You may get a bowl of udon noodles nearly anyplace in Japan however this bowl of noodles right here in entrance of me, this bowl can solely be loved proper right here within the Goto Islands. To my inexpert eye these contemporary Goto udon noodles, sitting in a bowl able to be cooked, don’t look all that totally different to different udon noodles – however I do know that they’re.

That’s as a result of I’ve simply toured the Nakamoto Seimen manufacturing unit and I’ve watched the grasp noodle makers at work, twisting the ever-lengthening ropes of noodle to interrupt down the gluten. I’ve seen these noodles hanging off their drying racks, stretched to an unimaginable 1.75 metres. So I do know – this bowl of noodles is one thing particular. And it’s not the one factor on Fukue Island that’s.

Fukue Island is the most important of the Goto Islands, an archipelago sitting round 100 kilometres off the coast of Kyushu close to Nagasaki. The islands are residence to one in every of Japan’s UNESCO World Heritage websites, a group of church buildings erected by the kakure kirishitan, the key Christians who fled to those islands after the shogun outlawed Christianity in 1614. Spend a few days on Fukue, nevertheless, and also you quickly uncover there’s way more to find.

It begins with these noodles. Though dried Goto udon are shipped over to the mainland, the islands are the one place you possibly can get pleasure from them contemporary. Oddontei restaurant, connected to the manufacturing unit, serves up the noodles jigoku-daki type. Actually translating to “hell cooking”, you prepare dinner the noodles your self in a hotpot earlier than dipping them in agodashi sauce. Workers will let you know it’s the native components within the noodles – the spring water, the salt, and the camellia oil that’s added to present the noodles their distinctive slipperiness – that make the style so particular.

Camellia oil is without doubt one of the Goto Islands’ specialties. There are a reported 19,000 camellia bushes throughout the islands which thrive on the salt-tinged air. The seed pods are gathered and put out to dry, then break up open to reap the seeds, that are squeezed to provide a surprise oil that can be utilized for every little thing from frying tempura to giving a gloss to your pores and skin and hair.

The native tourism board is working laborious to advertise the islands and so they have loads of angles to supply, from hikes alongside the Onidake cinder cone to kagura performances in Shinto shrines. These conventional dances are carried out in distinctive costumes; my favorite is a dance through which a dancer performs a long-nosed Japanese goblin teasing a sleeping lion.

I additionally fall in love with Takahama Seashore. Japan is just not identified for its seashores however this sheltered bay in Saikai Nationwide Park, the place jade-coloured waters gently lap the sandy shore, is straight out of a vacationer brochure.