It is said to be the longest suspension bridge in Japan, Ryujin Ohtsuribashi, but I don’t see any reason to build a bridge here. It’s clear that the purpose is to attract tourists. I wonder if there’s anything interesting I can see on the other side of the bridge. Also, the bridge is made of a fairly sturdy steel frame, so there’s no shaking at all and it’s not thrilling at all.
dragon god suspension bridge (1)
dragon god suspension bridge (2)
dragon god suspension bridge (3)
dragon god suspension bridge (5)
The only thrilling thing about the bridge is that you can bungee jump from the middle, but no one was there.
bungee jump entrance in dragon god suspension bridge
The Kyushu suspension bridge, Japan’s second largest, feels more swaying, and on the other side you can touch two white snakes that symbolizes good fortune.
suspension bridge0
suspension bridge6 white snake named toguro
suspension bridge7 white snake named makitsuki
Detour
soba restaurant fujihiro
The road leading to the Ryujin Suspension Bridge is called the Soba Highway. You can enjoy freshly made soba noodles at one of the soba restaurants, Fujihiro. It reminds me of a soba restaurant in Yamagata.
To get to the falls, you either have to give up and park in a free parking lot quite a ways off and walk in the scorching sun of heart Japan, or you have to misjudge the free parking lot and drive deep into the souvenir street, where you’re stuck and can’t get anywhere, only to be guided by a shop assistant holding a fan (with a sign saying parking is 500 yen).
Furthermore, you have to pay an entrance fee to enter a long tunnel before you reach the front of the waterfall. The tunnel is decorated with illuminations, but the illuminations look a bit cheap considering the great outdoors ahead.
fukuroda fall (2) inside tunnel
Suddenly, the front of an overwhelming waterfall like nothing I’ve ever seen before comes into view. Water flows down the huge rock face in multiple streams (like Snoopy Waterfall, but huge!) , and the sound is so loud it’s difficult to even hold a conversation. The waterfall is made up of several tiers from the top, but the key point is that you can’t see it from the front for free.
fukuroda fall (3)
fukuroda fall (4)
fukuroda fall (5)
fukuroda fall (6)
If you take the elevator up from here, you can see the upper tier of the waterfall all the way to the back (like Yokoya Ravine, but huge!), and the amount of water flowing down makes the rock face appear to be in the shape of a heart, which has led to it being introduced as a power spot.
fukuroda fall (7)
However, it was extremely difficult to find the shape, and I ended up taking many photos, checking each time to see if it looked like a heart, which took quite a while. I think the claim that it looks like a heart is a bit of an exaggeration or a pushy advertisement.
fukuroda fall (8)
fukuroda fall (10)
fukuroda fall (9)
fukuroda fall (11)
Apparently it gets incredibly crowded during the autumn foliage season, but you can still enjoy the coolness even in the height of summer.
Detour
Fukuroda Falls is located in Daigo Town in the Okukuji region. It could almost be said to be in the Tohoku region. The Suigun Line connects Mito in Ibaraki Prefecture with Koriyama in Fukushima Prefecture, but it is an extremely local line. At Hitachi Daigo Station, a station along the line, an old steam locomotive is on display, and at a nearby shrine, the stone steps are decorated with Hina dolls during the Hinamatsuri festival. There is a wide variety of agricultural products for sale at the roadside station.
Both sides of the stone steps leading up to the Sanmon gate are decorated with hydrangeas, just like at Meigetsuin Temple in Kamakura. Once you reach the top, you’ll see a pond on the grounds of the main hall filled with floating cut hydrangeas, a very calculating or cunning display. Everyone will be uploading videos of this to social media. The ducks in the pond look very cramped.
amabiki kannon (1)
amabiki kannon (17)
amabiki kannon (2)
amabiki kannon (15)
amabiki kannon (3)
amabiki kannon (4)
amabiki kannon (5)
amabiki kannon (13)
amabiki kannon (19)
amabiki kannon (20)
amabiki kannon (7)
Even when the hydrangeas are not in full bloom, many peacocks are free to roam. In Buddhism, they are said to have the power to ward off evil spirits and purify. I’m sure the pattern on its spread wings looks like eyes, which may intimidate monsters. According to a local photography enthusiast I bumped into, when surrounded by people, they spread their wings, either to get excited or to intimidate.
He showed me the footage stored on his smartphone, which was full of footage of peacocks spreading their feathers. Apparently, each peacock has its own unique style; some will raise their long wings vertically with great force, while others will spread them parallel to the ground and then slowly raise them. Naturally, the former is more impressive, but it’s hard to find one.
