Lubang Island
— — a small island that kept one man's war going for thirty years.
Not only on a wall.
“A long, low island in the Mindoro Strait, about a hundred miles southwest of Manila. The interior is rough hill country, ringed by reef flats and a few quiet fishing villages on the south coast. For most of the world the name carries one story — the Japanese intelligence officer Hiroo Onoda, who held out in the hills here until 1974, twenty-nine years after the war ended. The hills he hid in are mostly cogon grass and second-growth forest now. — from the studio
Lubang Island, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Lubang Island is the largest of the Lubang group, lying in the Mindoro Strait about 150 kilometres southwest of Manila. Administratively it is part of the province of Occidental Mindoro, divided between two municipalities, Lubang and Looc. The island is roughly 30 kilometres long and 9 kilometres wide, with a population a little under 35,000. The interior is broken hill country rising to around 600 metres; the coast is reef-fringed, with the main settlements along the calmer south and west shores.
Lubang is best known abroad for one of the strangest stories of the twentieth century. Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda of Japanese Army Intelligence was sent here in December 1944 with orders to conduct guerrilla operations and not to surrender. He kept those orders for twenty-nine years, hiding in the interior hills with a small cell that dwindled to one man by 1972. He came out only in March 1974, after his former commanding officer travelled to the island and personally rescinded the original orders. The hills he hid in are still there, still quiet.
There is no airport. The usual route is by ferry from Nasugbu in Batangas, a roughly three-hour crossing of the Verde Island Passage, landing at Tilik port on Lubang's east coast. From there a tricycle reaches the town of Lubang in twenty minutes. Most visitors come for diving — the reefs off the south coast are part of the wider Verde Island Passage, named by Conservation International as one of the highest concentrations of marine biodiversity on earth. Accommodation is small guesthouses; bring cash, as ATMs on the island are limited.