Izu Hanto
Formed by Mount Fuji’s ancient lava flows, Izu Hantō protrudes like an arrowhead into the ocean southwest of Tokyo, a mountainous spine whose tortured coastline features some superb scenery and a couple of decent beaches. It takes at least two days to make a complete circuit of this region, taking in some intriguing historical sights and stopping at a few of the peninsula’s estimated 2300 hot springs.
Direct train services from Tokyo run down Izu’s more developed east coast, passing through Atami, with its stylish art museum, to the harbour town of Shimoda, a good base for exploring southern Izu and one of the places Commodore Perry parked his “Black Ships” in 1854, as well as the site of Japan’s first American consulate. Over on west Izu, Dōgashima is another famous beauty spot, with a crop of picturesque islands set in clear, tropical-blue water. The only settlement of any size in central Izu is Shuzenji, whose nearby onsen resort has long been associated with novelists such as Kawabata and Natsume Sōseki.
Izu’s mild climate makes it a possible excursion even in winter, though it’s close enough to Tokyo to be crowded at weekends, and is best avoided during the summer holidays. If you haven’t got a JR pass and want to explore the whole peninsula, check out the various discount tickets available, of which the most useful is the four-day “Izu Free Q Kippu”, which covers the Shinkansen from Tokyo as well as local transport by train and bus. Renting a car is a good idea, as public transport is slow and only really covers the main coastal settlements.
Will Adams
In 1600 a Dutch ship washed up on east Kyūshū. It was the lone survivor of five vessels that had set sail from Europe two years previously; three-quarters of the crew had perished from starvation and the remaining 24 were close to death.
One of those rescued was the navigator, an Englishman called Will Adams (1564–1620). He was summoned by Tokugawa Ieyasu, the future shogun, who quizzed Adams about European affairs, religion and various scientific matters. Ieyasu liked what he heard and made Adams his personal adviser on mathematics, navigation and armaments. Adams, known locally as Anjin (“pilot”), later served as the shogun’s interpreter and as a diplomat, brokering trade treaties with both Holland and Britain. In return he was granted samurai status, the first and last foreigner to be so honoured, along with a Japanese wife and an estate near Yokosuka on the Miura Peninsula.
Adams’ main task, however, was to oversee the construction of Japan’s first Western-style sailing ships. In 1605 he set up a shipyard at Itō, on the east coast of Izu, where he built at least two ocean-going vessels over the next five years. His fascinating life story is told in Giles Milton’s Samurai William and also forms the basis for James Clavell’s novel, Shogun. Each August Itō’s Anjin Matsuri celebrates Adams.
Atami
Situated on the Shinkansen line between Tokyo and Ōsaka, the hot-spring resort of Atami (熱海) serves as the eastern gateway to Izu, and one of the jumping-off points for Ōshima. The main reason to come here is to visit the outstanding MOA Museum of Art (ＭＯＡ美術館), carved into a hillside above the town. Though it takes a bit of effort to get to, the museum’s remarkable architecture and collection of mostly ancient Oriental art easily justify a visit. You can buy slightly reduced tickets at the tourist information desk inside Atami Station before hopping on a bus from the station concourse up to the museum. Buses drop you outside the museum’s lower entrance, from where you ride four escalators that cut through the rock to the main exhibition halls. Each room contains just a few pieces, of which the most famous – only put on show in February of each year – is a dramatic folding screen entitled Red and White Plum Blossoms by the innovative Ogata Kōrin (1658–1716). The most eye-catching exhibit is a full-size replica of a golden tearoom, lined with gold leaf and equipped with utensils made of gold, and built in 1586. The museum’s well-tended gardens contain teahouses serving macha and sweet cakes.
Kawagoe
Saitama-ken is home to the interesting old castle town of Kawagoe (川越), just 40km north of Tokyo. Although it doesn’t look promising on arrival, Kawagoe’s compact area of sights, around 1km north of the main station, is aptly described as a “Little Edo”, and once you’ve browsed the many traditional craft shops and paused to sample the town’s culinary delights, you’ll probably find the day has flown by. This would certainly be the case on the third Saturday and Sunday of October, when Kawagoe’s grand matsuri is held, one of the most lively festivals in the Tokyo area, involving some 25 ornate floats (called dashi) and hundreds of costumed celebrants.
Kawagoe’s fortunes owe everything to its strategic position on the Shingashi River and Kawagoe-kaidō, the ancient highway to the capital. If you wanted to get goods to Tokyo – then called Edo – they more than likely had to go via Kawagoe, and the town’s merchants prospered as a result, accumulating the cash to build fireproof kurazukuri, the black, two-storey shophouses for which the town is now famous. At one time there were over two hundred of these houses, but their earthen walls didn’t prove quite so effective against fire as hoped (nor were they much use in the face of Japan’s headlong rush to modernization). Even so, some thirty remain, with sixteen prime examples clustered together along Chūō-dōri, around 1km north of the JR and Tōbu stations.
Kita-in
Kawagoe’s other major highlight, around 500m east of Hon-Kawagoe station, is Kita-in (喜多院), the main temple complex of the Tendai Buddhist sect. There’s been a temple on these grounds since 830, and it gained fame when the first Tōkugawa shogun, Ieyasu, declared the head priest Tenkai Sōjō a “living Buddha”. Such was the reverence in which the priests here were held that, when the temple burnt down in 1638, the third shogun, Iemitsu, donated a secondary palace from Edo Castle (on the site of Tokyo’s present-day Imperial Palace) as a replacement building. This was dismantled and moved here piece by piece, and is now the only remaining structure from Edo Castle which survives anywhere.
