We had a long day of traveling ahead of us on a plane, several trains and a ferry: Hong Kong > Narita > Tokyo > Okayama > Uno > Naoshima. Our trip began with a slight hitch: at Narita airport, I found out that I did not properly purchase our discount JR rail passes in advance. We had to fork over a few extra thousand yen, but received our Shinkansen tickets to Uno and were on our way.

After several confusing train transfers, we arrived in Uno, where we enjoyed our first real meal of the day — Japanese-style Italian. It warmed our bellies for the chilly ferry ride to Naoshima. On the ferry, it felt like everyone knew each other as they were all drunk and singing Japanese songs together.

We finally arrived at the little island of Naoshima, but it was so late that the buses had stopped running. The streets were completely dark and abandoned, except for a tiny shop, which turned out to be an old couple’s home/karaoke bar. Fortunately, there was a young couple who spoke a little English, so we explained our situation to them. The girl called our lodge, who kindly offered to pick us up at the bar. The owners treated us to beers and we managed a bit of conversation with our new friends until the van arrived and brought us to our Mongolian-style yurt. Even though our yurt was freezing, the space heater and fluffy comforters quickly lulled us to sleep.

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