We want to be a port of call on your journey, on your life.
A PORT FOR YOUR JOURNEY
In this town, where Kitamae ships once docked, there was a landscape where people and cultures intersected.
That history continues to be passed down to this day as a means of human connection.
A place you'll want to stop by during your travels, or at a turning point in your life.
Kitamae ships and ports of call
A port where people come and go nurtured the town.
A port town where Kitamae ships transported people and culture.
That history is still reflected in the scenes that people encounter in this town today.
Ports of call chosen by Kitamae ships
During the Edo period, Kuroshima was an important port of call for Kitamae ships and a settlement of shipowners who engaged in the shipping business. People, goods, culture, and information gathered from all over the country, interacted in this town, and were then transported back to their respective lands. The townscape that remains today quietly conveys that memory. Our concept of "a guesthouse where you can meet people" is also an extension of this town's history.
• The townscape is preserved as a nationally designated Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings.
The town still retains traces of its past as a port town, such as its clapboard siding and lattice doors.
The memory of this port city, where people and cultures intersected, lives on in the air of this town.
Encounters outside of life's predetermined path
Local people, travelers, and staff.
Here, you naturally spend time with people you wouldn't normally interact with in your daily life.
That encounter will make your stay at this inn truly unique.
01
Local people
Local connections
Fishermen, farmers, the dried-fish shop, the carpenter. In offhand conversations with the people here you meet the everyday life of this town, the part no guidebook covers.
02
Travelers
Fellow travelers
Travelling solo or in a group. Because you are all sharing the same night, conversations start on their own.
03
Crew (our staff)
Hosts
There are things only staff who live in this town (our crew) can tell you. Everyday life in Kuroshima, and how things really are after the earthquake.
From the Owner
Why we run a guesthouse in this town
Through running a guesthouse, I want to pass on the rich lifestyle of Kuroshima, which has been intertwined with the sea, to future generations 100 years from now.
A message from the founder
"We want to be someone's port of call"
Kuroshima has a quiet power to shift the course of a person's life.
This town flourished as a port of call for the kitamaebune trading ships, and the dignity and openness those sailors cultivated still give it a calm, upright air. I came here myself at the hardest point in my life, and through the people of this town I found the strength to face forward again.
Stop by partway through the voyage of your life, meet people, get to know this place, and encounter new ways of seeing the world. Then set out again on your own course.
As a modern-day port of call, Guesthouse Kuroshima hopes to keep connecting people with this community, and to remain a place where new challenges begin.
Tomoyuki Sugino
(Founder & Owner)