Japan

As summer winds down and we have cooler mornings and evenings, it is the perfect time of year to consider places worth visiting to restore your spirit and sanity. One such place is a sleepy, little fishing village called Tomonoura, often mentioned as an up-and-coming tourist destination. To explain how out of the way Tomonoura is, it is best to consider how to get there by bus from Fukuyama Station. The bus takes roughly 35 minutes. There was a train line, but it was discontinued in the ’50s. Because of this, most access to Tomonoura is by car. This becomes a positive rather than a negative point as visitors will find the town less crowded with tourists than other areas of Japan.  The day I visited, I was the sole foreigner, and rather than being viewed with suspicion as to why I would want to visit such an off-the-beaten-track place, I was welcomed warmly with big smiles and hearty hellos from the locals. As I stepped off the bus and walked along the waterfront, the only sounds I could hear were the boats creaking against one another and the cries from the birds that circled overhead. It’s the kind of…