The hamlet of Shiraya was declared unsafe to live in during the construction of the Otaki Dam and residents had to relocate, so now there is nobody living here. However, rather than just letting this beautiful space go to waste, a small open-roofed area with a public restroom was constructed so that people could still come here to enjoy the view. Projects like this can be done at a very low cost and are a great model for other areas around the world to allow for community members to gather and make use of beautiful nature and public space. Who needs a TV when you have a great view like this?
Small roads still wind through the grass of where houses used to be. Occasionally you’ll find the remnants of tiled bathroom floors and the outlines of house foundations.
“Making scenery for the future” is an interesting way to phrase the removal of a hamlet and force a relocation, however the attempt to preserve this as a place that people can continue to appreciate is indeed a great model to follow.
Shiraya is a great place for night photography and if you set your camera on a long exposure you can easily photograph the the outer arms of the Milkway Galaxy.
The suspension bridges leading up to the hamlet are also a subject frequently photographed by visiting photographers.
This hamlet is the home of Kawakami’s only active junior high school. It is here that Kawakami’s taiko team, Ryugen, practices every week.
Hitoji is also where you will find Kawakami’s newly-constructed sharehouse. The sharehouse is ideal for people on Kawakami’s working internship program or those who are transitioning into longer-term housing that is being repaired. For rates and to inquire more about the sharehouse, click here.
It is worth venturing to the top of this hamlet Ido Junisha Shrine (十二社神社). The shrine lies within a cedar forest and the quiet that you will find there offers a peaceful space to meditate and escape the stress of daily life.
Through the cedar trees you can see Rt. 169 winding through the mountains below.
This is one of Kawakami’s most remote hamlets, and making a visit out here it makes one wonder what motivated its first settlers to come out this far away from the Yoshino River. The scenery here is stunning and there is much to enjoy in this area.
At the foot of the hamlet is a complex known as 井光の里. Because the Yoshino river is blocked by dams and the ecosystems of fish have been disrupted, it is up to humans to raise fish and release them in the river.
One of the main fisheries of the village is located here. The staff are kind and will be glad to show you how the fish are raised. There are small pools here where children can go fishing and BBQs on site that can be rented with a small admission fee.
Beyond Ikari no Sato 井光の里 if you continue along the road you will eventually find a trailhead to one of Kawakami’s most pristine waterfalls, Mifune no Taki 御船の滝.
The waterfall can be accessed in just a few hundred meters. The path up to it is lined by an old wooden pathway. It is beautiful and the moss adds to the magic of the atmosphere here but be careful because many of the boards are rotted out.
With its easy access and relatively short hiking time, the waterfall is a major attraction in winter months when it often becomes completely frozen.
It is a very peaceful experience walking through this quiet hillside hamlet as the wind silently bows through tufts of pampas grass and young hair. Stone pathways wind up the hill and lead you to one of the most beautiful shrines in the entire village, the Takigi 十二社神社.
There used to be a giant triple cedar tree here known as the “sanbonsugi” 三本杉. People used to make pilgrimages to these trees to be in the presence of their power, however it was recently felled.
The biggest hamlet is the Shirakwado Campground. There is a wide area for public camping here with amenities and a small cafe with soft serve ice cream on site. There are also BBQ’s and a pizza oven on site. The Yoshino river is walking distance away.
Take a walk around this hamlet and you’ll be sure to meet many smiling faces. One element of this hamlet that stands out is the bright orange pension that can be seen from 169. According to locals it is owned by someone from Osaka and is never used. Buying up property and painting it wild colors that the locals are not fond of and never making use of smacks of gentrification that you wouldn’t think you’d find in the countryside, but it happens everywhere. Collaboration and gained approval of local communities is the only respectful way to conduct business in places where you aren’t living.
This was once Kawakami’s most remote hamlet, but now it is uninhabited. The road to this hamlet was treacherous and access back to Rt. 169 was frequently blocked by fallen trees and boulders from landslides. In the early 1990’s, the remaining residents packed up and moved away, many of them resettling in the housing units of 瀬戸団地、which were built specifically for this relocation.