Finally, if you go up to the temple grounds at the top of the mountain, you can see the flat Kanto Plain in its entirety, which also reminds me of the flat Shonai Plain I saw at Dewa Sanzan.
amabiki kannon (9) with Mt.Tsukuba
amabiki kannon (14)
Today’s Inn
It’s a very rural hot spring inn. For a moment I thought I had arrived at a mountain hut. The rice, miso soup and grilled sweetfish were especially delicious.
It seems that the city of Sakuragawa, literally translated as cherry blossoms along river, was formed through a merger of towns and villages, and while there are certainly spots comparable to the wild cherry blossoms of Yoshino in Nara, one of merged town of Makabe, which retains the same town layout as it did in the early Edo period like as Tatsuno town, is more famous. I headed for the old townscape, and was surprised to see huge stone lanterns installed at the entrances of private homes here and there.
makabe town (3)big house and big lantern
They were so huge that you would never see them at an inn or temple or shrine, and it seemed like each home was competing to have their own. It seems like peoplein Tokushima Prefecture are showing off their wealth by building magnificent udatsu at the boundary between houses, but with the recent increase in robberies, the giant stone lantern is intended to appeal to robbers, as if it is asking them to break into its premises. As we drove, we saw stoneworks everywhere, and the rows of stone lanterns waiting to be shipped were a spectacular sight. As I couldn’t buy a stone lantern as a souvenir, I bought a stone chopstick rest instead.
makabe town (8)tsukamoto tea storehouse
As you enter the town of Makabe, you will come across an old townscape that has been designated an Important Building Heritage District. While some buildings are well preserved, others are in a state of disrepair, and some look as though they will soon collapse if left as they are. I wonder if it could be used as a way to revitalize the town and somehow improve it. There are no shops that you can just drop into while walking around town. I’m sure there are similar places all over the country, but seeing the buildings decaying in the hot sun made me feel more lonely than touristy.
makabe town (1)miwa house
makabe town (2)
makabe town (4)post office
makabe town (5)
makabe town (6)
makabe town (7)kawashima storehouse
makabe town (9)shiota house
makabe town (10)iseya inn
makabe town (11)murai brewery
makabe town (12)stone storehouse
makabe town (13)inose house yakuimon
makabe town (14)Mt.Tsukuba
makabe town (15)nishioka honten brewery
makabe town (16)
makabe town (17)
Detour for lunch
There is a lovely little cafe, “Cafe125,” between Makabe town and Amabiki Kannon Temple. The whole house is decorated with handmade dolls and dried flowers.
The area was completely covered by pyroclastic flows from the great eruption of Mt. Aso 90,000 years ago, and the heat of the eruption transformed this into welded tuff. As it cooled further, its volume contracted, creating countless long vertical cracks, and subsequent erosion revealed columnar joints that can be seen everywhere. This is clearly visible in the waterfall.
Bat Falls
You can’t get close to the waterfall, it can only be seen from above, the road isn’t shown on car navigation systems, and the road to get there is so narrow that even a compact car would likely go off the rails, so the whole experience of getting there is filled with a sense of unease and a sense of being in a remote area. Suddenly, a parking space and a space to turn around appear. This is thanks to the local people who have maintained the area. Please check the entrance (“Park golf course” sign) from the main road (National Route 502) and the terrain from an aerial photograph beforehand. Cars cannot pass each other, but it seems that the road has been widened recently.
bat fall2
The waterfall is shaped like a bat with its wings spread, and in the Edo period, a wooden slide was built on part of it to allow ships to pass through. People in the past were amazing. The Kuju mountain range can be seen beautifully beyond the waterfall. It’s a place worth visiting.
bat fall1 and kuju mountains
bat fall3
Harajiri Falls is like Niagara Falls
The collapse of the tuff rocks over a width of 120m created a circular waterfall similar to Niagara Falls. The waterfall and the surrounding scenery are so beautiful that they make you think of a movie set or Disneyland. There is a suspension bridge that offers a panoramic view of the falls, but once you cross it the road is closed off beyond that point.
harajiri fall6
harajiri fall1
harajiri fall4
harajiri fall8
Chinda Falls
The collapse occurred over a width of 100m, creating a 20m-high step. It is famous for being depicted in a sumi-e painting by Sesshu during the Muromachi period. Unfortunately, the original painting was destroyed in the Great Kanto Earthquake, and only copies remain. Sesshu also painted Amanohashidate in Kyoto, so people really did travel a lot by foot in the past.
chinda fall by sesshu at source “yuagariart.com”chinda fall
In modern times, a dam was built behind the falls to generate hydroelectric power, and the structure remains. At first, I thought it was just part of the falls. The welded tuff that forms the foundation of the waterfall is a geology that is weak against vertical shocks, and has repeatedly collapsed due to being unable to withstand large-scale flooding. As a result, the waterfall has gradually moved upstream over a long period of time. Kyushu Electric Power Co. reinforced the rocks around the base of the waterfall, and now it is in its current form. Even man-made structures like dams can sometimes help preserve the natural landscape. There was a lot of water and it was making a roaring noise.
