A number of years ago, while we were on one of our bike trips that passed through Hiroshima prefecture, we were stopped in a very small town. We were at the local train station, because that's where vending machines and shade are usually found. It was fairly early in the morning, and nothing was open, so it was just us sitting down and eating. In small towns, the station also doubles as the local "tourist info" office and in this case we were idly looking at postings for the area and we saw an advertisement for "Usagijima" (Bunny Island). We had already passed the town that had a ferry going to the island, and there was a good amount of calculating going on trying to decide if we had the time and energy to go there.
In the end we did not, but we stored it in long term memory, hoping to be able to visit someday. As we were doing our last-minute planning for this trip, we decided that Okunoshima would be our last stop before heading back to Tokyo to end our trip. As Sumi dug in more, it looked like we could stay on the island and that is how we found ourselves on a sub-tropic island in the Inland Seto Sea filled with over 1000 rabbits.
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| The only place to get ferry tickets. And bunny food. |
After a shinkansen ride to Mihara, then a small, 3-car conductor-less train to Tadanoumi, we walked over the ferry office. It's the only place to get tickets to the island. It also is where you need to purchase rabbit food to feed to all the bunnies on the island. We found this out after we got to the island. Never mind the numerous signs stating exactly that all over the station and online. In both Japanese and English. Reading is for chumps.
So we arrived at the island and were driven about 400 meters from the dock to the resort. A bus full of retired Japanese people and us. I didn't realize how tropical the island was until we pulled up to the hotel and were greeted with palm trees and an ocean. And bunnies.
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Bunnies on the bus...
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And bunnies
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| The room is very spacious (meant for 5) |
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| And the view from our sunroom is all right... |
So, we had a very brief discussion of did we really NEED to feed the rabbits, and I was told quite firmly that yes, we did indeed need to feed the rabbits. Thus, we had a two hour detour back to the mainland to buy some rabbit food. That said, the weather was sublime and it was quite pleasant just sitting outside waiting for the ferry to arrive. And we came back with two bags of bunny treats.
So, back to the island. Okunoshima was used as a secret factory before and during WWII to manufacture weaponized poison gas. At the time, Japan was a signatory of the Geneva Protocol, which banned the use of chemical weapons. The island was removed from all maps and its location as a small dot among many larger islands in the Seto Sea made it easy to hide in plain sight. The civilian workers were not told what they were making, and the primitive safety equipment did not shield them effectively from the gas. At the end of the war, the occupying Allied forces had the stockpile burned.
It took a while for the survivors and the relatives of workers to get recognition for the terrible conditions they were forced to work in by the military, and finally in 1988, the Poison Gas Museum opened, giving an unflinching account of the work done on the island. There are still ruins of the forts that were secretly built into the island here, looking a lot like a level from Uncharted or Tomb Raider.
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| The old power plant |
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| Poison Gas Storehouse |
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| Underground barracks |
So what does all of this have to do with cute bunnies? Well, accounts vary, but from what I've found online rabbits were used as test subjects during the manufacturing of the gas. When the factories were shut down, those rabbits were euthanized. Later, in the 1970's, a school group released some rabbits on the island as a sort of memorial. It turns out there are no predators on the tiny island (The total perimeter of the island is about 2 miles) and bunnies, being bunnies, multiplied like...um...bunnies. This caused a problem, because the vegetation was a bit sparse to begin with, and they rabbits ate it all.
Being Japan, they turned this into a tourist opportunity. The rabbits on the island rely on tourists feeding them to survive. As this has gone on for many bunny generations, the rabbits of Okunoshima have no fear of humans and will come up to you if you look like you are going to feed them. Unlike a lot of wild animals that get used to humans feeding them, these rabbits are surprisingly chill. Since they've never really had to compete for food, and they are most definitely well fed, the rabbits are not at all aggressive and are quick to leave you alone if you don't feed them. There are also strict rules on what you should and should not do with the rabbits, as they are still wild creatures and definitely not pets.
So the rest of our day consisted of walking around the island with bags of bunny treats looking at the ruins and the shoreline, finding some hungry bunnies (note: they are always hungry) and feeding them.
Back at the hotel, we hit the onsen (no "normal" showers or baths at the resort) and caught the early dinner with all the old people. It was a baikingu meal (all-you-can-eat buffet) which is common for these types of resorts. I was expecting about 50 different fish dishes, some rice and a few desserts. That was almost exactly what it was, but they also had a special "Live Food" section (a chef preparing something while you are eating) that had beef kebabs and tempura. They were delicious, and we ended up quite satiated in the end.
Thus ends the traveling portion of the trip. Tomorrow we'll spend most of the day taking trains and waiting for trains to get us back to Tokyo, which will be home base for the remainder of the trip.
Before I sign off, I want to register my respect for the graphic artist who did this. There was a wall on the side of the ferry ticket office that welcomes everyone to the port. It has a lot of cute bunnies. Hidden in the very innocent wall full of bunnies is what you see below. There is only one of them in the whole wall of about 200 or so different pictures. It is not centered or highlighted. I happened to see it because it was at my eye level, which is taller than most Japanese citizens. The artists managed to sneak it past his superiors, get it approved, made, and installed on a government building. Well done, sir or madam.
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