Today was Bunny Island. It was the first thing Gus told me he wanted to do. The Island (Okunoshima) is an old WWII military base where the Japanese used to manufacture and store poison gasses which were used mostly in China. Today it’s known as Rabbit Island (we call it Bunny Island). There are about one thousand bunnies who live on the island in the wild. They just kick about doing their thing and hop out when they see humans to have a treat.

I didn’t have a real plan to get there. It’s about two hours from Hiroshima. You can go by bus or train and then a ferry ride. I just let Gus have breakfast and then asked Google how to get there. Google told me to take a Shinkansen (but a slower one that stops at all stations). After 40 mins we got Mihara Station. We wait for a bit and then jumped on a little dinky local bus. It was very pretty around Mihara. It’s a port city and it’s surrounded by lots of mountains and islands. The road to the ferry was on the water's edge so we had some really nice views. It was really relaxed, and no one was in a rush. After 45 mins we got to the bus stop at Tadano-Umi. We walked a few minutes (on the road as there were no foot paths. There were hardly any cars and they all drove really slowly) to the fancy official Bunny Island shop to buy our tickets. I also knew we had to buy bunny food before we got to the island as they don’t sell it over there. We bought three bags for ¥200 each. Now Google lies to us about ferry timetables. There was a boat waiting at the dock but Google said it would be another 10 minutes for ours. Once the boat left, I found the proper timetable. That was our boat, and the next one won’t be for an hour.

We had a look around and found a knockoff Bunny Island shop with a nanna selling bunny food for ¥100 a bag with some questionable looking snacks. I thought it would be a good opportunity for Gus to buy something all by himself. He went up and said hello and handed over is bunny food and gave a ¥100 coin. The nanna knew what was going down. She was very nice. I just had to remind Gus to say thank you. We went outside and Gus had a look in his pockets. He said he found some more change and he was going to buy more food. He ran in without me and came back with two more bags 😀. Six bags of bunny food. Lucky there’s a few of them to feed.

Our 12 o’clock car ferry arrived. It was only a 10 min trip. We got off and there were no bunnies! We got on the little bus that takes you to the hotel and about a minute in the driver slams on the breaks. It was our first bunny sighting. The bunnies are very special, and they are well looked after. They seem to have right of way even when they dart out of a bush. After that they were everywhere. Very tame and happy to see treats. We got off the bus and went for a walk. They seemed to handle out in groups. You’d stop and chat to one group. They’d get full and you’d walk fo30 seconds and a new group would pop out. The best ones were the ones with baby bunnies. Gus and I spoke about if they liked the official bunny food or the home brand one better. The official one had multiple colours, but it was a bit showboaty.

We went back to the hotel and had some lunch. You ordered via a little vending machine that printed off tickets. You then gave the tickets to the person at the counter to make. They had an option for “Noodle”. I thought I’d get Gus some and see if it was plain without meat. I also got a “Okunoshima Speciality”; a toasted baguette. We also got two melon Fanta floats. Gus’ noodles came and they were plain but with no meat! The baguette looked like it had butter and some sour cream with it. Gus had his noodles, and I tried the bread. It wasn’t butter. It was honey and it came with ice cream 🍦. I mean it tasted ok; I was just expecting a piece of nice buttery toast.

We finished our lunch and decided to walk back to the ferry this time to see some more bunnies. We still had three bags of food! We found a little camp site for normal tents and a glamping area as well. I watched the ships go past heading to the port and there was a massive area of rushing water, almost like rapids, off the coast that seemed to be the tide going out. I hadn’t seen anything like that before.

The ferry came in soon after and we headed back. We walked up to the train station this time to catch a local train to Mihara. The local train was only two cars and the station was just a platform. Nice and quiet. It followed the same path as the bus pretty much. It was weird seeing these tiny little back graders with no back fence because the border were the train tracks. It was no bullet train. Cars were going faster, but it was nice.

When we got to Mihara we got some ice cream from the vending machine. We didn’t have enough for them all, but we tried. We caught the Shinkansen back to Hiroshima again. We jumped on the streetcar (this one was fancy and new) and took it to our hotel.

Starbucks, fried potatoes etc.

We’re moving to Fukuoka tomorrow. It’ll be our last full day in Japan