When Katsushika Hokusai was nearly 90 years old, he was invited to stay in Obuse four times by a patron from Obuse whom he met in Edo. He was said to have walked 250km one way in 8 days, so even though he was almost 90 years old, he had great physical strength to walk 30km a day. That’s probably why the paintings had such power. The last ceiling painting in his later years is in Gansho-in Temple. In addition to Hokusai’s paintings, it is also famous as the place where the haiku poet Issa Kobayashi wrote a haiku about frogs, and the mausoleum of Masanori Fukushima, a man of great service in establishing the Toyotomi government, who was demoted to Obuse by Tokugawa Ieyasu. During the off-season, community buses are not running, so you have no choice but to walk towards the mountain.
obuse gansho-in (2)famous for Hokusai ceiling painting
obuse gansho-in (1)
obuse gansho-in (4)mausoleum of Masanori Fukushima
obuse gansho-in (3)famos for Issa haiku
An old guide with a strong voice explains that the phoenix drawn is a symbol of longevity, and that is why plants such as pine trees drawn on its body were growing. The paintings were drawn directly on 12 cypress boards and pasted together on the ceiling, and since they used a lot of gold leaf and pigments ordered from Edo, the patron must had been very wealthy. When I sat in the recommended sitting position, the phoenix’s eyes looked extremely sexy. This must be a picture drawn by an old man who was almost 90 years old !
ceiling paint by hokusai (Source: Gansho-in Temple website)
There is also the Hokusai Museum in town, where paintings drawn on the ceilings of festival stalls are on display.
Although it has nothing to do with Hokusai, there is Jokoji Temple, which has a beautiful thatched roof, near Gansho-in Temple. This temple is famous for its slackline club. That’s why the World Cup of slackline was held in Obuse for the first time in Asia.
When we arrived at the center of Obuse town, a large group of young tourists got off the large bus. It seemed like they were on a graduation trip, but it’s rare to see so many young people coming together in groups at tourist destinations in Japan. Japan’s tourist spots are now filled with energetic old people or foreigners who have benefited from the weak yen. This site, however, is disseminating information to non-Japanese people.
obuse scenery (4)
obuse scenery (5)
obuse scenery (6)
The first thing I noticed in Obuse was that each house and plot of land was large, and it was far more spacious than in Tokyo. Also, since there is no shopping street itself, there are no shuttered streets that are often seen, and there are no abandoned houses. Perhaps because of this, it has the feel of a rich country town. This area is also an alluvial fan, and fruit trees such as grapes and chestnut trees are cultivated on the farm.
obuse scenery (2)
obuse scenery (20)
obuse scenery (3)
This town does not give the impression of being depopulated or deserted at all. Although it only has a population of 10,000 people, it is famous as a chestnut production area that has continued since the Edo period. During the chestnut harvest season, long lines form in the morning for the seasonal fresh chestnut sweets, but you can enjoy chestnut sweets all year round along with delicious Italian cuisine at Evolve, which is a sister store to the famous store.
evolve lunch (1)entrance
evolve lunch (2)
evolve lunch (3)
evolve lunch (4)
evolve lunch (5)
evolve lunch (6)
evolve lunch (7)
evolve lunch (8)chestnut sweet
There are sweets shops all over the place, and you can enjoy all kinds of chestnut sweets. I wonder if the young group who got off the large bus came looking for these or rare sake from this region, but I couldn’t trace them after that.
I headed to the Nagaden Railway station, Zenkoji-shita to go to Obuse. More than just a means of transportation, the Nagaden is a sacred place for both mania riding a train (“Nori-tetsu”) and mania taking photos of trains (“Tori-Tetsu”).
Walk down to the east from Zenkoji Temple at the top of the alluvial fan, go underground to Zenkoji-Shita Station, get on one station back toward Nagano Station, and board the limited express. Limited express tickets cost 100 yen, but front seats of the limited express can be reserved online for 300 yen. I wonder why the reserved tickets are more expensive than the limited express tickets.
