A photograph of Japan’s Yonaguni Island taken by a man surnamed Lee (李) from Taiwan’s east coast has been making the rounds on social media, as capturing such a shot requires rare conditions.
Lee on Saturday said he took the photo with his camera’s telephoto lens from the Wuyan Cape (烏岩角) in Yilan County’s Suao Township (蘇澳) during a trip on Aug. 6.
A military buff, Lee said he had wanted to photograph warships at Suao Port (蘇澳港).
Photo courtesy of Lee
When he stopped at the Wuyan Cape at about 2pm, he noticed a black spot far in the distance in the Pacific Ocean, he said.
“I was curious and focused on it with the telephoto lens of my camera, and was surprised to see the island’s outline in the ocean. It looked like a warship sailing on the water,” Lee said.
He checked his compass and was certain that it was Yonaguni Island, the westernmost island in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture, he said.
“It was my first time seeing Yonaguni Island with my naked eyes. I had heard that some people had seen it, but only on very rare occasions,” Lee said.
Many people on the Internet commented on the rare sighting, saying Yonaguni looked close to Taiwan, even though it is 108km away. Some said they did not know Taiwan was so close to the Japanese island and that it could be seen with the naked eye.
Geography expert and teacher Yang Chih-hsiang (楊智翔) assessed the photo and verified Lee’s sighting.
The sighting “needs quite unique conditions, such as weather, sunlight, top visibility and other special qualities. From what we know, Yonaguni Island can be seen from the coast of Yilan County for only a few days a year,” Yang said.
Japanese anthropologist Yousuke Kaifu made a similar sighting in 2019, albeit from a higher vantage point. He hiked up to a more than 1,000m high mountain in Taroko National Park along the coast of Hualien County to take a picture of Yonaguni.
“Yonaguni residents have said they can see Taiwan proper for only about 10 days a year from the shoreline,” he said.
Kaifu, a professor at Japan’s National Museum of Nature and Science, is a proponent of the theory that people migrated to Japan from Taiwan via the Kuroshio Current.
On July 7, 2019, a crew of five comprised of four Japanese and an Amis from Hualien made a successful crossing in a wooden canoe, departing from Taitung County’s Wushipi Harbor (烏石鼻港) and arriving in Yonaguni 46 hours later.
Taipei and New Taipei City government officials are aiming to have the first phase of the Wanhua-Jungho-Shulin Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line completed and opened by 2027, following the arrival of the first train set yesterday. The 22km-long Light Green Line would connect four densely populated districts in Taipei and New Taipei City: Wanhua (萬華), Jhonghe (中和), Tucheng (土城) and Shulin (樹林). The first phase of the project would connect Wanhua and Jhonghe districts, with Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Chukuang (莒光) being the terminal stations. The two municipalities jointly hosted a ceremony for the first train to be used
MILITARY AID: Taiwan has received a first batch of US long-range tactical missiles ahead of schedule, with a second shipment expected to be delivered by 2026 The US’ early delivery of long-range tactical ballistic missiles to Taiwan last month carries political and strategic significance, a military source said yesterday. According to the Ministry of National Defense’s budget report, the batch of military hardware from the US, including 11 sets of M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and 64 MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems, had been scheduled to be delivered to Taiwan between the end of this year and the beginning of next year. However, the first batch arrived last month, earlier than scheduled, with the second batch —18 sets of HIMARS, 20 MGM-140 missiles and 864 M30
Representative to the US Alexander Yui delivered a letter from the government to US president-elect Donald Trump during a meeting with a former Trump administration official, CNN reported yesterday. Yui on Thursday met with former US national security adviser Robert O’Brien over a private lunch in Salt Lake City, Utah, with US Representative Chris Stewart, the Web site of the US cable news channel reported, citing three sources familiar with the matter. “During that lunch the letter was passed along, and then shared with Trump, two of the sources said,” CNN said. O’Brien declined to comment on the lunch, as did the Taipei
A woman who allegedly attacked a high-school student with a utility knife, injuring his face, on a Taipei metro train late on Friday has been transferred to prosecutors, police said yesterday. The incident occurred near MRT Xinpu Station at about 10:17pm on a Bannan Line train headed toward Dingpu, New Taipei City police said. Before police arrived at the station to arrest the suspect, a woman surnamed Wang (王) who is in her early 40s, she had already been subdued by four male passengers, one of whom was an off-duty Taipei police officer, police said. The student, 17, who sustained a cut about
RSS