Unripened green plantain colored spiders decorate the staircase. They’ve grown to the size of a child’s palm— hanging on thin tendrils in the landing nooks. I pass slowly beneath as I make my way to the ground floor.

I’m in the midst of the great adventure I always told myself I would go on. I’m on a lush subtropical island off the coast of Japan. A place I would have never expected nor counted out. There’s a surreal aspect to walking across the same land as Kublai Khan’s Mongol forces. Surreal to look out at ocean patches were the last vestiges of the Russian Empire were broken by an unheralded Japanese navy.

There are small shrines hidden behind dense foliage along the roadsides. Temples that have stood for hundreds of years. It feels that everywhere on this island is packed with vital parts of history.

The clouds move quick overhead. They’ve got a metropolis pace to them that doesn’t fit the languid island activity below. The sunlight is caught and magnified by small portals of white silk— there seems to be a thousand varieties of green and blue that stretch out across the 270sq miles of interspersed land and water. Archipelago fits the landscape better than island—- little sections knit together by narrow roads and a bevy of bridges.