As soon as I got on the train, the mania riding trains occupied the front observation seats and took video. Yes, this train is an old model of the Romance Car that Odakyu Railway had been running between Shinjuku and Hakone, and Nagaden Railway traded it in and is running it as an observation train. It’s difficult to reserve a front observation seat in Tokyo, but my dream can come true on Nagaden Railway. But, I am not a mania riding trains.
nagano dentetsu scenery (7)
In addition to the Romance Car, the JR 253 series Narita Express, which was used to access Narita International Airport, also runs under the name Snow Monkey. It’s not like the people on the train are monkeys. It was named this way because zoos along the railway line often show monkeys relaxing in hot springs during snowy winters, and capyparas are now also shown relaxing in hot springs at zoos.
nagano dentetsu snow monkey
nagano dentetsu monkey decoration
Exit the underground, cross the Chikuma River, get to Suzaka on double track, and from here on single track. The mountain range of North Shinetsu is beautiful. There is a train depot at Suzaka Station, and there are old 03 series cars that ran on the Hibiya Line. Come to think of it, I thought the car I rode on my way back to Nagano Station from Obuse was a Tokyu 8500 series.
This area was the site of a major flood caused by a typhoon five years ago, and the Hokuriku Shinkansen depot along the Chikuma River was submerged under water, causing many Shinkansen cars to be scrapped. On the other hand, although the Nagaden Railway line is meandering, it does run on a slightly higher ground. Was it a matter of foresight that the route was designed to avoid areas expected to be submerged?
Just 80 minutes from Tokyo on the Hokuriku Shinkansen, you will arrive at the snow-covered city of prayer. The exterior design of the Nagano Station building is an homage to the main hall of Zenkoji Temple. Daimon, entrance of Zenkoji, is about a 10 minute bus ride from bus stop number 1 in front of the station. The best time to visit is early in the morning when there are fewer worshipers on the approach, and this is when the shops on both sides of the approach open their shutters.
hokuriku bullet train
nagano station
The pair of statues of A-un at the Niomon gate is powerful and reminds us of the statues made by Unkei at Todaiji Temple.
niomon1
niomon2
niomon3
sanmon1 approach
The Sanmon Gate finally comes into view in front of us, and it reminds us of the Sanmon Gate of Chion-in Temple in Kyoto, or the Sanmon Gate of Nanzen-ji Temple, where the great thief Goemon enjoyed a spectacular view from the top of the gate. When you climb up here, you can see Nagano city below and the surrounding mountains, but you can also feel that Zenkoji is located at the top of the alluvial fan.
sanmon2
from sanmon1 nagano city
sanmon3 plaque
The name of Zenkoji is written on the plaque on the temple gate. Normally people would be excited to find the five pigeons hidden inside the kanji, but I’m more curious about why the name of the temple is written on the plaque when the mountain name is usually written on it. Returning to the topic of looking for pigeons, it is difficult to find the last one, but the biggest hint is that its tail is visible. Just find it on site.
zenkoji eko pillar
I also asked the security guard at the temple gate and was convinced that there was still a knowledge hidden in this plaque. At Zenkoji Temple, an Eko (memorial service) pillar is erected in front of the main hall once every six years in order to connect with Maedachi on behalf of the principal image, and touching this pillar is a major event. Speaking of Zenkoji Temple, there is a famous story called
“Visiting Zenkoji Temple being pulled by a Cow”
in which a woman who did not believe in Buddhism got her costume caught in the horns of a cow, and the woman chased after it to get it back and ends up visiting Zenkoji Temple. The cow was an incarnation of Buddha. The face of the cow and the Kanji character of a sheep, animal 6th year after a cow year in the Chinese zodiac, are hidden in this Zenkoji plaque.
from sanmon2
from sanmon3 kyozo
from sanmon4 hondo
Now, we finally enter the main hall, but since the attraction here is famous, where you search for the key to connect with the principal image in the dark, you can’t help but head towards the entrance of an altar tour first. Then, the monk who guides tourists inside the temple scolds them, saying, “What’s wrong with going into someone’s house and not greeting the Lord?” Then you notice that the principal image of the Buddha, which should be located directly in front of the center inside the main hall, is now to the left of the center. To the right of the center is a statue of the Lord of the house and his family. The monk explains that Zenkoji is not actually a temple, but Zenko-san’s private residence, and the Buddha is enshrined there. So, first of all, you have to say hello to the Lord.