Taketa City is famous for the ruins of Oka Castle, a castle built on top of a cliff. It is the motif of the song “Kojo no Tsuki” (Moon over the Ruins of the Castle) composed by the musician Rentaro Taki, but I’ve already been there so I’ll pass this time. I took a walk around the old town, which I hadn’t been able to see last time. It’s a town with a sense of history like Kyoto. I was surprised to see a bronze statue of Lieutenant Hirose, who carried out the Port Arthur blockade operation during the Russo-Japanese War. I didn’t know he was from here. After the operation, the Japanese Navy, led by Commander Togo Heihachi, faced off against the Russian Baltic Fleet, which was said to be the most powerful fleet in the world at the time.
Finally, we had a special lunch (reservation needed in advance) at Okura Shimizuyu, a café that was once a bathhouse. Apparently, his parents own a vegetable shop next door, so they served us a variety of vegetable dishes. I couldn’t finish it all. They even served us matcha green tea.
taketa25 ohkura simizu public bath in the past
taketa26 restaurant now
taketa34
taketa28 restaurant managed bu vegitable shop
taketa30 lunch
taketa29 lunch
taketa32 remnants of public bath from upper floor
taketa31
taketa33 dessert
taketa35 fukujyuenn distilled spirits factory and shop
Our final stop was a barley shochu brewery in town, where we had the opportunity to try a variety of shochu while the proprietress was busy on her way to Tokyo to attend a wedding.
The village of Ubuyama, located on the outer rim of Mt. Aso, is a laid-back place. The outer rim area is made up of many alternating high hills and deep valleys, and once you enter a valley, it’s hard to tell where you are. There are countless water sources in these valleys. One of them,the Yamabuki Spring, has been selected as one of the 100 famous water sources in Kumamoto Prefecture, and gushes out 30 tons of water every minute. The way the green and autumn leaves of the trees are reflected on the clear water is beautiful.
yamabuki water source2
yamabuki water source1
yamabuki water source5
yamabuki water source4
yamabuki water source6
ubuyama village3 ohgi tanada (rice terrace)
Please note that navigation systems do not work this far, so you need to keep a close eye on the map. The terrain is so complex that it is difficult to know where you are once you enter the valley of the outer rim of the volcano. There are stacked fan-shaped rice terraces nearby, and you’ll want to take photos of the way they are filled with water before rice planting and the stars reflected in them at night.
ubuyama village4 cattle grazing
ubuyama village1 sobosan(grandmother mountain) and sea of clouds
ubuyama village2 aso mountains
ubuyama village5 cattle grazing
yamanami21 ranch near hotel
yamanami23 satoimo with a sticky texture
yamanami22 calf
There are also pastures everywhere. There were calves right in front of the Yamanami Inn, but I hope it wasn’t used as an ingredient in the barbecue at the inn last night. There is also a buffet with nearly 30 kinds of homemade pickles. I was impressed that even these things can be made into pickles. If you can’t finish rice, they will make it into rice balls for you to have as a midnight snack.
Mount Kuju is a place where you can enjoy a leisurely day of mountain hiking without having to stay overnight. However, here I would like to introduce a short 2-hour round trip trek to Mount Kuju, which shows off enough a variety of different faces, and the rewards that are well worth it.
climbing1 start from makinoto mountain pass
I would like to see the whole mountain covered in pink Kirishima Azalea flowers in May or June, but I have heard that the mountain gets congested. In the end, I end up just taking pictures of the line of climbers that stands out against the pink mountain. So this time, I went in late October to search for autumn leaves.