Now this hamlet is quiet and is slowly returning to nature.
Go further down the same road as Setodanchi and Sogio and the the entrance to Nakaoku will be on your left. As is true for Setodanchi and Sogio, the Nakaoku tributary that this road runs along offers some of the best fishing and swimming holes in the village.
Nakaoku proper is high up on a hill and is a hamlet that is reminiscent of a small mountain hamlets of the Annapurna region of Nepal. There are many farmers here and that live here and are undeterred by the inconveniences of living further out in the countryside are clearly a special type of people that love living where the air is more rarified and put a high priority on purity and living close to nature. Take a walk around this hamlet and you’ll be sure to strike up interesting conversations with the locals.
Sogio split into two main sections: one alongside the Nakaoku tributary and one small hamlet higher up on a hill. The Junisha shrine beside the river before the road forks appears to be one of the oldest shrines in Kawakami.
Many shrines in the village and throughout Japan had makeovers in the 80’s, but the giveaway that these shrines are a part of much deeper and far-reaching spiritual traditions is the ancient trees that usually accompany the rebuilt shrines. The trees usually predate the the shrines by centuries, and in many cases very well could be replacements for trees that came before them.
As with Setodanchi and Nakaoku, the tributary that the road leading to Sogio follows hosts some of the best swimming holes and fishing spots in the village.
Sogio is also home to one of the villages top cedar barrel makers, Harumashi-san.
Harumashi-san is featured in the Yoshino Ringyo documentary that is set to be released in 2020. If you jog past his shop or are fortunate enough to have him invite you in to show you the drying room of his cedar barrel slats, you will be able to smell one of the most angelic fragrances on this planet. The smell itself is an unforgettable experience.
In addition to providing lumber for the construction of Osaka Castle, it was this type of barrel used to store sake that put Kawakami and Yoshino Ringyo on the map. The straight and knotless timber of Yoshino has been the perfect material for creating sake barrels for roughly 500 years. When sake sits in the barrels, it absorbs the taste and fragrances of the cedar and is referred to specifically as 樽酒 Taruzaké (Barrell saké) . It isn’t common outside of Japan, but it can be found in major US cities like New York and Los Angeles if you look hard enough.
An interesting factoid: the Japanese expression くだらない (kudaranai)、literally meaning “it does not go down” but colloquially meaning “trivial,” “insignificant,” or “worthless” was popularized hundreds of years ago from this Yoshino cedar barrel industry. Sake that was shipped to nearby Kobé or Osaka was not as good as the exact same saké that was “sent down” to Edo (modern-day Tokyo). Why? The sake sent to Edo had more time to slosh around in the fragrant cedar barrels on the bumpy journey.
You don’t need a time machine to taste this amazing product. There are famous sake brewers in the next-door down of Yoshino, and you can even pick up a bottle in the gift shop of Kawakami’s Suginoyu Hotel. This is certainly a must-try.
If you’re need a place to stay in Kawakami, there is a fantastic Airbnb known as Hanare that is maintained by a local family. The couple that manages this inn can pick you up from the nearest station and will provide local home-grown food for you and everything else you need to enjoy a perfect stay in this rustic village.
Located on the east side of the Yoshino river along a small tributary, this hamlet was constructed to relocate residents formerly living further down this same road in 瀬戸, which is now uninhabited. The road was far away and prone to landslides and it is said that they preferred to live closer to civilization without the worry of their road being cut off by fallen trees and boulders.
The name of the tributary that this road runs along is the Nakaoku river. The further you go up this road, the purer the water becomes. Some of the best places to swim and fish are here and on weekends in the warmer months you’ll find dozens of people from Osaka and other cities hanging out along the river here. If you decide to join their ranks, please clean up any mess that you create and take your trash home with you so that others can enjoy this purity as well.
This is a fantastic road to jog along. Between here and Sogio right along the road you will see some of the oldest trees in the village–many well over 200 years old. This is an example of a swath of what a plantation cedar forest should look like: well-kept and evenly spaced trees so that undergrowth can form to support a diverse ecosystem. These trees are beautiful and are frequently photographed by professional photographers visiting the village.
