Newsletter August 2009

Rental Car Most tourists choose to rent a car for convenience and there are many car rental outlets on the island – mostly near the airport and ports. I have been around many of the local rental companies in Yakushima and the few that seemed foreigner friendly were Suzuki Rentals

A recent landslide has blocked the Arakawa trail 2 km from the trailhead. It occured on the morning of Saturday 24/01/10 and has covered the railtrack trail making it impassable. It is around 20 m wide and 7 m high and will obviously take some time to remove. In the

The following video was filmed by Henry Jun Wah Lee as part of the ‘Valtari mystery film experiment’ in which the Icelandic band, Sigur Rós, contracted a different filmmaker for each song on their album ‘Valtari‘. The location for the entirety of this video is Yakushima.

A few years ago a Toppy jetfoil hit either a whale or a submarine (it was never confirmed which one) and now last week it happened again but this time a whale. Here’s the story from The Japan Times: Crippled ship may have hit whale  Five people were injured Sunday

YAKUSUGILAND Yakusugiland is the most accessible of all the trails on the mountain. There are a variety of paths to follow and they are divided according to their estimated duration. As the name suggests there are many yakusugi trees to see including Buddha sugi. All the paths are mapped and

The road up to Shiratani has been worked on for the past few years almost constantly. It has always been dangerous with tight bends and narrow lanes but the widening work has improved it a lot. The live camera in Miyanoura faces the mountain road – Look at the mountain