Japan (Lonely Planet, 11th Edition) - Chris Rowthorn [375]
Ferries from Busan depart from the Busan Port International Passenger Terminal, five- to 10-minutes’ walk from Jungang-dong subway station on subway line 1. They follow the same time schedule, leaving Busan at 8pm and arriving in Shimonoseki at 8am. One-way/return fares start at 85,000/161,500 won.
Orient Ferry Ltd (www.orientferry.co.jp, in Japanese; in Shimonoseki 32-6615, in Qingdao 0532-8387-1160) runs between Shimonoseki and Qingdao, China (28 hours to Qingdao, considerably longer coming the other way). The cheapest one-way/return tickets are ¥15,000/27,000 from Shimonoseki (leaving noon Wednesday and Saturday, arriving at 4pm the following day), and 1100/1980 yuan from Qingdao, departing from the port ferry terminal north of Qingdao Station at 8pm on Monday and Thursday (arriving in Shimonoseki at 9.30am two days later).
The Shanghai Shimonoseki Ferry Company (; in Shimonoseki 32-9677, in Taicang 512-53-186686; www.ssferry.co.jp, in Japanese) sails once a week to Taicang in Suzhou, near Shanghai. Second-class fares start at ¥15,000 one way. The ferry departs Shimonoseki at 5pm on Sunday (arriving in Taicang at 8am on Tuesday), and from Taicang at 8pm on Tuesday (arrives in Shimonoseki at 8.30am on Thursday).
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TAWARAYAMA ONSEN
0837
Nestled in the mountains, Tawarayama Onsen is a small village that has escaped developers and maintained its reputation as a favoured hidden spa for tōji (curative bathing). It’s serious about its purpose: there are no karaoke bars, no neon – and almost no restaurants. Bathers come here for their health, usually staying from four days to a week in the 40-odd ryokan. This onsen is so old-style that none of the ryokan has its own bath. Instead, guests go out to bathe in the two public baths: Machi-no-yu (; 29-0001; admission ¥390; 6am-10.30pm) and the newer Hakuen-no-yu (; 29-0036; admission ¥700; 7am-9pm). The latter has one of the only eateries in town – Ryōfūtei (; 29-0001; 11am-8.30pm), serving simple meals like beef curry for ¥950. There’s a photo menu.
If you’re looking for a place to stay while in town, popular Izumiya (; 29-0231; fax 29-0232; http://member.hot-cha.tv/~htc02178/, in Japanese; per person with meals from ¥8925; ) is a well-maintained old inn with wooden floors and original fittings as well as an impressive garden. The friendly managers can pick up guests at Nagato-Yumoto station.
A short walk west of the onsen village is the Mara Kannon () fertility temple, which dates back to the civil war period. When the powerful local daimyō, Ōuchi Yoshitaka, was overthrown by his vassal Sue Harukata in 1551, and forced to perform ritual disembowelment, his sons took to the hills in fear for their own lives. Disguised as a woman, the youngest made it as far as Tawarayama before he was hunted down and killed near this spot in the spring of 1552. To add insult to injury, his assassins emasculated their victim and carried his severed penis back to their lord as proof that they had got their man. Local villagers built the shrine to appease the dead man’s spirit. Today, the small wooden temple and its lingam-strewn grounds are popular with couples trying to conceive.
Take a local train on the JR Mine line from Asa to the south or Nagato to the north to Nagato-Yumoto. From here, there is one bus an hour to Tawarayama Onsen (¥510, 25 minutes). There’s also a direct bus from Shimonoseki (¥1610, one hour and 45 minutes, nine per day).
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HAGI
0838 / pop 56,000
Hagi is an attractive city with a well-preserved old samurai quarter. The ceramics made here are among the finest in Japan. During the feudal period, Hagi was the castle town of the Chōshū domain, which, together with Satsuma (corresponding to modern Kagoshima in southern Kyūshū), was instrumental in defeating the Tokugawa government and ushering in a new age after the Meiji Restoration.
Orientation & Information
Western and central Hagi are effectively an island created by the two rivers Hashimoto-gawa and Matsumoto-gawa;