By the way, I couldn’t get enough of being scolded, so I asked him about the secret Buddha statue, which even the head priest of Zenkoji Temple had never seen, how big it was and what it was made of, and he answered smoothly that it was 1 sun and 8 shaku (about 54cm) tall and made of gold. The story is about Mr. HONDA Yoshimitsu (Zenko), a local civil servant, who picked up a Buddhist statue that had been abandoned (due to the Mononobe clan’s anti-Buddhism movement during the Asuka period) in Namba (Osaka) while on a business trip. The story is that since people didn’t know about the existence of Buddha or the value of gold at that time, no one would have paid any attention to it even if it was thrown away. It makes sense, but I wonder if that’s true.
Afterwards, Minamoto no Yoritomo also visited Zenkoji Temple, and the secret Buddha statue was brought out by Takeda Shingen and returned by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. In any case, it was famous enough to be talked about at the time. By the way, when you look up at the ceiling, you can see the pattern of the chrysanthemum crest. The monk boasts that this is proof that the Imperial family donated the money.
entrance of altar tour at zenkoji (Source: Zenkoji HP)
Now it’s time to tour the altar. At the entrance, hold your luggage in your left hand and run along the wall with your right hand to touch the key that connects to the principal image above. It’s getting darker and darker, and I’m afraid to take a step forward. I don’t think anything will come out, but it’s scarier than a haunted house. I suddenly feel anxious and want to hold on to something or someone (=> Buddha) to guide me. This is the purpose of the altar tour. At first I thought that if someone lost something in the pitch darkness, the monk would look for it with a flashlight, but as the tour progressed, the darkness made me forget that.
zenkoji pine tree
zennkoji pagoda
zenkouji the person who invest rinzo
Finally, go to the sutra. I’m amazed at the opportunism that by rotating the octagonal receptacle that holds the sutras by hands, you can get the same merit as reading all 7,000 volumes of sutras. I heard that the weight of the storage receptacle is 5 tons, of which 1.2 tons are sutras, but does the difference of 3.8 tons relate to merit?
It seems that since the Edo period, common people have enjoyed ranking hot spring resorts with sumo-like rankings, but in modern rankings, Beppu Onsen is always ranked as the western “Yokozuna.” Beppu is like a collection of many hot spring resorts, but regardless of their ranking, there are small hot spring resorts all over Japan that have their own unique characteristics, for example Geto hot spring, Ginzan hot spring, Matsukawa hot spring and Tsuta hot spring.
geto retro hotel
ginzan hot spring
Matsukawa Hot Spring
tsuta hot spring
kannaw hotspring steam everywhere
Hot springs can be found everywhere in Beppu. When you climb up the hill and look out over the city, you can see hot spring steam rising from everywhere, and you can feel that the town of Beppu is built on magma underground. The best view point is the bus stop of Kan-nawa Hotspring East Exit or Steam observation deck with small parking space. (>>refer to the map below)
There are public hot springs all over the place with no frills, just a tiled bathtub in the middle. There is no caretaker at the entrance, and locals enter without permission. In addition, the steam bath with medicinal herbs inside the sauna has a relaxing natural scent. Takegawara Onsen, a splendid Karahafu hot spring near the coast, will test your mettle with its heat.
kannawa hotspring sujiyu1
kannawa hotspring sujiyu2 no charge for local people
kannawa hotspring sujiyu3 cat with cafe over there
kannawa hotspring public bath with steam
kannawa hotspring medicinal herbs sekisho
kannawa hotspring sauna with japanese herb sekisho
beppu takegawara hotspring
kannawa hotspring steam from the slit of road
The ultimate way to enjoy hot springs is to cook steamed dishes. You procure your own ingredients, arrange them in a colander, and cook them just over hot spring steam for the optimal time for each ingredient. Steaming with hot spring steam has a slightly different taste than steaming on a regular stove, probably because of the hot spring ingredients. The Yanagiya Inn we stayed at has an Italian restaurant that serves steamed dishes, as well as a kitchen where you can cook your own steamed dishes.
kannawa hotspring yanagiya1 entrance
kannawa hotspring yanagiya3 kitchen
kannawa hotspring yanagiya4 steam cooking
kannawa hotspring yanagiya5 before steam
kannawa hotspring yanagiya6 recommended steam time for each ingredient
otto e sette oita
otto1 amberjack salad
otto2 spagetti boiled by hotspring water
otto3 swallow genovese
otto4 hand made bread
otto5 ice
otto6 hell boiled dish
otto7 dish with vegitable
otto8 yellow powdered persimmon
otto9 pudding boiled hotspring
otto10
The best way to enjoy Beppu is to experience something a little different from the typical tourist route of visiting Jigoku Onsen (Hell Hotspring). Of course, I won’t forget to visit Jigoku Onsen.
