Exploring the seaside town of Tomonoura
Jeremy and I sat on a bus with hard plastic seats covered in faded green fabric. Daylight streamed through the windows as we bumped and jostled along toward the coastal town of Tomonoura in the southern part of Honshu.
All it took was a small mention on a travel site that Tomonoura inspired the scenery design in Hayo Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli film, “Ponyo,” and I knew I needed to see it for myself.
The bus meandered through ordinary streets, passing stores and homes. Children laughed in schoolyards, clothes dangled off clotheslines in front patios, and cats slept lazily in the sun. The longer we drove, the more I found myself craning my head, looking for glimpses of the ocean, and staring back down at the map on my phone.
We started our journey in the city of Okayama, where we’d be staying the next few days. One shinkansen and two buses later, I had this nagging worry that we’d wasted half a day to venture to a town that had nothing going on.
Thirty minutes later, the bus came to a final stop and let us off. The sun was poised high in the sky, and a cool, gentle breeze smelled of sea salt and nostalgia.
The bus jerked the door closed and puttered off in a cloud of exhaust, turning the corner out of sight. We were alone with no direction and no plan. Had I just deserted us in this tiny little town with no way to get home?
The end of the road met a harbor with floating docks and boats bobbing on the calm waves. A large stone lantern sat off in the distance at a jetty’s point. Buildings and shops clung to gentle wooded hills behind them.
We followed the curvature of the harbor, passing small corner stores and houses with aged wooden facades and rusted corrugated metal siding.
The streets were empty, devoid of the steady stream of tourists we’d grown accustomed to seeing everywhere we went. It felt special, as if we had discovered a hidden gem, and it was all ours. We zig-zagged through a maze of narrow alleyways, passing fruit stands, old broken vending machines, and windows with entire display cases of dolls arranged like
a family tree.
We followed signs for a local shrine and came across two locals that greeted us in English, asking us what brought us to Tomonoura.
“We just thought it would be nice to visit,” we said.
“How lucky you visited us this weekend.” Said the woman wearing shorts and a fanny pack. “It’s the Hina Doll Festival. The dolls are very old and have been passed down through each family for generations.”
She handed me her map of the town. On it were small illustrations of dolls dotting the neighborhood we had just come from. We thanked her for her kindness and promised to check them out. We finished our visit to the shrine and headed back toward the city center.
On the other side of the harbor, we found a cafe where I bought a peach soda and sat on steps
descending into the bay. As I rested, I thought of Hayao Miyazaki walking around these very streets, enjoying a quiet day to himself. Did he sit where I was and sketch the mountains and the nearby islands. Did he know right away that those sketches would unfold into one of his many masterpieces? Or were they doodles at the time, only to be unearthed and appreciated years later? A boat sounded its horn off in the distance, and my mind drifted.
I thought of the summers during my childhood when my family would drive up the California coast to a small port town called Fort Bragg. There, in sleepy little Noyo Harbor, overlooking the ocean on the dock’s edge, were several seafood restaurants. Nearly every weekend, we’d eat at the same family-owned
Italian restaurant, Mama Carine’s Seafood Grotto. Mama would come out and say hello to my dad, and I would stare at the cute grandson who bussed the tables. The restaurant had large windows facing the bay, and we’d watch boats come in from a day of fishing and haul their catch up to the docks. Seals would follow behind, bobbing along, waiting for any unworthy fish to be tossed over the side.
Fort Bragg was a quiet and unassuming place that didn’t have much to do for a kid, but I grew to look forward to seeing the color of rusty ships and grey ocean waters. Each night, I’d fall asleep to the cries of seagulls and the thundering crash of waves. I connected to who I am most in those summers walking along the cold and foggy beach, hopping through tidepools, collecting shells, and going home with that same smell of brine on my clothes.
Tomonoura felt similar with its quiet charm and its drifting boats. The town comforted me like an old friend and made me feel at home thousands of miles away.
As the shadows stretched and engulfed the narrow streets, the daydream faded, and we ventured back toward the dusty bus stop on the edge of the harbor just in time for the last bus. I wish we could have stayed and explored more sleepy deserted streets, but we had a long journey back to Okayama. As the bus arrived, I took one last deep breath of ocean air before boarding. Jeremy laid his head on my shoulder as I craned my neck to watch the ocean grow smaller and smaller before turning my eyes toward our next adventure.
