A Walking Trail for Viewing Fall Foliage in Kakunodate!

Kakunodate, a place of interest famed for cherry blossoms and fall foliage, which located in Akita Prefecture’s Senboku, boasts chessboard-like streets, quaint samurai houses (bukeyashiki), tightly packed temples & shrines, and unadorned workshops & warehouses, which win the small pleasant town a reputation as the “Little Kyoto of Tohoku”.

Here is a route through Kakunodate for viewing fall foliage: set off from the neighborhood of Kakunodate Station, walk northward along Bukeyashiki Street (Bukeyashiki-dori), walk southward along Tamachi Bukeyashiki Street (Tamachi Bukeyashiki-dori), and return to Kakunodate Station.

You can set out from Kakunodate Tourist Association, one-minute walk away from JR Kakunodate Station. Here you can get free tourist brochures and information about the festivals and events, and you may also buy specialties on your return.

Kakunodate has samurai houses of all sizes, which were all the residences of samurais and celebrities living between the 18th century and the 19th century. During your viewing of the fall foliage there, you are recommended to dress in kimono that will impart a special flavor to your experience.

You can dress yourself in a kimono rented from the Tatetsu House.

When you walk northward along Bukeyashiki Street, you will be greeted with tightly packed beauties of black walls and fall leaves.

The mailboxes and the black walls on the street are a typical sight of Kakunodate and another mix of blacks and reds.

You will first visit Odano House, which is the simplest among the famous samurai houses. Although the gable board (hafu) and the fish-shaped board (gegyo) decorating the roof were no longer there after the reconstruction following the fire in Meiji 33 (1900), the fall foliage looks enchanting.

The scenery around the Odano House is characterized by giant maple trees, the tallest of which is up to 20 m. Besides, the House produced a master at Akita ranga: Odano Naotake.

The Kawarada House was the family residence of Kawarada, who was a descendant of the Ashina clan, and moved from Fukushima’s Aizu to Kakunodate with the family of Ashina. The existing building was constructed during the mid Meiji period, and the architectural style of samurai (buke) houses in the Edo period remain unchanged to this day.

The Kawarada house is characterized by a secluded courtyard, fresh green vegetation in summer and colorful foliage in fall. A stroll in the courtyard blanketed with fallen leaves might make you oblivious to the bustle of the outer world.

The Iwahashi family also served the Ashina clan and occupied a rather wide area for being high-ranking samurais. Later, The Twilight Samurai, a Jidaigeki (literally “period drama”) movie was filmed here.

Kakunodate is dotted with so many wooden houses, so fire is especially dangerous. The huge fire that occurred in Meiji 33 (1900) destroyed such renowned residences as the above mentioned Odano House. But, the Iwahashi House survived the fire for its roofs made with shingles of shakes (thick wooden boards made of cedar) and its well in the courtyard.

With chestnuts, red pines, maples and oaks planted in the courtyard, the House is highly recommended among many samurai houses for viewing of fall foliage. It is said that an oak tree there is more than 250 years old, which is very rare in Akita Prefecture.

The Aoyagi household was once a vassal of the Satake clan, the most influential family at Kakunodate; and the Aoyagi House has become the most spacious and luxury residence among the samurai houses in Kakunodate. Later, The Hidden Blade, a Jidaigeki movie was filmed here.

The Aoyagi House covers an area of 3,000 tsubo (about 10,000 square meters). About 600 varieties of plants grow in the commodious courtyard, which afford fine views in four seasons. The whole residence adopts black-painted batten fences (sasarako-bei) and fall leaves stretching out of the wall seem to say hello to passers-by.

On entry into the commodious courtyard, you will be greeted with a well, a rice storehouse and a weapon storehouse. A front entrance and a side entrance were respectively used for different ranks of visitors; the main building was the bedroom of the house owner, and no guest was received there. The whole residence is imposing.

Now the residence is established with the Kaitai Shinsho (literally New Text on Anatomy) Memorial Hall, the Akita Folk Museum (Kyoto-kan), the Samurai Tool Museum (Buke Dogu-kan), the Western Style Museum (Yofu-kan), the Museum of the Photos on the Closing Days of the Tokugawa Shogunate Regime (Bakumatsu Photo Museum) and the Period Experience House, and about 30,000 precious cultural artefacts are exhibited there.

The Aoyagi family was related to the said Odano family by marriage, and it is little wonder that there is a stone statue of Odano Naotake, an artist from the Odano family.