Buddha statues are made of five types of materials: metal, lacquer, wood, stone, and earth, and the materials have changed over time. Naturally, costs, time, and techniques vary depending on the material, but it’s surprising that the old ones are superior in all respects. In the Asuka period, represented by Horyu-ji Temple, Buddha statues were made of gilt bronze, although they were small, but later on, lacquer was used to make them lighter so that they could be carried out in case of frequent temple fires caused by lightning. The Asura statue at Kofukuji Temple is a representative work.
shoujyouji kakushi (Source: website of village Yugawa)
Furthermore, as Buddhism spread, the demand for Buddhist statues increased, and people began to make Buddhist statues using wood, which was easy to procure and could be produced in a short time. During the Heian period, there were many Buddhist statues made of one piece of wood. There are more wooden Buddhist statues in Nara than in Kyoto, but the surviving single-wood Buddha statues are valuable because the Heike family burned down temples that sided with the Genji clan at the end of the Heian period. Therefore, the precious single-wooden Buddha statues surprisingly remain in the region. One of the representative examples is the Yakushi Nyorai statue, a national treasure, at Shoujyouji Temple in the Aizu region of Fukushima Prefecture, where Buddhist culture was flourishing.
When it became difficult to procure a single large piece of wood to carve a Buddha statue from, they introduced the method of marquetry and division of labor to enable mass production in a short time. This led to the development of the Kei-ha school, whose representative was the Buddhist sculptor Unkei. From the Kamakura period onward, muscular statues were made using marquetry.
On the other hand, regarding stone making, large amounts of marble suitable for carving were produced around the Mediterranean Sea, so stone sculptures were produced in large quantities during the Greco-Roman period, but in Japan there was a lack of natural stone suitable for carving. As a result, 60-70% of the Buddha statues carved directly into cliffs are located in Oita Prefecture.
usuki2 amida
usuki3
usuki4 holes for scriptures
usuki5
usuki7 sannosan
usuki8
usuki9 kosono
usuki11
usuki13 torii at fukada
Usuki is home to many stone cliff Buddha statues that have been designated as national treasures, and are said to date from the late Heian period to the Kamakura period. Not only is the carving beautiful, but the colors remain as well. There are all kinds of Buddhist statues, including Amida Nyorai, Yakushi Nyorai, Dainichi Nyorai, and Jizo Bosatsu.
usuki12 black garlic famous for TV shopping
By the way, many of the souvenir shops here sell black garlic as a way to promote health, but I wonder why. I heard that you can make black garlic yourself by heating and fermenting raw garlic in an electronic jar for 20 days, as I saw on a Japanese satellite TV advertising program. It’s quite expensive to buy. All the souvenir shops reminded me that Japan’s satellite broadcasts are mostly commercials for health-promoting foods, jewelry, or bedding.
The next morning, the mountain road leading back to the Yamanami Highway was a tunnel of autumn leaves, shining brightly.
kuju highway0
kuju highway1
kuju highway2
kuju highway3 kuju hightland
kuju highway4 kuju mountains view
On the road to Taketa City, I come across a light truck with an elegant English Pointer on its back. The pointer on the loading platform does not look at me easily. He is balanced well on the carrier.
kuju highway5 wow!
kuju highway6
kuju highway7 eye contact
parabolic curve
Meanwhile, I arrived at Taketa. I didn’t have enough time to visit the old town (>refer to the post in the near future), so I headed straight to Oka Castle. This castle was the setting for “Kojo no Tsuki” (“The moon over the ruined castle” in English) composed by Rentaro Taki who spent his childhood here. It’s interesting that the admission ticket comes in the form of an old period scroll with a guide map of Oka Castle, but it gets in the way and is inconvenient when it comes to taking it home. Although only the stone walls remain of this mountain castle, the stonework is beautiful and draws a parabolic curve.
oka castle2 entrance
oka castle4
oka castle7 why need complicate design
Do not the same thing
Since there is no protective fence, you can sit on the protruding tip of the stone wall, but it doesn’t feel like you’re alive. It feels like my lower abdomen is falling out. Those with a strong heart can admire the beautiful Kuju Mountain Range from here. There are several castles in the sky floating in the morning mist in Japan, but Oka Castle, which appears out of nowhere amidst layers of mountains, is a true Ghibli castle in the sky.
