A journey through Tohoku: Akita, Iwate and Miyagi

日本語で読む

Light from the window fell across the milky water.

At Tsurunoyu, a hot-spring inn in Nyuto Onsen, the pale water stood out against the dark timber of the bathhouse. Even the narrow shaft of daylight was part of a view I wanted to linger over.

Towards evening, lamps came on beneath the thatched roofs. I was glad not just to be here for the baths, but to be spending the night in these mountains. This was where I stayed on the first night of my journey through Tohoku.

Tohoku is the northern part of Honshu, Japan’s main island. This trip took me through three of its prefectures: Akita, Iwate and Miyagi. I started at Akita Airport, walked around Kakunodate, stopped at Lake Tazawa and continued to Tsurunoyu. The next day I crossed Hachimantai and descended to Morioka, then spent a night in Kitakami before heading to Matsushima. Each time I got out of the car, the scene changed: shady streets, mountains still holding snow, then islands scattered across the sea.

Kakunodate: behind the black fences

I picked up a hire car at Akita Airport and drove to Kakunodate. The airport had greeted me with namahage, the fearsome masked figures of Akita tradition; in Kakunodate, it was the trees that caught my eye first. They were large enough to stretch over the street, their branches reaching above black fences and casting leaf shadows on the bright road. I had come to see the old houses, but the deep June green kept drawing my eyes upwards.

The present layout of Kakunodate dates back to the town planned by Ashina Yoshikatsu in 1620. An open firebreak divided the samurai quarter, Uchimachi, from the merchants’ quarter, Tomachi. Walking beside the black fences, I felt that more than isolated old buildings had survived. The town’s underlying shape was still there. The width of the streets and the long stretches of fencing suggested who had once lived where.

From the street I could see gates, roofs and the greenery between them. I passed through a gate, crossed a garden and finally reached the tatami rooms inside. The house had seemed rather imposing from outside, but looking out at the garden from a room changed that impression. The dim interior made the leaves outside more distinct. The garden seemed less an ornament beside the house than something close to the people who spent their days here.

Above me were finely pierced ranma, the carved wooden panels over the sliding doors. Even the entrances had reflected social rank. At the Aoyagi house, for example, visitors used the main or side entrance according to their status. As I admired the workmanship, I wondered which doorway I would have been allowed through. These rooms are open to visitors now, but once there were precise rules about entering them.

The guns and armour in the exhibition rooms were a reminder that these were samurai residences. Yet the rooms and wooden verandas facing the gardens were also clearly parts of a home. Formal rank and everyday life occupied the same building. Going inside let me see both.

During my walk I also met the Akita dog belonging to Enishi, a local homestay. It was stretched out on the wooden floor, resting its chin. After so much looking up at gates and carved panels, this thoroughly relaxed dog brought my gaze back down. Among the historic buildings, it was simply getting on with its day. Kakunodate felt a little more familiar after that.

The history of Akita dogs also has a connection with the samurai. In Odate, an account survives of the Satake clan encouraging dog fighting during the Edo period to foster the fighting spirit of its retainers. Hunting dogs and local Odate dogs were among the stock from which larger, stronger dogs were sought; later came efforts to preserve the breed. Their appearance today carries traces of those changing expectations. It was interesting to think of the armour I had seen and the dog with its chin on the floor as parts of the same regional history. Looking at that resting dog, the fighting past was hard to picture.

For lunch at Sakuranosato, I had Hinai-jidori oyakodon, local chicken and egg over rice, with Inaniwa udon, Akita’s fine wheat noodles. I ate, then returned to the streets and gardens, pausing at the corner of a veranda to look out at the leaves. At first I had noticed the length of the black fences. By the time I left, I could imagine some of the rooms and gardens behind them.

Lake Tazawa: the stories beside the water

From Kakunodate I drove to Lake Tazawa. Beyond the torii, the shrine gateway at Gozanoishi Shrine, lay open water and mountains on the far shore. After the tree-lined streets, both the lake and the sky felt particularly wide. The blue changed between the water nearby and the distant slopes.

An Akita dog was standing in front of the gateway with the lake behind it. Its pale coat and face fitted neatly between the vermilion pillars. Lake Tazawa was beautiful enough on its own; adding the dog almost seemed unfair. My delight at seeing them together came before any attempt to describe the view.

The name Gozanoishi is said to come from a visit in 1650, when Satake Yoshitaka, lord of Akita, sat here to rest. To me it was a lovely place beside a lake. Yet someone’s pause here had remained in its name for centuries. Knowing that gave me another reason to stop somewhere I might otherwise have passed through.

The shrine honours Tatsuko, the young woman in the lake’s legend. Seeking everlasting beauty, she is said to have drunk from a spring, become a dragon and taken up residence in Lake Tazawa. The statue in the shrine grounds had a serpent-like lower body. It was not the form I had pictured from the phrase ‘beautiful princess’, and made the story feel stranger.

