730 Crossing, Ishigaki

This camera covers the 730 Crossing in central Ishigaki City, about five minutes on foot from the Euglena Ishigaki Port ferry terminal. It is an ordinary town junction with an unusual name and a very specific piece of history behind it.

730, read nana-san-maru, is the date 30 July 1978. Okinawa had driven on the right since 24 June 1945, when the occupying US military switched it, and it stayed that way through reversion to Japan in 1972. Six years later, on that single day, the whole prefecture changed back to driving on the left. The junction is named for it, and a monument stands beside it.

The crossing has a second distinction: it is the starting point of National Route 390 and, with it, the westernmost point of Japan's national highway network. For anyone watching from off the island, the practical use is traffic and weather in the town centre, and a sense of when the ferry terminal nearby is turning people out.