In 1993, Yaku-island was registered as one of the World Natural Heritage Sites, being popular spot for sightseeing, hiking, and climbing. The most parts of Yaku-island are surrounded by Japanese cedars. Of them, under than 1000 years old cedars aren’t regarded as “yakusugi屋久杉,” so that sorts of cedars are called “kosugi小杉.” A lot of yakusugi have their original names, and especially Jomonsugi縄文杉 can be the representative of yakusugi because our tourists walk for a long long time to get to the place it stands. This is the picture of Jomonsugi I took…Jomonsugi is predicted possibly 7200 years old.
According to my tour guid, generally, we need to count the number of annual rings of trees in order to know their age, however, as trees grow older, the inside tissu begin to collapse. So, I heard it's difficult to know the exact age of trees.
How do you think I could get to yaku-island? It took more hours than I imagined… After about 1.5 hours ride on the airplane, I arrived at Kagoshima airport. Then, I took on the bus to go to Kagoshima Port for , and left for Yaku-island by the express ship. 7hours. It's the number totally I spent for transfer...On the first day, I slept well. I felt tired even though I did nothing special in Yaku-island.
On the second day, I went to the area called shirataniunsuikyou白谷雲水峡. It was such a beautiful place that I cannot express the greatness with words... The best reason I visited here was that it was very famous as the locale of the "Princess Mononokeもののけ姫", filmed by Japanese directer Hayao Miyazaki宮崎駿. The conflict between human who destroyed the forests and Gods which inhabited there was depicted somewhat bloody... I think it really deep story.
It looks as if really mysterious monsters appears...
During my journey to this beatiful island, I exhausted my energy... I walked a lot. I really walked a lot. When I went to see Jomonsugi, I walked 22km! Needless to say, I felt the sense of achivement, so it's meaningfull.
I want to go "Yakushima" again. The place I recommend for everyone☆
We were acting together. I got a piece of information about Yaku-island from
http://http//whc.unesco.org/en/list/662/video
You can check the trailer of "Princess Mononoke"
http://http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkWWWKKA8jY