With that legend in mind, the gateway facing the lake and the shrine among the trees no longer seemed simply part of an attractive composition. People had given this water stories and prayers, as well as looking at it. I had stopped for the blue of the lake; what stayed with me was how closely the scenery and belief were still connected.

When I stepped beneath a lakeside roof, the water beyond the pillars looked brighter. Instead of an uninterrupted panorama, there was a framed patch of blue. A slight change of position was enough to make me want to keep looking.

Tsurunoyu: staying as evening falls

I left Lake Tazawa for Tsurunoyu in the Nyuto Onsen hot-spring area. Beyond the entrance stood low roofs, with green mountain slopes behind them. Looking at the thatch and wooden walls, I felt I had finally arrived. This was an inn I had wanted to visit for some time.

Local accounts tell of feudal lords visiting Tsurunoyu during the Edo period for toji: extended stays centred on bathing in hot springs for health. Records of the inn welcoming ordinary guests go back to the Genroku era, from the late seventeenth to early eighteenth century. Its name, meaning ‘crane’s hot spring’, comes from a legend about a hunter finding a crane tending its wounds in the water. Finding a spring, returning to it and making somewhere to stay: the present inn follows a long history of those simple acts.

I stayed in the Shin-Honjin building. Daylight came through the corridor windows and reflected on the wooden floor. Even the walk to a doorway offered something worth stopping to look at. I had come for the baths, but moving around the buildings became part of the pleasure of being here.

In the bathhouse, dark wood surrounded the milky water. There were places the window light reached and places it did not, giving even the same bath subtly different shades of white. I had associated Tsurunoyu with its pale water; seeing it here, I realised how much the surrounding timber and light contributed to the view.

Four sources with different mineral compositions rise within a small area around the inn. It is not merely a collection of baths: different waters emerge from the ground beneath them. Outside, water ran between the buildings and plants grew down to its banks. The accommodation felt closely fitted to a place where hot water, streams and trees were already present. I liked that closeness.

Dinner brought fish and an array of small dishes. The day’s journey from Kakunodate to Lake Tazawa and into the mountains came to a pause here. There was no further destination to reach that evening. I could stay and watch night arrive at the inn, which was something I had been looking forward to.

As the surrounding trees darkened, the outdoor bath seemed a paler blue-white. Lamps came on beneath the eaves, picking out windows and doorways I had barely noticed in daylight. The lighting did not reach everywhere. Between the buildings, some of the mountain darkness remained.

The corridor lights cast long reflections on the floor. It was the same passage I had walked through while looking at the green outside, but it felt different at night. Alongside the pleasure of reaching a hot spring I had wanted to visit was the quieter pleasure of seeing the inn change through the evening. I was glad I had stayed overnight rather than leaving after a bath.

Hachimantai: partway through the thaw

After breakfast the next morning, I left Tsurunoyu. On the way to Hachimantai I stopped beside water surrounded by trees. Beyond the reflections of the far bank lay a band of blue-green. It was quite different from the open blue of Lake Tazawa the day before. Moving from town to lake and then into the mountains, I was beginning to notice how much the colour of water could vary.

My destination in Hachimantai was Kagami-numa, the crater pond known for its ‘Dragon Eye’ during the thaw. As the snow melts, a ring of blue water can form around a white centre, making the pond resemble an eye. It is a view shaped as much by the progress of the thaw as by the pond itself.

But when I reached Kagami-numa, much of it was still covered in snow. I could make out a circular line on the surface, but not the blue ring I had pictured. Between the trees on the far bank and the overcast sky lay a broad white pond.

‘That happens. I’ll come back another time.’

That was how I felt. I had come for a particular view, but arriving did not guarantee that it would be waiting for me. I had concentrated on the completed shape in photographs. Before and after that moment, though, the snow keeps melting little by little. I had arrived partway through.

A sign at the prefectural boundary confirmed that I was crossing from Akita into Iwate. There were green slopes nearby and layers of mountains fading blue into the distance. Down in town I had looked up at early-summer leaves; up here I was looking at snow. It was striking to encounter both on the same journey. I left Kagami-numa’s blue ring as a reason to return and drove down towards Morioka.

Morioka: a red-brick bank and a horse procession

In Morioka, the Bank of Iwate Red Brick Building stood out on its street corner: red walls, white trim and a distinctive roofline. Traffic and pedestrians passed an old bank still standing in the middle of the city. After the mountain inn, even the atmosphere around the buildings felt different.

Completed in 1911 as the headquarters of Morioka Bank, it was designed by the Tatsuno-Kasai Architectural Design Office, also known for Tokyo Station. It later passed to Iwate Shokusan Bank and served as the head office and then a branch of the Bank of Iwate. Banking continued here until 2012.

