EATING KIMCHI: Okunoshima: Rabbit Island

The eastern coast of Japan is sprinkled with small islands, some no more than islets, stretching off into the Pacific. One such island is Okunoshima. With a handful of residents, Okunoshima was used, during WWII, as a poison gas manufacturing site and today the ruins of these factories are still marked as unsafe. The groundwater there contains high levels of arsenic and hikers must be careful where they walk. However, someone visiting the island today would notice none of these dark reminders at first glance. More noticeable are the palm trees, jewel-like sea and roaming herds of rabbits.

Featured in articles by The Gaurdian and BBC Okunoshima is now famous across the world as 'rabbit island.' An exact population count is currently unavailable but the small island is home to hundreds, if not thousands of the critters. So how did they come to live there?

One legend claims that the rabbits are descended from escaped lab rabbits, used to test the effects of poison gases during the war. However, records show that all those rabbits were killed when the factories shut down at the end of the war. Others say that pet rabbits were released on the island by school children during a field trip.

While their origin is unknown the reason the rabbit population has survived, and thrived, on Okunoshima does lead back to the poison gas factories during WWII. At that time all residents of the island, including all livestock and pets, were evacuated and after the war fear of contamination left Okunoshima uninhabited for many years. When the rabbits were introduced it was to essentially a private bunny paradise, free from all predators including human ones like cars and highways. Today, the island is inhabited by a few people, mostly supported by the tourist industry the bunnies now attract. In order to protect the rabbits, motor vehicles, except for those that carry guests to the single hotel, are prohibited.

We traveled to Okunoshima one sunny day from Kyoto, taking the express train to Osaka, then a slower train to Mihara and finally a tiny local train to Tadanoumi. (When we first told the Japan Rail representative where we wanted to go, he had no idea what we were saying. We had pronounced the station as Ta-da-noo-mi, when, as it turned out, we should have been saying Ta-da-no-oo-mi. When we finally got it right, he found it immediately.) I had thought riding the local trains in Japan would just be a hassle, but they turned out to have the best views of the countryside that we saw during our time. The high-speed trains need relatively straight and smooth tracks so they tend to cut straight through the country, but the local train trailed along the coast giving us gorgeous mountain/ocean views the whole way.

Tadanoumi turned out to be barely more than a station and a post office. We followed the other passengers who got off there around the corner to the ferry terminal where we bought round-trip ferry tickets and three paper bags of bunny chow. The ferry was more of an oversize speed boat, but the trip only took 10-15 minutes.

Since we were stopping at the island on our way to Hiroshima we had all our luggage with us. This was convenient, since it is a bit of a trek to get there, but caused some trouble since the storage lockers were only big enough for a small to medium suitcase. My friend's small roller-bag was just a twinge too large and the hotel wouldn't watch it for us so we had to carry it the whole time. This was fine since we were there to see the rabbits rather than serious hiking, but if you do want to be more mobile I suggest leaving your luggage elsewhere.

After that we walked along the beach and played with the rabbits. It was winter and while there were still many rabbits around we didn't encounter the mobs I had seen in some youtube videos. Still, the rabbits were adorable and very curious. We played with them for around two hours until it began to rain and everyone, furry or otherwise, ran for cover.