Oshima is a small island just off the Fukui coast. The island has been home to Ominato Shrine for 3oo hundred years. Fisherman would often go and pray at the shrine for a safe trip and a great catch. A bit south of Oshima is Tojimbo, the famous Fukui cliffs infamous for suicides. Over the years, the bodies of suicide victims have plagued Oshima, washing up on its coast after currents carried the bodies from the Tojimbo cliffs, altering the island’s once peaceful persona into a morbid one. Oshima has come to be known as a haunted island and one of the scariest places in our prefecture, making it the perfect destination for a bunch of drunken JETs in the middle of the night!
It must have been about 3:30 in the morning by the time we reached the coast just opposite the island. I parked my car and five of us got out ready to cross over to the haunted island. The red bridge was only visible for a few feet and then everything dissolved into darkness. I couldn’t even see the island, but I could hear the waves crashing against the rocks. It really did look eerie. If it had been just me I might have had second thoughts, but I didn’t.
We began to cross the bridge. It really did feel like the beginnings of a horror movie. A group of twenty-year-olds going off to a known haunted place in the middle of the night, drinking their liquor—in this case a sake bottle that got passed around—and laughing at the ghost stories. And then, Joe started bleeding. His arm was dripping blood staining his shirt. Ok, so I left out the part where Joe and Colin decided to race across the bridge. It was pitch black ahead so I couldn’t see when Joe fell, but I think Colin went down first and Joe stumbled on the Scotsmen. However it happened, there was blood—just not blood caused by a paranormal force. It was only gravity.
We reached the tori on the island, “the gateway to hell” as Joe called it. There is a special direction you’re supposed to walk around Oshima. Japanese people believed that the bodies of suicide victims washed up on the island because they were drawn to the shrine. The spirits of the dead are stuck, left to roam around the island in a counterclockwise path for eternity. If that’s true, I guess that’s why we walked to the right, so that we’d be going counterclockwise as well, and avoid running into the ghosts. For a more interesting story perhaps we should have headed left instead, but I hadn’t been on the island before so I just followed Joe towards the right.
We walked deeper into the woods of the dark island. The path took us toward a long stairway up, but Joe advised us not to follow them up. It would bring us directly to the shrine on the island, and we wanted to walk around. The path around, brought us close to the coast of the island, and as I listened to the crashing waves I thought of what it would be like to see a corpse washing up on the coast. The waves seemed a bit rough so I’m sure seeing a body being thrashed onto the island would not be a pleasant sight. I admit, although I wasn’t worried about seeing a ghost, seeing a dead body wash up was a concern and not an experience I hope to leave Japan with.
As we continued the walk it was pretty obvious we wouldn’t see anything spooky, well except for one tree that was along the path. When we were down below the lighthouse, the boys quickly darted up the hilly terrain. We went up to follow but one of my flip flops fell off, for like the tenth time, which slowed us down. The boys got a good lead on us, so it was hard to find them in the dark. The only fright of the night was when the boys surprised us by jumping out of the tall grass and bushes that they hid in.
We reached the shrine, and took a picture before heading on. Colin took the lead and we followed. We reached a fork. One path had a long stairway leading down. It sounded like more waves down at the bottom so we figured it was a way down to the edge. The other path continued through the woods. Since we had just reached the shrine at the back of the island, I figured we needed to head around the other side of the island. We had only walked around the edge on the right, not yet on the left. Colin felt we should keep going down the path rather than going down the stairs to the edge. It seemed logical, so we began to follow him when Joe, who was now at the end of the line, stopped us and said we needed to take the stairs. Although, it looked like the stairs seemed like the wrong way, Joe has been out in Mikuni two years if anyone knew the way, he did. So we followed Joe. I figured if he’s wrong we’ll just head back up the stairs and then continue on the path.
At the bottom of the stairs it was clear that he lead us the right way. Ahead of us was the tori and in the distance we could see part of the red bridge. Had we followed Colin we would have walked around in circles on the dark island. Something, I’m sure lots of people do. So if you go to Oshima, remember to head right and at the fork past the shrine take the stairs.
We crossed back over the bridge, letting the island fade into the darkness behind us. Kathy found her beer, that she had lost, on the bridge, and we returned to find Kat safely sleeping in the car- as we had left her. We returned safely, without ever seeing any ghosts. It was a fun drunken night nonetheless, and one of the more memorable nights in Fukui.