On the first floor of the Western Style Museum, there is a café, which offers “Nanban-cha” (actually coffee) (500 yen) brewed with “Shinmei” water that seems to be from an endless supply since several hundred years ago and various types of dessert; beside the Museum of the Photos on the Closing Days of the Tokugawa Shogunate Regime, there is the Morinoshoku Sai-kan, where you can savor Inaniwa Udon, a traditional food of Akita. You are recommended to have lunch and rest your feet here.

Among the existing samurai houses in Kakunodate, the Ishiguro House at the northernmost tip of Samurai House Street is most ancient. The fir and the weeping cherry in its courtyard are over 250 years old.

Compared with the luxurious Aoyagi House, the Ishiguro House is simpler and quainter. With the main building, doors, walls and earthen storehouses representative of the Edo period, the House built in the architectural style of the period between the 18th century and the 19th century is well preserved.

Among the samurai houses in Kakunodate, the Ishiguro House had the most distinguished pedigree. The courtyard now only has ancient trees and ancient buildings, and moss even spreads on some paved path. The plainness and quaintness of a samurai house are shown up completely and so captivating.

The Kakunodate Birch Craft Densho-kan was built to exhibit the renowned birch craft of Akita Prefecture. Any festival held at Kakunodate is surely accompanied with some events or exhibitions in the museum.

Birch craft is to glue barks of mountain cherry trees and make such fine articles as tea canisters and writing implements by experienced craftsmen. You can watch the making by the craftsmen skilled in birch craft in the museum or even try to make an article by yourself.

By the way, Kakunodate Birch Craft Densho-kan is a famous hanami spot in Kakunodate. If you visit here in spring, you can appreciate the beauty of the weeping cherry blossoms decorating the gate and the cherry blossoms in the courtyard.

The Matsumoto House differs greatly with the said samurai houses in architectural style. Matsumoto came from a scholar family, so the Matsumoto House was one for lower-ranking samurais, and was simple and crude. Like the Iwahashi House, the Matsumoto House was also a location for The Twilight Samurai, a Jidaigeki.

Featuring the thatched roof and the fence made of cedar barks, it is the sole residence adopting such architectural elements among the residences in Akita Prefecture, thus has been designated as a cultural property by Akita Prefecture.

The Nishinomiya family was the largest family of wealthy merchant and landlord in Kakunodate. From the Meiji period to the Taisho period, a library and a rice storehouse were built in the broad courtyard; now they, in together with the main building, have been reconstructed into a famous spot representing Tamachi Bukeyashiki Street.

Now many historical literatures and cultural artefacts are exhibited in the library; Japanese-style commodities are sold in the rice storehouse; the front storehouse is transform into a conference room; the northern storehouse is a café; the gakko storehouse sells local tsukemono (literally “pickled things”) and specialties, while the main building is a dining room for tourists and high-grade matcha is also sold there.

Visitors to Kakunodate will definitely take photos at the Shinchosha Memorial Museum of Literature! Its wall is inscribed with the opening passage of Snow Country (Yukiguni) by Yasunari Kawabata, the first Japanese author to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.

“The train came out of the long tunnel into the snow country. The earth lay white under the night sky. The train pulled up at a signal stop.” It is a paragraph that almost every Japanese can recite. Readers do not know who is the character, and will feel if they also enter into the snow country.

Those who have read this novel might ask why this article on Kakunodate mentions the novel that was set in Niigata Prefecture. It is because that Shincho Bunko and the author of the Snow Country became known to every family after the publication of the novel in the front page of Shincho Bunko. And Sato Giryo, the founder of Shinchosha, the publisher of Shincho Bunko, came from Kakunodate.

Founded in 1853, Audo Workshop is a workshop mainly making miso and shoyu, and its red-brick warehouse adopt fire protection design.

The store sells superb miso and shoyu made with the trade handed down in the family and various types of vegetables pickled in shoyu; and visitors can try the laudable traditional miso of Akita Prefecture for free. ♪

The best time to see the fall foliage at Kakunodate is between late October and mid-November, when Bukeyashiki Street will be lit up between 16:30 and 22:00 every day.

As far as the route in this article is concerned, the walking route between 3) Odano House and 9) Matsumoto House, romantic scene of fall foliage illuminated can be appreciated everywhere. ♡

You can follow the said walking route or view the fall foliage at Kakunodate on a rickshaw. You can take a rickshaw at 8) Kakunodate Birch Craft Densho-kan; there are three routes: 15-minute trip, 30-minute trip and 60-minute trip. One rickshaw can take up to 2 persons.