Oita prefecture | Japanese Countryside Travel Notes

2024-02-15

Beppu where both people and food are steamed

kannawa hotspring view from east entrance bus stop

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

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.

beppu hell in the sea

beppu greenhouse using hotspring

beppu hell of monk

beppu hell of blood

beppu sightseeing bus of demon style

2024-02-112024-02-11

Buddha statues from Usuki cannot be taken out

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.

2024-02-09

Laputa (Ghibli) is not the only castle in the sky

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

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

oka castle9 do not the same thing — 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.

2024-02-052024-02-09

Giant Suspension Bridge and unrelated snake spectacle

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.

johgakura bridge

look down from bridge 1

nakatsugawa valley bridge

There are also places in the Tohoku region where the views from bridges are dynamic. Johgakura Bridge in Aomori Prefecture is a good place to stop by on your way to the Shirakami Mountain Range and Lake Towada as above photos. It’s also a good idea to stop by the bridge that spans the Nakatsugawa Valley in Fukushima Prefecture near Goshikinuma on Mt. Bandai.

suspension bridge5

suspension bridge2

suspension bridge1

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.

sujiyu hotspring4

sujiyu hotspring1

sujiyu hotspring2 utaseyu

sujiyu hotspring3

kuju tade wetlands

kuju tade hell valley

2024-02-042024-02-04

Figures inside Nabegataki waterfall

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.

apple house4 farmland

apple house5 lunch

apple house8 dessert

2024-01-28

Yabakei is cool or “Yabai” in Japanese

yabakei old arhat

Yabakei is an old volcanic plateau that has been transformed into a series of strangely shaped rocks due to erosion. There are places called this way all over the country (For example: Dakikaeri Gorge in Akita Prefecture), but they are concentrated in the northern part of Oita Prefecture. When Yukichi Fukuzawa, an enlightenment thinker and educator from the end of the Edo period to the Meiji period and a founder of Keio University, learned that one of these, his hometown of Kyoshuhou, was going to be sold, he apparently bought the land and protected it without using his name. It was the forerunner of the National Trust movement in Japan.

yabakei kyoshuho1 left

yabakei kyoshuho2 center

yabakei kyoshuho3 right

In addition, the priest of Rakan-ji Temple (Arhat Temple), whose temple complex clings to a gigantic rock wall, spent 30 years digging a hand-dug tunnel called the Ao-no-domon to enable people to safely pass through the difficult access points of this Yabakei to worship. This cave is located at the foot of Kyoshuhou.

yabakei blue tunnel2

yabakei blue tunnel3 hand digging

yabakei blue tunnel1

The writer Kan Kikuchi was inspired by this real story and created a masterpiece called “Beyond the Enemy.” The main character learns that the person he has found to avenge himself is actually a priest who is excavating the tunnel, but in order to achieve revenge as soon as possible, he helps dig the tunnel together, and when it opens, he abandons his desire for revenge. This is the synopsis of his novel. That’s why the title of the work is “Beyond the Enemy.”

By the way, the true story is that after the tunnel opened, Ao-no-Domon became the first toll road in Japan to collect tolls, but the money was used to pay for the construction costs of hiring masons, so it can’t be helped. The chisel and mallet used for hand digging are displayed in the hall next to the entrance to the chair lift that takes you up to Arhat Temple, so don’t miss them.

arhat temple1 entrance

arhat temple2

arhat temple3 real chisel and hammer for digging tunnel

arhat temple4 top of mountain

arhat temple5 using chair lift

arhat temple6

arhat temple8 thousand jizos

arhat temple9

arhat temple11 clouds

arhat temple13

arhat temple15

arhat temple16

arhat temple19 five hundreds arhats

arhat temple18 rice scoops save lives

I think Arhat Temple was also built so that it clings to a rock wall like that. If that’s the case, I wonder if it would have been better to build the temple in a safer place, without the need for tunnels, from the beginning. If that happens, all the good stories I’ve introduced here will be lost. In any case, there is something about Yabakei that moves people’s hearts.

Yabakei is cool or “Yabai !” in Japanese.

yabakei bridge

yabakei a part of kyoshuho

yabakei eight views at a glance2

yabakei eight views at a glance1

yabakei eight views at a glance3

2024-01-27

the grandmaster of all Hachiman Shrines, 2 bows and 4 claps are too much

Usa Shrine is the grandmaster of all Hachiman Shrines. Do you understand that there is a hierarchy in shrines, just like in human society?

