A small “Rabbit Island”, floating on the Seto Inland Sea, where it is said that more than 700 rabbits are living on.
Why don’t you visit for a healing trip to Okunoshima Island, Takehara-City, Hiroshima-Prefecture, that has such a nickname?
I will introduce the way to enjoy 100% a time that you can play with cute bunnies together with manners that you need to know!
Contents
“Rabbit Island”, Okunoshima Island, is a resort island floating on the Seto Inland Sea.
Located in Takehara-City, Hiroshima-Prefecture, Okunoshima Island was deleted from a map during the world war as once an island of poisonous gas factory.
In recent years, there are many rabbits are living, and many people are visiting there as “Rabbit Island” of healing.
I will introduce the way to enjoy 100% a charm of Okunoshima Island that has been revived as the national park!
Though there are some theories, it is said that the theory is influential that eight rabbits that were fed in a local elementary school have been released in 1971 and have become the situation of today.
How to go Rabbit Isalnd
You need to take ferry to go to the island from JR Tadanoumi Station.
From Tadanoumi Station, it takes about 15 minutes to Okunoshima Island.
Please check official website for more detail.
Here is the time table of ferry.
No cars allowed on the island! Let’s enjoy walking!
To go to Rabbit Island, you will take a ferry from Tadanoumiko Port of Takehara-City, Hiroshima-Prefecture if from Kansai/ Hiroshima direction, and will take it from Sakariko Port located in Ehime-Prefecture if from Shikoku direction. Because a car is not allowed for running on the island, if you will land by car, you will need to park it in a parking place near a pier. Please coordinate your shoes easy to walk one.
When you get on a ferry that sails on the beautiful Seto Inland Sea, you will enjoy a bit of cruising feeling.
As soon as you land on the island, you will see rabbits right away.
Manners
If you see a rabbit, you will become wishing to follow it unconsciously, but please be patient!
Never to force anything, such as hugging it and chasing it!
If you force to hug it, you may put power or you may drop it, so it will break a bone. As a result, it becomes not be able to live in a wild and will die.
Use wisely a free shuttle bus service to Kyuka-Mura Village!
A free shuttle bus service is operated from Okunoshima Sanbashi Pier until the main building of Kyuka-Mura Village.
You may use it without reservation, so let’s use it well when going around the island.
Rabbits’ paradise. Let’s try going toward a lawn square!
One of the spots where many cute bunnies are crowded is a lawn square in front of Kyuka-Mura village.
There are some times when friendly rabbits come close, so it is the place popular for tourists.
But, as there are also many rabbit excrement, so please be careful.
Looks like many rabbits will come running close with saying “Please give me food”, doesn’t it?
Feeding rabbits. Good chance to see a cute expression in very close distance!
A chance to play with rabbits is, whatever is said, a feeding time!
It is also recommended that prepare cabbages and carrots for food of rabbits before landing on the island and bring them.
Manners
Not good if a rabbit will get in bad health!
Please be careful not to give food that is not suitable as rabbits’ food, including bread and snacks.
When you go there, you shall go bringing about five bags of cut vegetables (green onions, Chinese chives, onions are not suitable) of about Yen 100 per bag that is sold in a supermarket.
Review from Japanese tourist site
Cycling slowly so that not to occur any clash accident!
You may bring in your favorite bicycle, but as a rental bicycle is prepared at Kyuka-Mura village, it is also recommended to go around at the speed of a bicycle slowly.
Manners
What you need to be careful about when you are cycling is accidental contact with rabbits living on the island
Let’s pay your attention around you for not making rabbits injured, of course, for not making them lost their lives, and for not making injured a person riding a bicycle and other tourists!
Simulated experience of rabbits’ feeling with ears of rabbits!?
As if a family of rabbits, there are statues of rabbits’ ears of various sizes of big and small along the coastline.
These are what is called sound collectors, and when you set your head inside of it, you can hear sounds collected by the sound collectors.
It looks that you can enjoy feeling as if you were a rabbit, sounds including the sound of the wind that goes through the island and a water sound of ripples of the sea.
Statues of rabbits’ ears lining up toward the gentle Seto Inland Sea.
Wonder what kind of feelings you can enjoy?
Only one restaurant! Bringing a lunchbox is also recommended.
The only dining place on the island is a restaurant inside the Kyuka-Mura Village facility.
During the daytime, tourists including non-resident of accommodation are possible to use, and you can enjoy local signature menus that are used local foodstuff including octopus and oysters.
Also, it is good that you go prepared a lunch box or bought food before landing on the island.
Usagi no Ku-sofutoA soft served ice cream called “Usagi no Ku-sofuto”. Why don’t you try eating for making a memory of fun?
* “Usagi no Ku-sofuto” implies a soft served ice cream that looks like poops of rabbits. Ku-sofuto in Japanese does not mean anything, but it can be understood as “Ku” and “Soft (served)”, and “Kuso” means poops in Japanese (not a polite word).
