Rediscovering Japan

Travel (Kure/Onomichi(Hiroshima))

by tomizuta

Strolling an alley in Mitarai, a historical port village in Kure

We have been to Hiroshima so many times, as my relatives live in Hiroshima City. Many of the younger population have left their home villages to work in the major cities, resulting in the depopulation and creating serious problems of the countryside It is customary for those that left their home villages to go back to see their parents and relatives during the New Years’ Day holidays and Obon in summer, and visit the family graves around spring and autumn equinox (ohigan). Obon is now the week including August 15^th but in the older days was July 15^th under the lunar calendar. It was believed that the spirits of the ancestors would come to visit their descendants, and it became a custom to give offerings to the ancestors. August 15^th is a convenient time, as the schools are closed as well as many factories, and is the hottest and most quiet time of the year. People visit the family graves, as it is regarded in Buddhism that it is helpful to pray at ohigan that the deceased may cross the river to enter paradise. We visited Hiroshima at the spring ohigan to meet with our relatives. We have visited the Atomic Bomb Dome. Hiroshima Peace Park and Miyajima, many times but never explored Kure or Onomichi in detail. Our interest on this occasion was to visit Yamato Museum, the historic port village of Mitarai and get to see Onomichi, all in Hiroshima prefecture.

Kure is ideal as a port, and served as the base for the pirates in the Setonaikai (seto inland sea). It was then designated in 1890 as a naval base for the Japanese Navy till the end of World War II. Today it hosts the US Army as well as the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF). We visited the Yamato Museum and the JMSDF Kure Museum. Yamato Museum was interesting for me as it was not all about the largest yet short-lived battleship Yamato, but also told a lot about the development of Kure since the Meiji era. I was also fascinated to know that till the end of WW II, the manufacturing activities at Kure was so broad from steel making to battleships and weapons. I had not known that after WW II these manufacturing activities were privatized which started companies such as Nisshin Steel (recently agreed to be merged into Nippon Steel) as well as contributing to the development of many others.

Inside Yamato Museum. Information in English is provided for all displays.

We stopped by at the JMSDF Kure Museum. It was the first time that we learned that the JMSDF’s major initial activities had been sweeping the seas of mines laid down by the US Navy in order to sever import of goods into Japan, and that although these activities finished in the 1960s, there are still those odd occasions requiring their mine sweeping expertise

Inside Akishio, a JMSDF submarine retired in 2004

There are still many sake breweries left in Kure. We went 30 kilometres to the south of the city centre to Kurahashi district to visit a local brewery established in 1809. We could not find the brewery by our car navigation. So we parked in front of the village shrine and asked a resident passing by for directions. “You’ll be amazed. It’s such a huge brewery, almost like a castle. They may be closed though since it is a Sunday.” It was a massive complex. We circled around the long white walls of the brewery and finally found what seemed to be the entrance. Although the main office seemed to be closed, luckily a resident came out and noticed us. We told them we were there to buy some sake. A lady then came out to open the shop for us. She also advised us to take a look of the garden behind. We took some pictures in the vast open lawn garden where we noticed that the brewery had a No stage as well as kept a Mikoshi (a wooden seat for the gods to sit and used in festivals of shrines).We understand that there is a lot of granite in the area providing good water, and also good rice suitable for brewing. We bought a bottle of Mitaniharu for \1,500. I tasted it later, and found it to be very orthodox, smooth and drinkable. No wonder it's been around so long.

The walls of the huge brewery site and a 1.8 litre Bottle of Mitaniharu honjouzo.

We went back through the town centre of Kure and drove south west to the historical port area of Mitarai. The lodgings in this village have been designated as Important Preservation District for Groups of Historic Buildings. It’s hard to imagine now, but until steamboats became mainstream, Mitarai flourished as an ideal port to wait for good tide and wind, and in the Edo period was once the largest port in the Hiroshima prefecture area.

Houses from the Edo era in Mitarai

In the village, there is also Otomeza, a theatre built in the 1930s, very well preserved to give you a nostalgic idea of pre-war theatres. The theatre is still used occasionally.

View of interior of Otomeza. Note that the seats for the audience is tatami.

Mitarai is located on Yutaka Island one of the many scattered islands in Seto Inland Sea (Setonaikai). We drove west via a bridge to neighboring Okamura Island which belongs to Imabari City in Ehime prefecture. From there we took a ferry to Ohmishima also part of Imabari, to connect to the Shimanami Highway that connects Imabari in Ehime to Onomichi in Hiroshima.

Towards Ohmishima from the ferry

There are some huge boulders on the north of Mukoujima (Mukou Island) facing Onomichi. It is indeed an odd sight, but according to the information board, you can view the sunset through the crack at winter solstice. I understand it’s a mystery how the crack was created.

The huge boulder from below (left) and view from behind (right)

Anyway, there are abundant boulders in the Onomichi area. Onomichi is also known for its hills. We drove up the hills to Senkouji (Senkou Temple). Senkouji belongs to the Shingon sect of Japanese Buddhism. It is one of the two oldest sects, the other being Tendai sect both from the 9th century. It was founded in 809, which is 15 years after the capital of Japan, or the emperor’s throne was relocated from Nara to Kyoto. Vast grounds of the temple were donated to Onomichi City and are now a town park, very popular for hanami or cherry blossom viewing in spring. We went up one of the observatories. Although we had a good command of the view of Onomichi and Setonaikai, we failed to observe the huge boulders of Mukoujima.

View of Onomichi below and Mukoujima across from Senkouji

A feature of Senkouji Temple was the huge boulders here as well.

Note the huge boulders above the main temple of Senkouji

The last place for us to visit was the shopping arcade of Onomichi. You can find shopping arcades in many places in Tokyo as well as major cities. Shopping arcades became prominent in the 1950s after Japan started to recover from WW II. Recently with the competition of larger shopping malls, and the depopulation of the regional areas, many arcades in the smaller towns are struggling. I’d been to the arcade in Onomichi before, but had to notice that some of the shops had new owners. Obviously, that’s much better than having closed shops, and I was pleasantly surprised to see many shoppers along the arcade. The arcade in Onomichi is said to be the longest in western Japan. I also learned on this occasion that the arcade used to be Saigoku kaido in the Edo era, the main route from Kyoto to Shimonoseki in Yamaguchi. (For more information on kaido or main routes in the Edo area, please refer to separate article in Unno-juku.) That explains the curves of the arcade.

The shopping arcade in Onomichi

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