Kappa Sightseeing Boat Oki Islands

 

The Kappa Sightseeing Boat operates three times a day for a one-hour-long scenic tour around the historic port area of Saigo on Dogo Island , Okinoshima, in the Sea of Japan off the north coast of mainland Shimane.

Tour participants meet at the Tourist Information Office near the ferry terminal, and a 5-minute walk through the back streets takes you to the jetty where you board the covered boats.

The boat first heads out to the narrow mouth of the sheltered inlet, where you can look back at the port and the high country in the middle of the island behind.

Some of the geologic features of the coast are pointed out by the guide, though the commentary is only in Japanese. 

The Oki Islands are a UNESCO Global Geopark, so geology is a well-covered topic throughout the islands with plenty of printed material and signs in English on it.

You may also catch sight of one of the huge car ferries or the high-speed passenger ferry coming or going.

 Before heading upriver, the boat makes a detour under the 260-meter-long Saigo Bridge, which carries traffic over to the island's only airport and to Shirataki Point, a favorite spot for sunset viewing.

After a few bends the river soon leaves the town behind and the banks are lined with reeds or trees. Here the guide points out a couple of the haunts of the Kappa, the mythological creature that is probably the best known yokai character in Japan and after whom the boat trip is named.

 Often translated into English as “water imp”, this green, scaly creature with a beak and turtle-like shell is known throughout Japan and is known for drowning horses and children. It really likes cucumber, so kappazushi, a kind of sushi made with cucumbers, is often left as offerings to appease it. At this point the guide sings a local folk song.

  After turning around the boat heads back and then takes the narrow channel that cuts through the middle of the old town. In some ways this is the most interesting part as the side by side houses literally come right down to the waters edge, with the older houses still with small jetties or steps down to the water. As you get closer to the port itself the sides of the river begin to fill with fishing boats.

  

Being an island, fishing has always been a major preoccupation with the inhabitants, but in earlier times the whole channel would have been a hive of activity because Saigo was a major trading port.

 Though much is made of the great roads built in the Edo period like the Tokaido or the Nakasendo, along which travelled the great entourages of daimyos travelling to Edo or the millions of pilgrims heading to Ise, it is worth remembering that Japan was basically a maritime nation, and the coasts and waterways carried much of the trade and communication.

  

Saigo Port was a stopping point on the Kitamaebune, a major trade route that ran from Hokkaido and the far north down the Japan Sea coast and then round into the Inland Sea to reach Osaka, the trading capital of the country. This was a safer and easier route than the shorter Pacific coast route, so this channel would have been filled with boats tying up, cargoes being tran-shipped, and supplies being taken onboard, and though not often mentioned, like ports everywhere in the world , there would have been brisk business for “female companionship”.

 To my mind this was the prettiest sightseeing boat ride in an urban setting. In recent years Ine in Kyoto has been heavily pushed as a tourist spot, but in my humble opinion, the area around Saijo is almost as good and not at all touristy.

The previous post in this series exploring the Oki Islands was on the Suijin Shrine right next to where the Kappa Boat is boarded.

Saijo Sake Brewery Street

 

Saijo, in the mountains of Hiroshima, is one of the three great sake-brewing centres in Japan. Fushimi in Kyoto, and Nada in Hyogo being the other two.

Of course, sake is brewed just about everywhere in Japan and while the number of small, family-run sake breweries is somewhat declining, you dont have to look far to find one.

What Saijo represents is large-scale sake brewing, and it is home to seven such breweries, all located close together in what is now named Sakagura-dori, Sake Brewery Street.

All the breweries have sections open to the public for sales, tasting, and various levels of tours.

The town hosts an incredibly popular sake festival in October when around 200,000 vistors descend on the town.

The oldest exisiting sake brewery dates back around 350 years.

Saijo lies on the main, ancient highway, the Sanyo-do, and the feudal lords would be provided accomodations in honjin when they travelled the road.

The owner of a honjin started brewing sake for the guests, and this is now the Hakubotan Sake Brewery.

Nestled in a mountain basin, the climate of the area, cold and dry in the winter, is perfect for sake brewing.

The area also has an abundant supply of good spring water, another major ingredient.

However, Saijo did not become a major sake brewing centre until the modern period.

Saijo lacked the rivers that could power waterwheels, the premodern power for industrial scale polishing of the rice for sake brewing.

In 1896 a local man who was  a sake brewer and an engineer, invented a mechanical rice-polisher that revolutioned the large-scale production of sake.

Most, but not all, of the breweries in Saijo were founded after that.

The architecture of Sake Brewery Street is quite distinctive with white plastered walls and the red rooftiles of this part of Japan.

Red brick chimneys are another indicator.

Many of the walls are known as Namako style, referring to the diagonal white plaster grid on a dark, tile background.

This design is fairly common on storehouse walls. Namako is the sea cucumber and the raised, rounded, white plaster is said to resemble it.

There are free guided tours of the area, or you can pick up a map from the nearby tourist information office and wander by yourself.

The previous post in this series on my visit to Saijo while walking along the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage was on the delightful zen garden at Entsuji Temple.

Around Kawamoto Higashi Ohashi Bridge

 

After leaving Kawanoto, heading upstream the river does an s-bend.

Not far out of town and the Higashi Ohashi Bridge comes into view.

It carries a road that heads up to Iwami Ginzan, Oda, and Mount Sanbe.

 

However, it doesnt get much traffic. Most traffic comes into Kawamoto from the downstream side.

The bridge dates to 1967 and is 165 meters long.

It replaced a suspension bridge built in 1923. At that time there were still few bridges across the Gonokawa River, with most crossings still done by ferry.

Consequently the suspension bridge was somewhat of a tourist attraction. It was destroyed by a flood in 1965.

The previous post in this series documenting my walk up the south bank of the Gonokawa River to its source was on the roadside Tatara Shrine at the edge of town.

Until the Meiji Period, the river marked the boundary between the Hamada Han and Iwami Ginzan, controlled directly by the Shogunate.

Usually in Japan, when a river marked a boundary, it ran down the middle of the river, but it is said that in this instance the Shogunate put the boundary on the opposite bank and took the whole of the river as its territory.

Not sure how that worked in practise, but the next section of the river was the route used by the Shogunate to transport the gold, first upriver to Miyoshi and then by land to Onomichi, then by ship up the Inland Sea.

When the Mori Clan controlled the mines the silver was shipped out along the Kitamaebune trade route along the Sea of Japan, the closest and easiest way. Once the Shogunate took over using that route would have meant sailing around the territory that the Mori had been confined to after their defeat by te Tokugawa, and so I guess they thought that not so smart and kind of inviting trouble...