I used to think that suspension bridges were built out of necessity, but seeing this made me realize that they were purposely built in places where they didn’t need to be built, just to make people feel scary. Many people walk on the suspension bridge, which looks just like a wide pedestrian bridge. Although the suspension bridge uses fairly thick wire rope, you can still feel some sway. There is a magnificent waterfall that can only be seen from here, but the scale of the view from the suspension bridge is so large that the waterfall feels small.
Once you cross the suspension bridge, you will see a building that looks like a haunted house at the festival venue. In front of the house, there was a crowd of people who seemed to be hesitating whether to enter or not. This place holds a spectacle where customers can touch and hold white snakes in hopes of attracting financial luck. I was reluctant to enter, but my companion was blinded by financial fortune and we decided to enter.
suspension bridge6 white snake named toguro
suspension bridge7 white snake named makitsuki
When I pay, the thick curtain in front of me opens and I come face to face with two white snakes. One of them is called “Toguro,” which coils itself on my hand, and the other is “Makitsuki,” which wraps around my arm.” No matter who holds them, these snakes maintain the same posture as their namesake, so these must be their favorite poses. The touch was unlike anything I had ever felt before, neither cold nor warm, and I was filled with the desire to return them as soon as possible. In the end, it was the people at the show booths who were lucky to make money.
Detour
Tonight we will be staying at Kiyasuya in Sujiyu Onsen, but Sujiyu Onsen is also home to a famous public bathhouse “Utase-yu.” The name Sujiyu originally came from the fact that the hot spring ingredients are effective for soothing tired muscles, but the public bath is an ultimate hot spring where the hot spring water is dropped from a height of about 3 meters to soothe the body.
It became famous after it was used in the filming of several tea commercials on TV. It was created by erosion after the eruption of Mt. Aso 90,000 years ago. It’s fascinating to go behind the waterfall. However, people accumulate there, so if you take a photo of the waterfall from outside, people will appear behind the waterfall curtain like ghosts. It seems like admission is now restricted by advance reservations online.
You won’t be able to see the waterfall until you have descended quite a bit from the entrance, so you can see the sunlight shining into the basin of the waterfall, which is beautiful.
nabegataki waterfall with sun rays
It’s difficult to talk about the beauty of waterfalls. First of all, there is no taxonomy of waterfalls, so each person imagines a waterfall in a variety of ways. There are waterfalls that fall in a dynamic straight line, waterfalls with many tiered basins, waterfalls that cascade down the rock surface, and waterfalls that flow delicately and quietly as if pulling a thread, each with its own unique charm. Under such circumstances, I wonder whose permission they get to decide on the top 100 waterfalls. There are wonderful waterfalls all over Japan, so I hope you find your favorite one by yourself. Here I will introduce my favorites, Snoopy Falls and Nametsu Falls.
miroku waterfall like snoopy
nametsu big waterfall2
Detour
There is a restaurant near the waterfall that serves my favorite lunch. Last time I stopped by, I bought a bunch of herbal tea.
I was finally able to visit the core of Aso. Last time, I couldn’t see the whole thing in the rain clouds, but there was a swell of sticky lava, exposed bedrock towering as far as the eye could see, and it looked like there were cordons like construction sites all over the place.
aso crater1 with sticky lava
aso crater2 focus
aso crater6
aso crater7
When you look at it, you can feel that it is a volcano that is still active. The most recent eruption occurred in October 2016. Crater regulation information is updated daily, so if you don’t check it before you visit, you’ll be missing out even if the weather is nice.
Shiroyama view point on the edge of somma
aso caldera1 left
aso caldera2 center from shiroyama view point
aso caldera3 right
Aso approach
aso highway4 thin and aso left
aso highway5 thin and aso right
aso highway1
aso highway2 kuju
aso highway3 aso view
aso pasture1
aso komezuka
aso pasture3 bright thin
aso kuju mountains on somma
aso moutain
Aso crater and Kusasenri (The grass stretches for a thousand miles)
aso crater and kusasenri
Aso cattle are grazed on the mountain path along the way. If you approach them carelessly, their eyes will turn bright red and threaten you. I have seen bullfights, and when the fighting instinct comes to the fore, the bull’s eyes become bloodshot. I’m looking forward to tonight’s beef steak.