Had it been simply a historic Western-style building, I might have admired the façade and moved on. Thinking of people coming here quite recently to deposit money or discuss their business brought it closer to the life of the city. A building surviving and a building remaining in use are slightly different things.

Inside, an ornamented ceiling and hanging lights spanned a tall, open hall. From upstairs I could take in the broad floor and the balustrade around it. The heavy brick exterior had not prepared me for so much open space. That surprise made going inside worthwhile.

I also saw the Chagu Chagu Umakko horse procession in Morioka that day. Horses wore brightly coloured trappings, with people walking beside them. They passed along ordinary city streets lined with signs and overhead wires. What struck me first was that this was happening in the present-day city, rather than on a separate stage.

Chagu Chagu Umakko is held on the second Saturday of June. Decorated farm horses parade from Onikoshi Sozen Shrine in Takizawa to Morioka Hachimangu Shrine. ‘Chagu chagu’ evokes the sound of their bells as they walk.

The custom is said to have begun with people taking horses to worship after their work preparing the fields, giving them a rest and praying for their health. The elaborate trappings also draw on those used to decorate packhorses. Beneath the colourful procession is gratitude towards animals that worked alongside people.

Learning that shifted my attention from the decorations towards the relationship between the horses and the people leading them. They walked so close together. This was not an exhibition explaining how people once lived, but a custom still being carried on with the animals themselves. Both the bank and the procession made the past feel connected to the city around me.

In Morioka I ate wanko soba at Azumaya’s main shop: buckwheat noodles served in repeated small bowlfuls. Afterwards I drove to Kitakami, returned the hire car and stayed at Green Hotel Kitakami. The following day I continued by car to Matsushima.

Matsushima: islands and a temple town

Matsushima lies on the Miyagi coast, north-east of Sendai. Alongside Amanohashidate and Miyajima, it is traditionally counted among Japan’s three celebrated scenic views. Yet the town is more than its seascape. On land, temples cluster around Zuiganji, closely associated with the Date clan; offshore, islands overlap across the bay. The temple town and the sea are only a short walk apart.

I could see the islands from my room at Komatsukan Kofutei. Some were just beyond the window, others further out, dividing the blue water into separate stretches. Unlike a view towards a distant, uninterrupted horizon, it drew my eyes gradually from the nearest island to those beyond.

I drank tea and watched those layers. There was no need to go out in search of a view: time at the inn was also time spent looking at Matsushima. I enjoyed being able to remain with one scene, as well as visiting particular places.

The islands are thought to have formed as parts of an earlier hilly landscape became submerged through changes including subsidence and rising sea levels. What looked like rocks placed in the sea were remnants of that land. Knowing this made me think about the stretches of water between the islands too, and the contours continuing unseen beneath them.

I left the inn and walked to Godaido Hall. Crossing its vermilion Sukashi Bridge, I could see the sea through gaps in the decking. The water I had been looking at from a distance was now beneath my feet. It took only a small bridge to give me a clear sense of stepping onto an island.

The present hall was rebuilt by Date Masamune in 1604. It takes its name from the Five Great Wisdom Kings, Buddhist deities enshrined inside. The little hall on the island was part of the wider religious history of the town. People had been looking at this landscape, praying here and caring for its buildings for a long time.

The timber of the hall had a subdued colour, with layers of carving beneath the eaves. Beside it was the blue sea. I could look up at the building, turn slightly and see the islands again. Looking at history and looking out over the water happened together here, quite naturally.

From the shore I watched boats pass between the islands. Their outlines overlapped differently from how they had looked from my room. I was glad to have seen the view for myself, beyond simply knowing that it was famous.

Dinner at Rokumonsen, morning in Matsushima

Towards evening, light caught the exposed rock beneath the trees on the islands, and the water changed colour. Matsushima was not a view I could finish with after looking once from a single spot. As I walked, or simply as time passed, I kept wanting to look again.

For dinner I went to Rokumonsen and ate sashimi indoors, at a place with tatami seating and wooden tables. My stay at Komatsukan included breakfast, so I had chosen to eat in town that evening.

When I stepped outside afterwards, the entrance was lit and there was still some blue in the sky. After a day of walking and looking at the scenery, I had sat down for a meal inside a local restaurant. That evening was another part of my time in Matsushima, away from gazing out over the sea.

The next morning I had breakfast, then looked out at the sea again. Even after seeing them so often the previous day, I was still pleased to find the islands beyond the window. I remember more than a view taken from one particular spot: there was the scene over tea in the room, the water under the bridge, and the islands when I looked again in the morning.

Through the pine branches, I could see a red bridge.

Where I stayed

Places I would recommend

The hire car

I collected the car from Toyota Rent a Car’s Akita Airport shop, travelled via Kakunodate, Lake Tazawa, Tsurunoyu, Hachimantai and Morioka, and returned it at the Kitakami Station Shinkansen East Exit shop. I booked through Rakuten Travel.