Geography
Awaji Island (淡路島
Awajishima in
Japanese) is a not-terribly-large island that marks
the eastern boundary of the
Seto Naikai Inland Sea
of
Japan. The southern tip lies a mere kilometer off the
coast of
Shikoku, and a bridge now straddles the
Naruto
Strait, famed for the
whirlpools that form as the tide
flows in an out. Some 50 kilometers away, the northern tip is not far from
the port city of
Kobe on
Honshu, and the immense 3.5 km
Akashi Kaikyo Bridge now connects Awajishima to the mainland.
Politically (and in geographic terms somewhat oddly), despite its proximity to Shikoku, Awajishima is a part
of Honshu's
Hyogo prefecture.
History
Awajishima has some claim to being the oldest settled
area in Japan; the
Kojiki mentions it under the name
Onokoroshima and burial mounds (
kofun) dating back
thousands of years have been found on the island.
The
ningyo joruri puppet theater, which has evolved
into
bunraku, seems to originate from Awajishima.
Very little evidence of any of this remains though,
and today's Awajishima is a typically Japanese densely
populated but still rural area, famed primarily for its
onions. The current total population hovers around
150,000, and (unlike most rural areas in Japan)
is slowly on the rise due to the improved connections to the mainland.
Awajishima made a highly unusual but brief appearance on
the world stage as the epicenter of the Great Hanshin
Earthquake of 1995 that killed over 6000 people.
However, Awajishima was (and remains) far less built up
than the suburbs of Kobe across the bay, which took
the brunt of the damage.
Sights
Aside from whirlpools and burial mounds, Awajishima's
main claim to fame are its beaches, especially on the
more sparsely settled northern coast. They're nothing
spectacular by international standards, but a popular
nearby summer getaway for
Kansai-ites just the same,
and Awajishima has many campgrounds that cater to the
budget traveller.
There are also a number of hot springs (
onsen), the
best known of which are Awaji's largest town
Sumoto
and the mildly
radioactive(!) waters of
Iwaya
adjacent to the northern bridge. Scattered here and there
are a number of
herb and
biwa (
loquat) farms. The southern coast,
however, is essentially one long semi-urban sprawl
filled with the
stinkscent of ripening onions;
the only breaks in the monotony are a fairly hideous
(but huge) concrete statue of the Buddhist deity
Kannon and the inevitable
Onokoro Amusement Park.
Getting There and Away
By far the most popular option is the cross-island
expressway, which will get you from
Akashi to
Naruto for
around 5000 yen in tolls. A more affordable option than
private cars are highway buses, which charge around 500
yen for crossing the bridge and e.g. 1500 for a one-way
trip from
Kobe to
Sumoto. Even cheaper and more scenic,
but available for the northern crossing only, are
ferries that cross from Akashi to
Iwaya for a mere
¥310 on the slow boat (all of 24 minutes) or ¥420 for
the fast boat (a zippy 13 minutes).