The Old Clock Stand

On Kamishima island off the coast of Toba in Mie prefecture, this modest concrete clock stand served for decades as the sole public timepiece on the island. The novelist Yukio Mishima set part of his novel 'The Sound of Waves' on Kamishima, and the clock stand appears as a landmark in that story. Today it stands at the center of the island's small village as a quietly famous literary site. The island itself is worth the short ferry from Toba for its preserved fishing community feel.