Kakunodate Samurai District 🇯🇵 Staying at a Farm House 🌾| Akita Prefecture

Rural Japan is breathtaking and I dare you to see for yourself. 🌄

The first leg of this 3-day, 2-night Akita adventure includes a farmstay experience and a visit to Kakunodate Samurai District in Semboku City, where the samurai and their families used to live back in the Edo period.

I hope this video will influence you to explore Japan’s countryside.

Watch out for the second leg of this trip!

#Japan #ruraljapan #countryside #tohokujapan #akita #semboku #kakunodate #samuraidistrict #bukeyashiki #farmstay
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MUSIC:
Intrusive by Beats
Paths of a Samurai by Mandala Dreams
Inside Out by Torii Wolf
Drops of Golden Sun by Yi Nantiro
via EPIDEMIC SOUND

Serene. Slow-paced. Breath-taking scenic views… and fresh air. This is the road less-traveled. This is Japan’s countryside. Done with the usual Tokyo-Osaka-Kyoto itinerary? Then maybe, today I can encourage you to visit… Akita. Akita is a mountainous and largely rural prefecture in Tōhoku Region. It’s a farm prefecture that takes pride in producing Akita Komachi,

A high-quality Japanese rice. It’s also known for sake brewing, secluded hot springs, and Akita Inu dogs which are said to have originated from Odate. We’ve just arrived in Semboku City, our final destination. And our journey starts here at Tazawako Station. From Hirosaki, we took the Hayabusa until Morioka Station

And hopped into the Komachi Shinkansen which then brought us here. The Tourist Information Center is inside the station, while you will find the local bus station just outside. There are no more trains at this point but the buses here service eight routes and will surely get you around the area.

If you’re not sure on which bus to take, you can always get help from the Tourist Information Center. By the way, the buses here run only until 5PM-ish so avoid arriving late if you can. For this 3-day, 2 night trip, we are doing a farmstay. A farmstay is like a homestay

Where you stay with a local family. But here, you live in a farmhouse and get to participate in various social and agricultural activities offered by your host. We were warmly greeted by Hatsumi-san, the daughter of our host who’s an elderly lady we call ‘Okaasan’, which means mother in Japanese.

She brought us to our room which is a spacious tatami room at the second floor. It’s cold and windy here typical of Akita which can be brutally cold during winter. My lips are drying and chapping but I’m more mindful of how the air smells here like the air inside a forest,

With a very fresh scent. Semboku is 80% woodland, and tall cedar tress like these are a usual sight. If you do a 360 (degree) turn from this point, you will see rice paddies all around, a couple of greenhouses, tall piles of chopped woods, and various farming tractors and equipment.

We’re back at the farmhouse and we’re inside the tatami room dining area at the first floor. Dinner was more than what I had expected. It’s a traditional Japanese dinner set, more like a ‘gozen’, which is a multi-course Japanese meal served in a single tray or served at once.

It also comes with a shot of sake. For a full-packed day, this meal is just perfect. After dinner we finally had the chance to meet Okaasan who was still busy at the kitchen. The long day was capped off with some hot bath, donning our yukatas and sinking ourselves

In this soft and fluffy futon… Kakunodate is a 15 to 20-minute ride from Tazawako Station, either via the Komachi (shinkansen) which runs every hour, or the Tazawako Line (local train) which runs every four hours. This historical Japanese town was once a castle town during the Edo period.

It was divided into two areas – the samurai district in the north and the merchant / townspeople district in the south. Although the Kakunodate castle, which was also located in the north has long been demolished, the samurai district which was once home to 80 samurai families, has remained the same

For more than 400 years. This is Bukeyashiki-dori the heart of the samurai district. Here, you can find six samurai residences, called ‘bukeyashiki’ in Japanese, that are open to the public. The (1) Ishiguro and (2) Aoyagi Samurai Houses that belong to wealthy samurai families; and the (3) Odano, (4) Matsumoto, (5) Iwahashi,

And (6) Kawarada Samurai Houses which belong to middle-class samurai families. Aoyagi is an impressively large residence that has been converted to a museum and is now called ‘Aoyagi Samurai Manor Museum’. The Aoyagi clan served as vassals to the Ashina and Satake-Kita Families who used to rule Kakunodate. Apart from the thatch-roofed main house,

Which is one of the best preserved samurai houses in Japan, there are six galleries here that showcase the family’s collection of armory, tools, utensils, toys, clothing, photos, documents, and a lot of other things they used back in the days. One of the interesting things I learned about samurais is that during peaceful times,

When there’s no war and there’s no need to defend and fight, they would take up other professions such as being scholars, doctors, teachers, and many others. While low-class samurais would also turn to other sources of income. Aoyagi offers free and paid experiences such as samurai sword holding, kimono rental, samurai costume wearing

Traditional artwork demonstration, and many more. It also has a gift shop and a teahouse inside, and boasts a huge garden with a pond and a small shrine. They’re open from 9AM to 5PM and entrance fee is JPY500 for adults or JPY200 for children. This area is close to where the castle once stood.

And I learned that samurai homes are strategically located near the castles, as they serve as another layer of defense. And don’t you know that the size of a samurai’s home and its proximity to the castle depends on the samurai’s rank? A gate symbolizes the social prestige of the samurai family.

Aoyagi’s wide and ornate Yakui Mon type of gate is the grandest among all the gates found in this street. It was a reward from the feudal lord of Kakunodate who gave permission to the family back in the year 1860 to build such gate because of their many contributions to the domain.

Also, I learned that homes of the samurais are the only ones allowed to have gates and fences which explains why other houses in Kakunodate don’t have these features. One of Kakunodate’s charms are these weeping sakura trees whose pinkish petals look gorgeous against the black fences of the samurai residences.

Apart from the bukeyashiki and museums, there are cafes, restaurants, gift shops, and specialty shops along the street that sell local delicacies and handicrafts. You can also find gachapon almost everywhere, mostly containing Akita Inu figurines. And speaking of Akita Inu, there’s one more thing you might want to do while you’re here in Kakunodate.

We’re here at Enishi, a 3-minute walk from Aoyagi House. Enishi is a guesthouse that also offers something irresistable to pet lovers. Here, you will meet the  beautiful Akita Inu couple – – the male dog Suchan and the female dog Fujiko. They are the beloved pets of the guesthouse owner

And for JPY300 per person, she gets to share the pleasure of petting these big and fluffy dogs with travelers. We spent almost six hours here in Kakunodate and I felt like it wasn’t enough; so I suggest that you dedicate your entire day exploring this place

So you can also check out the merchant district and the castle ruins. It’s time the to head back to Kakunodate Station to catch the train that will take us to our next stop… – the DEEPEST LAKE in Japan.