What's interesting is that there are rice paddies surrounding a train line just down the coast of Taiwan from the village that inspired Spirited Away. The area gets an absurd amount of rain and when inundated, it can look like this. Particularly if vuewed from the road to the west, the coastal backdrop can guve an illusion of water almost stretching out infinitely. One can only speculate that Miyazaki travelled south on his trip and saw this.