Our calendar reminds us that in a few weeks, the island will be flooded with visitors for the Earth Celebration, an annual three-day taiko drumming event.
We don’t have time to sail across for the festival so we moor our boat in a marina in Wakayama, rent a car, book ferry passage and go online to buy some of the last festival tickets available, then message our friends to tell them we are on our way.
It’s a 600km (373 miles) drive across Honshu and a three-hour ferry journey from Joetsu, but we make it back to Sado Island to find the normally quiet Ogi Port buzzing with festival energy and thudding to the beat of drums.

Sado’s guest houses are unable to cope with the influx, so visitors pitch tents in the lively festival camping area and we hop between friends’ homes, spending one night sleeping on the floor of a restaurant when a vacant room cannot be found.
A food and crafts market wraps around the harbour and small troupes of drummers and dancers, dressed in masks and colourful costumes, perform in the narrow streets during the day, cheered on by shoppers and fuelled by sake offered by business owners as they pass. Elsewhere, groups take to small stages erected around Ogi Port.
Each night, between 10 and 15 members of Kodo take to the main, harbourfront stage, accompanied by other percussionists from around the globe.
In between concerts, we see Sado from a different perspective, exploring the beaches and rocky shorelines by car, admiring weathered old farmhouses overlooking bright green rice fields.

Four days later, we awake to find the main stage being dismantled and a long queue of cars waiting to board the ferry back to the mainland. Despite the strong sense of island isolation, one could catch the first ferry of the day from Sado to Niigata city and then jump on the Shinkansen to be in Tokyo in time for an early lunch.
Once again, it is time for us to say goodbye to the island.
“You might as well just buy an akiya on Sado; you’re here often enough!” one of our friends jokes as they hug us another farewell.
It is just the kind of idea that will keep Sado alive in our dreams.
This year’s Earth Celebration takes place from August 21 to 23. Tickets cost between 17,000 yen (HK$850/US$108) and 21,000 yen, and are available here


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Asia travel

Sado Island’s cultural renaissance: a Japanese journey from exile to artistic haven

Futatsugame Beach, at the north end of Sado Island, Japan. Photo: Cameron Dueck

The port town of Ogi, in the south of Sado Island. Photo: Shutterstock

Sado’s Seisui-ji temple was built in AD808. Photo: Fiona Ching

An old Sado farmhouse, or akiya, has been brought back to life by a new owner. Photo: Cameron Dueck

A member of the Sado-based taiko drum troupe Kodo performs on a o-daiko drum. Photo: Getty Images

Gakkogura, a former school that has been turned into a sake brewery and cafe. Photo: Fiona Ching

Sado’s abandoned gold mine has become a contentious tourist attraction. Photo: Getty Images

Writer Cameron Dueck (right) pitches in with Tsuyoshi Ito’s rice harvest. Photo: Fiona Ching

Teijiro Yamamoto’s former villa, built from driftwood and other timber scraps in 1911. Photo: Fiona Ching

A drummer on the streets of Ogi during the Earth Celebration. Photo: Cameron Dueck

Rice fields on Sado Island. Photo: Cameron Dueck

Remote villages, surprise cocktail bars and hilltop churches on Nagasaki’s Goto Islands

The Teng Hoi at anchor in the Goto Islands. Photo: Cameron Dueck

The Goto Islands stretch roughly 85km from northeast to southwest. Photo: Cameron Dueck

Imochiura Church, built in 1897 and restored in 1988 after damage from a typhoon. Photo: Cameron Dueck

Sailing through the Goto Islands and soaking up the history. Photo: Cameron Dueck

Top snails harvested from the seabed. Photo: Fiona Ching

The Osezaki Lighthouse on Fukue Island. Photo: Fiona Ching

Stand Sunny, a cocktail bar in Tomie, on Fukue Island. Photo: Fiona Ching

The view from a window at the Old Gorin Church. Photo: Fiona Ching

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If fellow travellers want to visit an attraction that doesn’t appeal to you, take yourself off for a tourist nap. Problem solved. Photo: Shutterstock

Silla Kingdom burial mounds, in Gyeongju, the ancient Korean capital, where writer Cameron Dueck had his most recent tourist nap. Photo: Shutterstock

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Small villages and farmland line the black basalt shores of Jeju Island. Photo: Cameron Dueck

The museum in the Jeju 4.3 Peace Park helps tell the story of the island’s political uprising. Photo: Cameron Dueck

The Jeju bicycle route is marked by a blue line, making navigation easy. Photo: Cameron Dueck

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David Burden’s family in Abu. Photo: David Burden

Abu the tuk-tuk tackles a dusty mountain road. Photo: David Burden

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The female leopard that passed in front of the family in Yala National Park. Photo: David Burden

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Earth-and-brick houses in Yangchan village, in China's Anhui province. Photo: Thomas Bird

The mountain village of Yangchan. Photo: Thomas Bird

Anhui native and hotelier Xu Du on the terrace of Mountaintop Coffee Inn, in Yangchan. Photo: Thomas Bird

Mud-and-brick dwellings in Yangchan. Photo: Thomas Bird

Corn hanging out to dry around an ice-cream stall in Yangchan. Photo: Thomas Bird

Sunset in Yangchan. Photo: Thomas Bird

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Wild swimming in the Majin river. Photo: Thomas Bird

PostMag

Travel

Having initially landed only to rest on a voyage to Hokkaido, a writer was so taken with this magical, welcoming Japanese island that he has been unable to resist repeat visits


Having initially landed only to rest on a voyage to Hokkaido, a writer was so taken with this magical, welcoming Japanese island that he has been unable to resist repeat visits.


Japan