Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Toppy hydrofoil in Tanegashima Port.
Alternatively, there is a ferry service, though less frequent, to Yakushima from a second
city on Tanegashima, the southwestern port of Shimama ( 島間 ; Shimama). If you are plan-
ning on using that port, be sure to double check your ferry schedule.
For those in more of a hurry, Tanegashima has a small, modern airport more or less
located in the center of the island, about 9.5 miles (15 kilometers) and 20 minutes south
of Nishinoomote. There are usually about five flights a day to Kagoshima, which take 30
minutes, and occasional service to Osaka and Fukuoka. All flights are on Japan Air Com-
muter turboprop planes.
Tanegashima is well known for at least two things. First, on August 25, 1543, its south-
ernmost point, Cape Kadokura ( 門倉岬 ; Kadokura-misaki) was the landing site of the first
Europeans to enter Japan. The ship, which had been blown off course in the waters between
China and Okinawa, carried several Portuguese sailor/explorer/adventurers, among them, so
he claimed, Fernão Mendes Pinto (ca. 1509-83). According to his memoirs, he was the first
European to set foot in Japan and to introduce the matchlock arquebus, a type of firearm.
Although Pinto's claims are subject to dispute (other accounts place him in India or
Burma at the same time he supposedly landed in Japan), there's no doubt that firearms were
introduced by the Portuguese into Japan at this time. Indeed, for the next several hundred
years, the Japanese name for a gun was Tanégashima Téppō ( 種子島鉄砲 ). Whether it was
Pinto who introduced firearms is the subject of the controversy. Somewhat like Marco Polo's
Travels , Pinto's tales are so extraordinary, so fantastical and so imaginative, it's impossible to
accurately assess them. On the other hand, his accounts of events and life in many far-flung
places of 16th-century Asia are detailed so perfectly, no one doubts he was witness to them.
His great autobiographical work is entitled Peregrinação (The Pilgrimage). It was published
posthumously in 1614.
Because of this Portuguese-Japanese historical connection, Tanegashima's island's largest
city, Nishinoomote, has a “sister” city in Vila do Bispo, Portugal. Nishinoomote's Gun Mu-
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