Sado Island

We took taxis to the Niigata Ferry Port for the 2.5 hour journey to Ryotsu, the port on Sado Island. We sat in a reserved 1st class lounge on the 5th floor of the ferry.
A guide took us in a minibus to a large Japanese-style convenience store to buy a snack lunch which we consumed by the beach on the west coast.
We drove to Shukunego to walk round an old fishing village. Some of the group went on coracles inside the harbour whilst some of us had ice-cream sandwiches.
Then we drove to the OgiTaiko Centre to play and have a demonstration on the Kodo drums which was good fun. The drumming tradition came from China. I played a drum called Mister Potato made from a tree 600 years old, and Miss Piggy made from an inverted tree branch. The drummers have two years of daily practice and abstinence before being qualified to play publicly.
We checked in at the Yoshida Ryokan with bedrooms with tatami floors and futons. Dinner was a Japanese set meal, and there was a performance of classical Japanese dancing afterwards.
Sado had a lot of closed premises and is suffering from depopulation as the young move away, e.g. there is no university on the island.Read more