Kyuukamura OkunojimaAddress:Inside Kyuka-Mura Village Okunoshima Island, Tadanoumi-Town, Takehara-City, Hiroshima-Prefecture
Holiday:Opens everyday
Average budget:Lunchtime From Yen 1,000 to Yen 1,999
Dinner time From Yen 8,000 to Yen 9,999
Soaking in hot spring on the Rabbit island, and staying at the hotel.
Only one accommodation facility on the island, “Kyuka-Mura Village Okunoshima Island”, is located in a superb place where you can overview the sea, and you can stay relaxed and slowly.
There is the lawn square where rabbits gather in front of your eyes.
Among “Fureai(touch rabbits) Programs” for residents of accommodation, there is a program called “A morning walk meeting: Feeling the season with bunnies”.
You can spend your time of the fresh morning, bathing the morning sunbeam, and observing plants of the season and wild rabbits.
A morning walk is also together with a rabbit.
A hot spring bath that you can fully enjoy a resort feeling!
Viewing the coastline, and soaking in a hot spring that is surrounded with palm trees, you seem released also your tired body, don’t you?
Smack your lips with local dishes in a buffet-style for breakfast and dinner!
Very popular is a buffet that lines up various dishes that are used abundantly local foodstuff, including, to begin with, fresh seafood, such as oysters, octopus, and blowfish, and vegetables of the seasons.
After played with rabbits much, it is also good to be healed with delicious slow foods, isn’t it?
You can enjoy as much as you like an octopus dish that is a specialty of Okunoshima Island!
Address:Okunoshima, Tadanoumi-Town, Takehara-City, Hiroshima-Prefecture
Access:About a 15-minute ride by boat from Tadanoumiko Port that is about a 7-minute walk from Tadanoumi station of JR Kure line. Shuttle bus from the pier/ From Kawachi IC of Sanyo Expressway via the national road number 185.
Accommodation rate:From Yen 7,200 (for one person/ two persons in one room)
Hours for a stay:3 PM (IN) through 10 AM (OUT), etc.
If you wish to get close to European rabbits, camping is also recommended!
There is a camping place by the sea where the Seto Inland Sea expands in front of your eyes. Staying in a tent that is close to the rabbits’ eyes seems to make an impressive memory, doesn’t it?
It seems that you can observe activities of European rabbits regardless of day or night, doesn’t it?
Playing in the water, while watching a rabbit that resting in shadows of trees!
During summertime, the sea-bathing park and the open-air swimming pool are opened. Please try enjoying a rare situation that while feeling rabbits near, you can enjoy playing in the water.
An open-air swimming pool that you can view the Seto Inland Sea in front of your eyes.
Learn the history of “the island that was deleted from a map”.
In the Meiji 30s (a decade from 1897), armed batteries are constructed prepared for the Russo-Japanese War, and since then, Okunoshima Island started recording its name in Japanese history.
As the World War first began, a military facility that manufactured and stored chemical weapons were constructed, and Okunoshima Island was deleted from a map.
Many local people, who worked in the facility, suffered long with health damage after the end of the war.
Also, we should not forget that many people lost their lives by the usage of the chemical weapons that were manufactured here.
As if changing a gentle aspect of the resort island, ruins of the military facility of the former Japan army remain on the island.
Stop by Okunoshima Island Poisonous Gas Archive Museum.
For stopping the history becoming weathered, which once was far from peace, there opened Okunoshima Island Poisonous Gas Archive Museum, and it provides an opportunity for peace learning.
There exhibit items including recorded documents and devices, which were used when poisonous gas was manufactured. The reason why we can call it “Rabbit Island” today maybe because we are under peace.
Okunoshima Island Poisonous Gas Archive Museum
Address:Okunoshima, Tadanoumi-Town, Takehara-City, Hiroshima-Prefecture
Access:1) A seven-minute walk from Tadanoumi station 2) A twelve-minute ride on a boat from Tadanoumiko port.
Opening hours:From 9 AM to 4 PM
Admissions:Children: Yen 50. Discount if a group of more than 20 persons. Adults: Yen 100. Discount if a group of more than 20 persons.
Manners that you need to keep when leaving the island!
Don’t throw a rabbit away!
A house rabbit that is not suited to the nature of the island not only cannot eat food but also is bullied by rabbits of the island, and it will lose its life.
Source: Before playing with rabbits of Okunoshima Island
Make it cleaner than when you arrived!
Littering trash is not only dirtying the island but also causing serious problems for animals that are living on the island, such as eating the trash and tangling fishing lines. Please stop littering trash.
Source: Requests from rabbits to everyone/ Rabbit Island of the Seto Inland Sea.
In the end.
If you play with cute bunnies while keeping manners, your daily stress can be healed. Please make it for your reference when your visit.
Okunoshima Island (Rabbit Island)
Address:Okunoshima, Tadanoumi-Town, Takehara-City, Hiroshima-Prefecture