The easiest way to get to the summit is from Makinoto Pass along th road, which gives you the highest altitude possible as the starting point.
climbing2
climbing5 waita mountain like Mt.Fuji
climbing6 kutsukake mountain
climbing10 goal of kutsukake mountain
At first, the mountain trail is a long, gradual concrete slope that can be tiring. However, you can get past this point and head towards Mount Kutsukake.
climbing7 iida hights and yufudake over there
climbing9 aso mountains
Along the way, you can see Mt. Yufudake and the Aso mountain range, and at the end you can enjoy the autumn foliage of Mt. Hossho and Ohgigahana. I didn’t see anyone wearing high heels up here, but you can climb in normal shoes. The area around the summit of Mt. Kutsukake is full of rocks, but after that the trail continues along a gentle ridge. If you have the stamina and time, you can go a little further.
climbing11
climbing18 mitsumata mountain from kutsukake mountain
climbing19 hossho mountain and nishisenrigahama
climbing20 ohgigahana
chez tani
A detour or a reward (Sweets Restaurant)
Return to Makinoto Pass and head south, cross the pass and the Aso mountain range will come into view, and you will then see Chez Tani Senomoto-Kogen store. The view of the Aso mountain range from the full-length windows is a sight to behold, but the 90-minute cake buffet for 3,300 yen is a menu that will make you forget all about it – a menu that is sure to satisfy any desire. If you can’t do something like that, the 1500 yen 2 cakes set with drinks is enough. The cake portions are too big, so you forget to enjoy the view.
The entrance is located quite a way down the slope from the northern outer rim of Mt. Aso to the west. This gorge has an abundant amount of water and is deep, so the sun does not penetrate to the bottom of the gorge. That’s why the color of the pool is a deep blue and mysterious. The only time the light penetrates to the bottom of the gorge, illuminating the curtain of water vapor rising from the pool, is early in the morning in early summer, when the gorge is apparently occupied by many photographers.
kikuchi gorge3 reimei fall
kikuchi gorge2 kakefu fall
kikuchi gorge6
kikuchi gorge11
kikuchi gorge13
kikuchi gorge15 tree on the rock
kikuchi gorge18 hirokawara
kikuchi gorge21
kikuchi gorge22
kikuchi gorge7
It’s a two-hour circular course that goes up and down and doesn’t have many ups and downs, but for some reason it takes longer than that. Perhaps it’s because you’re bathed in negative ions and there are a series of spectacular waterfalls and pools.
There are several observation decks on the outer rim of Mt. Aso. The most representative of these is Daikanbo, which juts out slightly into the caldera basin from within the outer rim, and from there you can see the Aso mountain range directly ahead from due north. However, it takes a little time to get to the top of the observation deck, including the walking time, and the Aso Skyline Observatory solves this problem. The observation deck is right on the side of the road. It is on the way to Kikuchi Gorge.
aso viewpoint1 left
aso viewpoint2 kuju
aso viewpoint3 somma
aso viewpoint4
aso viewpoint5 nekodake
aso viewpoint6 kusasennri
aso viewpoint7 somma
aso viewpoint8 right
aso viewpoint9 nirvana statueaso viewpoint10 kuju mountains on somma
Detour (Lunch time)
Going back a little to Minamioguni Town, in a really small basin surrounded by mountains, there is an apple mint herb garden and a natural food restaurant called “Kaze no Mori (Forest with wind).” I love the plate with colorful vegetables, so I always stop by here. You can enjoy a leisurely lunch while looking at the farm. The assortment of various herbs is a great deal.
The Yamanami Highway is a road that connects Yufuin to Aso, passing through the Kuju mountain range. The scenery overlooking the mountain range changes rapidly, and the road has moderate curves, so you can enjoy an exhilarating drive while listening to music. Along the way, stop at the observation deck where you can get a full view of Mt. Yufu-dake. Mt. Yufu-dake is also known as Bungo Fuji, and its summit is made up of two well-balanced peaks. Although it is different from the shape of Mount Fuji that is generally associated with it, the Mount Fuji as it is called in various regions is probably a mountain that constitutes a representative mental landscape of each region.
yamanami highway1
yamanami highway2 yufudake
yamanami highway3 mitumata mountain
yamanami highway4 evening sun on kuju mountain
Just because you’re not driving doesn’t mean you should fall asleep. This is a route where you should enjoy the beauty of mountain waves. It’s especially amazing to pass through the Kuju mountain range to the south and see the Aso mountain range in the sunset from the pass.
yamanami highway5 aso view left
yamanami highway6 aso view right
We descend the mountain and head towards my usual lodging, Kurokawa Onsen Sanga, as the silver grass sways and sparkles towards the sunset. I came here again looking forward to the food. I apologize for the photos being all about food. But every dish and its tableware is a work of art.
