Photojournalist Bunyo Ishikawa reaches Okinawa after 10 months touring Japan on foot

Photojournalist Bunyo Ishikawa reaches Okinawa after 10 months touring Japan on foot

Bunyo Ishikawa smiles and shakes hands with his friends at Motobu Port on the afternoon of May 22.


May 23, 2019 Ryukyu Shimpo

A photojournalist taking a walking tour along the Japanese islands, Bunyo Ishikawa, 81, arrived on Okinawa’s main island on May 22. In July 2018 Ishikawa started out from Cape Soya, Hokkaido, and it has taken him about 10 months to set foot on Okinawan soil. Ishikawa took a ferry from Kagoshima Prefecture to Motobu Port in Okinawa, where he met some friends. With a smile he said, “I was filled with emotion as Iejima Tacchu came into sight. I’ve come home.”

Ishikawa’s travels began in Hokkaido in July 2018. He has walked about 3,300 kilometers over 10 months. During his travels he was astonished by sights such as the majestic nature of Hokkaido and the huge seawall in Fukushima Prefecture. Having taken 100 pictures a day, he explained: “Taking a photograph means that something moved me. Being able to take many photographs makes me happy above all else.”

In support of his hope to see a peaceful Okinawa in his lifetime, he wore a T-shirt that read “Toward an Okinawa without military bases,” as he continued his foot tour of Okinawa Island.

He aims to reach Naha City by June 8, then walk to the construction site of the Futenma Replacement Facility in Henoko, Nago City and the Northern Training Area in Takae, Higashi Village. He said, “I think it is my job to convey Okinawa’s current circumstances to the mainland, starting with Henoko.”

(English translation by T&CT and Erin Jones)

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