Day 18 - Princess Mononoke's Forest

Today we visited another part of the forest that you could only access from the North. On our way we listened to a music compilation that our hostess shared with us. I haven't ever heard any of these songs as they seem to be from local bands or singers. Some of them really stuck in my head during my time on the island. Since a famous Japanese Anime director made Yakushima's forests the scene for his stories, the forest we visited was named after one of his Anime stars: Princess Mononoke forest.

From Switzerland I know the phrase "Grüezi-Weg", which means that you permanently meet people on a hiking trail that you greet with some form of "Grüezi". As this princess path is quite popular with Japanese, why not meet a whole school class? For about two minutes students passed by and nearly everyone bowed or greeted in Japanese or English. No Grüezi-Weg, but a chiwaaaa-path (after the last syllable of konnichiwa, the Japanese version of Grüezi). It took us almost four hours to walk through the warm (fortunately not hot) sauna. What a pity that you have to concentrate on your step so that you cannot fully enjoy the scenery...

For three weeks now, for lunch we usually live from bento and onigiri food from convenience stores or supermarkets. I happened to have to buy some women's things (...) and this one single small package was put all alone into a special black plastic bag, while everything else is always packed into clear or white bags! It seemed like I had to be ashamed about it. As if the people didn't know what I bought, when I'm walking around with a black bag.....

Over dinner at a beach park, we watched the sunset. After some time a man came, greeted and began some kind of dance-exercise mix.

By the way: The morning, lunchtime or evening bells that you might know from console games are not a game designer invention. On Yakushima, at least in the mornings and in the evenings, a kind of Christmas melody could be listened all over the place - obviously from loudspeakers - very cute.

what a pity that it's upside down

What I learned? You'll find nearly no trash bins, because they want you to take your garbage home and separate it properly (by the way: even the labels have to be properly removed from PET bottles). As a result you're always running around with trash in your hand, your bag or your car...