You have to pay an entry fee to view the palace part of the temple but it’s well worth it. The room with a painted floral ceiling is believed to be where Iemitsu was born. Serene gardens surround the palace and a covered wooden bridge leads across into the temple’s inner sanctum, decorated with a dazzling golden chandelier. The entry fee also includes access to the Gohyaku Rakan, a remarkable grove of stone statues. Although the name translates as “500 Rakans”, there are actually 540 of these enigmatic dwarf disciples of Buddha, and no two are alike. Should you know your Chinese birth sign, it’s fun to search the ranks for it, as twelve of the statues include the zodiac symbols of animals and mythical beasts. Kita-in also has its own mini Tōshō-gū, which, like its famous cousin in Nikkō, enshrines the spirit of Tokugawa Ieyasu and is decorated with bright colours and elaborate carvings.
Mount Takao
An hour west of Shinjuku, Mount Takao (高尾山; 600m), also referred to as Takao-san, is a particularly pleasant place for a quick escape from Tokyo, and a starting point for longer trails into the mountains in the Chichibu-Tama National Park (秩父多摩国立公園). The Keiō line from Shinjuku provides the simplest and cheapest way of reaching the terminus of Takao-san-guchi (1hr). After a hike up or a ride on the cable car or chairlifts, you’ll get to Yakuo-in (薬王院), a temple founded in the eighth century and notable for the ornate polychromatic carvings which decorate its main hall. It hosts the spectacular Hiwatarisai fire ritual on the second Sunday in March back in Takao-san-guchi, where you can watch priests and pilgrims march across hot coals – and even follow them yourself.
Chūō-dōri
Along Chūō-dōri, around 200m before the main enclave of kurazukuri, you’ll pass a small shrine, Kumano-jinja (熊野神社), beside which is a tall storehouse containing a magnificent dashi float. At the next major crossroads, on the right-hand side is the old Kameya okashi (sweet) shop, warehouse and factory. These buildings now house the Yamazaki Art Museum (山崎美術館), dedicated to the works of Meiji-era artist Gaho Hashimoto. Some of his elegant screen paintings hang in the main gallery, while there are artistic examples of the sugary confections once made here in the converted kura (storehouses); entry includes a cup of tea and okashi.
Continuing up Chūō-dōri, you’ll pass several craft shops, as well as the Kurazukuri Shiryōkan (蔵造り資料館), a museum housed inside an old tobacco wholesaler’s, one of the first kurazukuri to be rebuilt after the great fire of 1893. Just north of here is the Kawagoe Festival Hall (川越まつり会館) which houses two magnificent dashi floats along with videos of past festivals and various displays; there are no English descriptions.
Opposite the Kurazukuri Shiryōkan, just off Chūō-dōri, you won’t miss the Toki-no-Kane (時の鐘), the wooden bell tower (rebuilt in 1894) that was used to raise the alarm when fires broke out. An electric motor now powers the bell, which is rung four times daily. Returning to Chūō-dōri and taking the first street off to the west will bring you to Yōju-in (養寿院), another handsomely wrought temple with pleasant grounds. Just north of here is the Kashiya Yokochō (菓子屋横町), or confectioners’ alley, a picturesque pedestrian street still lined with several colourful sweet and toy shops.
Minakami
The sprawling township of Minakami (水上), buried deep in the mountains of Gunma-ken, about 65km west of Nikkō, has become one of the hottest spots in Japan for adventure sports. No fewer than ten whitewater rafting companies, including Canyons, offer trips down the Tone-gawa. Other activities include paragliding, canyoning, abseiling, rock-climbing and a wide variety of treks, including the ascent to the summit of Tanigawa-dake (谷川岳; 1977m). To relax after all this, head to Takaragawa onsen (宝川温泉), famous for its mixed-sex bathing (though it also has separated baths) and its four huge rotemburo.
To reach Minakami, take the Shinkansen to Jōmō-Kōgen (上毛高原) from where the town is a twenty-minute bus ride. The tourist office is opposite the station.
Mito
Around 100km northeast of Tokyo, Mito (水戸) was once home to the Mito clan, one of the three main families of the Tokugawa Shogunate – although you’d hardly guess the town’s former importance from its nondescript central district, dominated by an inelegant train and bus terminal complex. Most of the town’s worthwhile sights were the work of Mito’s ninth lord, Nariaki Tokugawa, who in 1841 created the sprawling Kairakuen (偕楽園), now officially classified as one of the nation’s top three gardens. The garden’s name means “to share pleasure”, and it’s justly famous for its three thousand fragrant plum trees which blossom in February and March, attracting crowds of visitors, though the garden is lovely in all seasons.
Kairakuen lies several kilometres outside the town centre. Coming into Mito on the train from Tokyo, you’ll pass right through it. The station in the park, is usually only open during the peak plum blossom season on weekends.
At the centre of the main section of plum tree plantings stands Kōbuntei (好文亭), a replica of the original two-storey house that was used by Mito clan members as a retreat and a venue for poetry readings; it’s decorated with beautifully painted screens and the second-floor observation room affords sweeping views of the garden and nearby Lake Senba. From here it’s a brisk twenty-minute walk across the train lines to the Tokugawa Museum (徳川博物館), housing artefacts once owned by various Tokugawa feudal lords and their families, with a focus on clan family portraits and samurai armour and weaponry.
Returning to Mito Station, take the first right on the left-hand side of the Livin’ department store and walk uphill, bearing right, for a couple of minutes until you reach the well-preserved Kōdōkan (弘道館), the Mito clan’s school of calligraphy and swordsmanship. The visual displays, paintings and artefacts offer an insight into the lives of those who were privileged enough to receive the rigorous academic training provided here. Some eight hundred apricot trees also blossom here in late February and March.
