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Islands of Eccentrics

A misunderstanding left me in one of the most remote corners of the earth -- the southern Kuril Islands, tail end of a volcanic, mostly uninhabited chain arcing 1,200 kilometers down from Russia's eastern tip of Kamchatka to northern Japan. That's "southern Kurils" to everyone except the Japanese, which considers its "Northern Territories" illegally occupied by Russia and has imposed an embargo on travel to the Kurils. The coveted islands are easily visible, however, glittering through the mists like some forbidden jewel just 20 kilometers off northeastern Japan.