16 Days. 800 km by JR Trains and highway buses in a circular route of West Japan. And it all started at this picture-perfect small town just south of Hiroshima Airport.
99.9% of foreign tourists have probably never heard of Takehara, a historic town of salt-makers and sake-brewers with a lovely feudal townscape and a collection of stately mansions from the 1800s. It's also the hometown of a man known as the father of Japanese whisky, but that's another discussion.
Why Takehara isn't more popular as a tourist destination is somewhat of a mystery, considering its excellent bus connections to Hiroshima City (70 minutes; departures every hour) and to Hiroshima Airport (25 minutes; 7 departures per day). I suspect that Geiyo Bus company's Japanese-only website is partly to blame, but that may soon change in this day and age.
In any case we were the only foreigners in town on this day, which earned us bonus hospitality points from shopkeepers who seemed genuinely delighted to see two Canadians. Judging by the lack of English brochures at the town's main attractions, few non-Japanese visitors ever make it here.
But to be honest, we would have skipped Takehara if our airline didn't cancel our original booking and forced us to arrive one day early. That was a wonderful blessing in disguise, giving us this extra half-day to spend somewhere between Hiroshima Airport and our eventual destination of Kurashiki. Also in the vicinity is the attractive port city of Onomichi, which we would soon visit on a day-trip from Kurashiki.
So we crashed for one night at the Airport Hotel, boarded the limousine bus (in the form of a 9-seater shared taxi) at 08:40 the next morning and arrived at Takehara around 09:00. Our original plan was to get off at Takehara train station to stash our luggages before walking to the town's historic quarter, but our driver had a better plan.
He dropped us off just south of the historic quarter at Michi-no-Eki Takehara, which functions as tourist info office, souvenir store, farmer's market, but most importantly, luggage storage for day-tripping visitors like ourselves. We would pick up our luggage after lunch and take a series of local trains towards Kurashiki.
Our 16-day trip started right here at this immaculately preserved residence of the Morikawa clan, a family of salt traders in the Meiji era when this house commanded a majestic view of the neighboring salt flats. Equally as impressive as the building was the carefully manicured traditional garden of gnarly pines and fiery maples.
We arrived just in time for the autumn foliage season, well-appreciated by Japanese tourists who would infamously flood the courtyards of Kyoto's major temples this time of the year. But here amidst the tranquility of the Morikawa Tei, we happened to be the only visitors this morning. We spent more than an hour at this one house alone -- it was definitely our favorite spot in town.
Morikawa Tei was the odd attraction located on the west bank of the creek that once marked the end of the town and the start of the salt flats. A short stroll across the bridge brought us to Takehara's historic quarter, now officially designated as an Important Preservation District for its traditional architecture, just like Kyoto's Saga district or Tsumago in Central Japan.
Everywhere you look there were eye-catching traditional Kanban signs, such as this engraved cedar signboard and heavy canvas shades for the Umetani Gofukuten, a local store for kimonos and associated accessories.
The 1950s signage for the old Hinomaru Photo Studio stood above the canal where merchant barges loaded with salt once floated en route to Takehara's seaport. The studio itself has long moved to a newer building nearby.
The most popular attraction in town, due perhaps to its elegant exterior as well as its central location within the historic quarter, is the former merchant house of Matsuzaka Tei, a lavishly detailed wooden structure surviving from the late Edo Period.
Compared with the peaceful Morikawa Tei, the Matsuzaka residence was much more popular with domestic Japanese tourists (a group of 20 during our visit!) who had come to admire its exquisite styling and an impressive collection of period antiques. We also visited the residences of the Koumoto and Rai clans down the street, though Morikawa Tei was still our favorite.
Perched on the town's eastern hills is the 17th Century temple of Saihoji, Takehara's most recognizable landmark and a regular feature of tourism brochures in Hiroshima Prefecture. If this elevated red veranda looks somewhat familiar, yes it's actually modeled after Kyoto's Kiyomizudera.
