Funemployment - Japan

In the morning, we checked out early, left our bags at reception, and walked across the street to a bus stop where we waited in the rain for our bus. It turned out that the hotel receptionist hadn’t given us the correct information for the bus, so we went back to the hotel lobby and hung out there for about 40 minutes before heading out again to catch the correct bus.

The bus to Horikiri port took about 30 minutes. During the ride, we grew more and more concerned as we watched our fare creep up in real time on the screen at the front of the bus. We paid 710 yen each for this ride.

At Horikiri, a ferry was waiting to take us across the lake to Okishima Island. Apart from a worker, we were the only passengers on that ferry. The rain had stopped by then, but we weren’t optimistic about seeing many kitties as we figured they would be hiding from the wet and cold.

Arriving at the island, we first made our way to the local shrine which was perched on the side of a hill. We didn’t see any cats en route. The village itself was sleepy; all we saw were a handful of elderly people and some workers who appeared to be working on a soil stabilization project. After the shrine, we headed up the hillside for a bit to get a view of the island. Much of the hillside was used as a cemetery.

After descending back down the hill, we walked through the village along the lakefront. There, we saw our first cat, but it ran away from us. After the inauspicious start, though, it was nonstop kitty love from then on. One grey and white female came to us for some petting. After giving her some love, we carried on down the lakefront and encountered an orange and white male. We gave him some love, and then he followed us as we carried on down the lakefront. Some more kitties emerged after that. I was surprised to see an elementary school on the island. The recess bell rang and we saw about a half dozen students file out. At the school, we heard meowing and a black and white male came out and made a beeline for us. He was the friendliest of the lot; he even let Jeff carry him. In all, we interacted with six cats. We also got to witness a neat slice of life on the island - we saw the lunch ladies delivering lunch to the school, the local postman cycle past, and various people tending their vegetable gardens. After lots of kitty love, we reluctantly made our way back to the pier and took a ferry back.

There were quite a few people on the ferry this time. As we departed, we saw the schoolkids lined up on the lakefront waving flags. We think that a delegation had visited the school and they departed on the same ferry as we did.

Back at Horikiri, we initially walked to the nearby bus stop, but some people told us to go to a microbus that was waiting at the pier. We confirmed with the driver that he was heading to Omihachiman, and soon after he set off with just us and one schoolgirl in the bus. We were concerned about the fare; behind the driver, we saw a sign that had 100 yen, 200 yen, 1,000 yen, and 2,000 yen written on it. The rest of the script was in kanji. I worried about paying 2,000 yen each for this ride. Along the way, the bus driver rattled off Japanese words at us, and he and the schoolgirl both laughed. I think he was saying words that he thought we might know. Finally, he said a word we knew - tamagotchi - and he and the girl laughed even more when our faces lit up. They were clearly having a laugh at our expense but we didn’t mind at all.

When we got back to Omihachiman, we were relieved to discover that the fare was only 200 yen. We bought some food from the convenience store, scarfed it down, retrieved our bags, and took the train to our next adventure - Kyoto.

I authored an Atlas Obscura entry for Okishima Island:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/okishima-is…

https://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Shiga/Omi…Read more