» Rubbish Towns

Sadoga-shima, Niigata-ken, Japan
I thought this was going to be worth the trip. A bit of culture. I was told the place was littered with Noh theatres, and I always like boat trips... so I set off on a road trip to Sado Island.

Depart from work in Fukushima at 9pm on Friday, with my English girlfriend, and head off towards the west. Miserably cold, and I had banked on there being a few more 'Love hotels' to crash for a few hours n the way. It took fucking AGES and was snowy as hell. I had forgotten the drive was over the Japanese Alps. So, we unfortunately got all the way to Niigata - about 3 hours before the ferry was due to leave the next morning. Slept for a bit in the car.

I was convinced it would be worth it - but I was massively wrong.

Massively cold.
Lots of stray dogs.
Boring shit town that seemed closed.
Nearly nowhere to eat.

Miserable unhelpful people (they speak a strong local dialect, so presumably I sounded like a moon man based on their uselessness)
Could I get any info about seeing a Noh play? Could I fuck!

I was frozen to shit, and despite the lack of busses I spent a lot of time at the bus stop warming myself off the gas heater.

I walked a stupid distance to find somewhere to get some food, and it was incredibly boring. The dogs running around outside seemed miserable.

It was the most soul destroying trip in my life.

Took an earlier ferry back, and made my way back home. Grabbed some local delicacy that no doubt was a boring over-packaged biscuits with some tea flavouring.

Miserable, miserable, and I wish I had forgot about it. Hooray for qotw.
(Sat 31st Oct 2009, 13:06, More)