It is said that there are eight million gods in Japan, and people believe that there are gods everywhere. Depending on the deity enshrined, shrines can be classified into 30,000 Inari shrines for business, 40,000 Hachiman shrines for military fortune, 12,000 Tenjin shrines for academics, and 25,000 Suwa shrines for agricultural irrigation.

fushimi inari shrine

kitano tenman gu, Tenjinsama

suwa shrine

Left: Inari shrine / Center: Tenjin shrine / Right: Suwa shrine

Hachiman was originally an indigenous god worshiped by the local Usa clan, but it seems that he became the god of military luck after being told by the gods that he was the incarnation of Emperor Ojin, a master of archery. At Hachiman Shrine, there is a ritual called Hojo-e where living things are released into nature. Samurai (warrior) are destined to kill life, but Buddhism forbids killing. It is said that these contradictory concepts were fused on the Kunisaki Peninsula, resulting in a syncretization of Shinto and Buddhism.

Usa Jingu is the grandmaster of the Hachiman deity, and is positioned to bring together other shrines such as Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine in Kyoto and Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine in Kamakura. I think it would be interesting to visit the shrines while understanding their connections. The shape of the main building of the shrine is called Hachiman-zukuri(style) and is similar to each other.

usa gingu nanchu romon

iwashimizu hachiman gu

kamakura hachiman gu

Left: Usa /Center: Iwashimizu(Kyoto) /Right: Tsurugaoka(Kamakura)

usa shrine6 2bows 4applause worship — worship method: 2bows, 4applause and 1bow again

However, when it comes to etiquette when visiting shrines, at most shrines you bow twice, clap twice and lastly bow once again, but at Usa Shrine you bow twice, clap four times and lastly bow once again. Even so, the grounds of Usa Shrine are too vast like U.S.A.

usa shrine1 kure bridge

usa shrine2 couple Mt. Fuji

usa shrine3 gate

usa shrine4 uemiya

usa shrine8 inside

2024-01-24

The Kunisaki Peninsula is a training ground for Shugensha(Mountain Faith)

The Kunisaki Peninsula is a group of former volcanoes that jut out into the Seto Inland Sea in a generally conical shape. Because it is an old volcano, it has been eroded along a conical shape, with deep valleys radiating out to the sea. A Buddhist culture was formed by incorporating Japan’s ancient Shinto religion (the Hachiman faith at Usa Shrine) into Buddhism (Tendai sect), which was introduced from the continent, and training was carried out by walking on the harsh peaks of a group of former volcanoes that stood out in deep valleys.

uji byodo-in, the same national treasure

Fukiji Temple is an Amida Hall (national treasure), along with Uji’s Byodo-in Phoenix Hall and Hiraizumi Chuson-ji Konjiki Hall, and is the oldest wooden building in Kyushu, with its sloping roof evoking elegance. According to a local guide, it was a playground when he was little, so it was a luxury. Not only are the precious Buddhist paintings inside the temple fading due to exposure to ultraviolet rays, but the security is not at all worthy of being considered a national treasure, but is rather non-vigilant, making it hard to believe that it is one of the three major Amida temples. A statue of Amida Nyorai is carved out of a Japanese oak tree.

kunisaki fuki temple1

kunisaki fuki temple3

kunisaki fuki temple2 black cat

kunisaki fuki temple4 amidadou

kunisaki fuki temple6 kaya with antiseptic effect

There is also a temple called Magi-Ohdo nearby, where many simple Buddhist statues remain. There are so many temples and large Buddha statues carved into cliffs that you will have to stay for several days to see them all over the place.

kunisaki sannomiyanokei

kunisaki magioudou

kunisaki tashibunosho motomiya carved buddha1

kunisaki tashibunosho motomiya carved buddha2 fudo myoo(center)

kunisaki scarecrows to increase population of depopulated village

Detour (Four seasons’ vegitable restaurant)

There is a home-cooked restaurant called Shikisai (Four seasons’ vegitable restaurant directly translated in English) in a place overlooking a rice field called Tashibu-no-sho, which was the manor of Usa Jingu Shrine during the Heian period. During the rice planting season, you can see the beautiful green terraced rice fields. This was my first visit, but they serve elaborate dishes made with unexpected ingredients. I want to stop by also next time.