One of the rewards for the Saihoji hike was a fine panorama of Takehara's old town, stretching from the mountain passes in the north to the town's seaport to the south where ferries to the sparsely inhabited islands of Seto Inland Sea depart.
We couldn't resist these sweet Mikan oranges from nearby Oshiba Island featured at this unattended roadside fruit stand. Mikan were 200 yen (CAD$2.4) per bag, cabbages were 100 yen each and limes cost just 50 yen. Money goes into the hanging bamboo basket at the top.
The wooden Kanban of Taketsuru Shuzou marks the brewhouse of a 380-year-old Sake-maker that still churns out some of West Japan's most sought after Sake. These days however it's better known for producing the town's favorite son, Taketsuru Masataka, who studied chemistry at University of Glasgow and brought the magic of whisky making to Japan in the 1920s.
Further down the street, the 150-years-young Fujii Sake Brewery is best known for an award-winning Junmai Daiginjo known as Ryusei. Instead of purchasing a bottle (3000 yen for 720 mL) and lugging it all the way to Kurashiki, we opted for a Sakekasu (brewing yeast) flavored gelato for 300 yen (CAD$3.5). The taste? Well ... I'd recommend it only to Sake-lovers.
For lunch we followed the stream of high school students in uniform and hit Takehara's trendiest lunch spot, a century-old soy sauce brewery turned Okonomiyaki-cafe.
Food Review: HORIKAWA (Takehara)
Address: Honmachi 3-8-21, Takehara, Hiroshima Prefecture
Hours: 11:00-15:00 17:00-19:00, Closed on Wed
Website: horikawa-1919.co.jp
Directions: Starting from the Matsuzaka Residence in the historic quarter, walk north along the main pedestrian street for about 50m. Horikawa the restaurant is on the left, just before the soy sauce brewery.
This whitewashed storehouse from the 1800s is perhaps the best symbol of Takehara's recent resurgence as a destination for domestic Japanese tourists. Prominently featured in the Anime series Tamayura, this spun-off Okonomiyaki joint has since trumped the family's soy sauce business in terms of popularity. But it wasn't the Anime craze that brought us here, but Horikawa's creative local twist on Hiroshima-style Okonomiyaki that has propelled it into the Michelin Guide.
While the neighbourhood Obaasan still come here to buy Horikawa's premium-brewed soy sauce, the younger clientele apparently prefer Anime-inspired items such as Lemon Shaved Ice and the enigmatic Hoboroyaki, named after the fictional Okonomiyaki shop in the Anime.
What constitutes a Hoboroyaki seems to change from time to time, and on this day it started with a base of Yakisoba noodles, layered with meat balls and your usual cabbage inside the Okonomiyaki pancake dough, sprinkled with (Gasp!) tuna-and-corn-mayo, and finally topped with a scoop of chicken fried rice. Okonomiyaki purists would call this sacrilege, but we quite enjoyed the innovation to be honest.
But it was another creative invention that put Horikawa on the Michelin Guide. With an abundance of Sake-brewing yeast from several highly respected breweries in town, Horikawa has added the prized Sakekasu into Okonomiyaki dough and created the Takehara-yaki, a Hiroshima-style Okonomiyaki with a moderated dash of local Sake (which turned out to be Ryusei on this day!). While the price of 1300 yen certainly wasn't cheap in Okonomiyaki terms, this was about as authentically Takehara as it could get.
Bill for Two Persons
| Hoboroyaki Revolution | 1250 yen |
| Takehara-yaki (Special Okonomi Soba) | 1300 yen |
| TOTAL | 2550 yen (CAD$30) |
After lunch we picked up our luggage back at the Michi-no-Eki, but not before buying a cheap bottle of local Sake and some snacks for the next leg of our journey. We would have to transfer trains at Mihara and Fukuyama before finally arriving at Kurashiki, where our 3-night rental of a traditional Machiya house awaited.
