[Senokawa] Staying in a 200-Year-Old Whaling Fisherman’s House on Azuchi-Oshima Island

Senokawa is a small guesthouse in the village of Konoura on Azuchi-Oshima, an island off the coast of Hirado in Nagasaki Prefecture. Konoura still retains the atmosphere of an old fishing village from the Edo period and has been designated by Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs as an Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings. Senokawa itself is a renovated traditional house built around 200 years ago.

Although the kitchen, bathroom and toilet are shared, this is not a dormitory-style guesthouse. There are two private six-tatami rooms, which cost ¥4,000 per night when I stayed. The plumbing and bathroom facilities have been modernized, so despite staying in a genuinely old house, it is quite comfortable.

The ferry from Hirado arrives at another village some distance away, but a community bus is timed to meet the ferry. The journey to Konoura takes about 30 minutes and costs ¥100. Azuchi-Oshima is surprisingly large if you try to explore it on foot, and there are plenty of hills, so the bus is useful. Cycling is possible, but some of the slopes are quite demanding.

The owner is a barber who lives in the building across the street. Apparently meals can also be arranged in advance, but he told me that prices on the island are high and that there isn’t much available locally that he would feel satisfied serving. His advice was simply to buy whatever I needed in Hirado before coming over.

Once I arrived, the atmosphere was very relaxed—essentially, “This old house is yours, so make yourself at home.”

And that is perhaps the biggest attraction of Senokawa:you are actually spending the night in a traditional house that is around 200 years old.

It was presumably once the home of a fisherman. Judging by the size and character of the building, however, the family may have done quite well from whaling, which was once an important industry in this part of the region.

The ultimate luxury here would probably be to catch your own fish and cook it for dinner. My stay was much shorter: I arrived in the evening and was leaving again the following day. Instead, I grilled some meat and other food I had bought at a supermarket in Hirado—a simple, no-frills dinner for one.

The village is naturally very quiet at night. By coincidence, however, this was the night of the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics. At around 9 p.m., I walked through the village to return a charging cable I had borrowed from a local resident. As I passed the scattered houses with their lights still on, I could hear the sound of the Olympic ceremony coming from television sets inside.

Senokawa calls itself a “guesthouse,” but it is probably not the sort of place where travellers come specifically to socialize with other guests. It was a holiday weekend and there were two other guests staying that night, but I imagine there are many quieter days. Azuchi-Oshima is, after all, a fairly inconvenient island to reach.

On the other hand, that isolation might make it an excellent place for a workation or a longer stay when you simply want some peace and quiet.