Oita 2 竹田のお店とか Explored Taketa city

Taketa is a small city with a population of 17,000, but there are many 'immigrants' who came from outside Oita, and even outside from Kyushu island. The previous city official did a good job inviting and promoting immigration to Taketa. 

Our hostel, Cue, was also one of them - owned by a non-local person, moved from Chiba.  It used to be a residence of a rich, merchant family.  The house is big with three floors, and it was renovated into a hostel by volunteers and Machiokoshi (Japan revitalization group) participants!  It has a nice atmosphere with wooden floors, doors, and windows, with a closed garden inside.  Even the dormitory rooms were spacious, with individual bed partitioned with walls.  There is a shower room in the hostel, but also are three public hot springs that you could use for a few hundred yen.  The streets were well paved and clean, with lots of relatively new shops, restaurants, and cafes. It was a good mixture of old and new.  The key person was the previous mayor to have made Taketa famous and popular among domestic immigrants.

The coworker who is about to start renovating his machiya seemed to have gotten a lot of inspiration from the whole area.

Oita 1 博多から由布院、竹田へ Hakata to Yufuin and Taketa, A grown-ups' excursion!

遊び回っている3月4月！　大分県竹田市と日田市に行ってきました！　きっかけは、コワーキングのメンバーの一人が、町家を買ってコワーキング&宿泊施設にしようと計画中で、お手本となるような建物を見たいということから。竹田にある、古民家を改装してホステルにしたところがいい感じだったよという別の人からの情報があり、じゃあ行きましょう！　あと、日田市の小鹿田焼に関する小説を読んでいて、同じ大分県なので行ってみたい、となり、大人の遠足 in 大分と相成りました！その、小鹿田焼に関する小説「リーチ先生」は、今回の旅の課題図書となりました！

博多集合で、レンタカーを借りて由布院→竹田→日田→博多へ。

ほんっとうに、何もかもが楽しかった。なにかと忙しい社会人、万障繰り合わせて旅に出られるというのは本当にありがたい。

I've been engaging in so many activities in March and April!  I visited Taketa City and Hita City in Oita Prefecture with a few of my "co-workers"!  The reason for the trip was that one of our coworking members is planning to buy an old townhouse to turn it into a coworking and lodging facility, and he wanted to see model buildings for inspiration.  Another person told us about a place in Taketa that had been renovated from an old private house and turned into a hostel that looked like a nice mix of old and new, so we decided to stay there!  He was also reading a novel about Onta-yaki pottery in Hita City, and since we will be in Oita Prefecture anyway, we wanted to go there too. It was an excursion for grown-ups in Oita!  The novel about Onta pottery, "Mr. Leech," was the assigned reading for this trip!

We took a road trip - met at Hakata, rented a car, and drove from Yufuin to Takeda to Hita, and came back to Hakata.

I really enjoyed every moment of our trip.  Since we are all busy, full-time workers, though freelancers, I am very grateful for every one and everything that made this memorable trip possible.

Welcome drinks!!

六孫王神社と昼ご飯 Rokusonno Shrine and lunch at Piccoro

南区あたりを散歩しましたーー　

ご近所めぐりも、楽しいですね。

こんな時間を過ごせる友がいるというのは、本当にありがたいことです。

Haradani Garden 原谷苑

これが個人宅の規模か？！と思うほど立派な庭園。迷路みたいに延々と続いて、しかも季節の花が所狭しと咲いている。桜は、ソメイヨシノではなくて、八重咲きの濃いピンク色の花。その他にも、つつじ、ミツマタなどなど。売店もあって、飲み物、和菓子、お弁当が売られている。ベンチや屋根付きの休憩所はそこら中にあって、晴天の中、ぽけーーーっと花を愛でるのはなににも代えがたい贅沢だった。桜の背景は、やはり青空が最高。

アクセスは、金閣寺近くのわら天神前から無料のシャトルバスが出ている。北大路バスターミナルから、M1系統のバスでも。M1系統は本数が少ないので、帰りはシャトルバスか、タクシー。南区からは一時間かかりましたが、行く価値あり！！　平日なのに結構な人だったので、土日はもっとすごいのかも。平日休みってやはりありがたいなー。

Haradani En garden is so huge and magnificent that you would wonder "Is this the size of a private garden?"  The garden is like a labyrinth, with a variety of seasonal flowers in full bloom.  The cherry blossoms are not the typical Someiyoshino but a deep pink, double-flowered variety.  There are also azaleas, mitsumata (Japanese honeysuckle), and Yukiyanagi (Thunberg's spirea), and more.  There is also a store selling drinks, Japanese sweets, and boxed lunches, which can be enjoyed on benches and covered rest areas placed throughout the garden.  It was an irreplaceable luxury to just sit back and enjoy the flowers in the clear weather.  Blue sky is the best background for cherry blossoms.

How to get there... a free shuttle bus leaves from Waratenjin-mae near Kinkakuji Temple. The M1 bus from Kitaoji bus terminal is also available, but the M1 bus is not frequent, so you want to take a shuttle bus or a cab on the way back.  It took an hour to get there from where I live, but it was worth the trip!  It was a weekday, but there were quite a lot of visitors there, and it probably is even more crowded on weekends.  I'm thankful for weekday vacations.

Rihga Royal Hotel Osaka リーガロイヤルホテル大阪

My first time to stay at this hotel!  It's gorgeous, with a lounge where free coffee and snacks are available and high class restaurants, right next to a convention center.  We went to a concert nearby, so it was very convenient to stay here.

The riverside park was very nice to walk around. It is safe at night, too!

Wakayama 3 Sandanbeki cave and cliff

I took a morning walk to the cliff near the hotel, where it faces the Pacific Ocean.  It was cloudy with a vague borderline between the sky and the sea, but the scenery was beautiful. The cliff is tall, and the water is deep.  There was a sign that says "Please call this number before you make a big decision." -- meaning that there are people who come here and throw themselves in to the sea.. 

Deep down, there is a cave on the bottom part of the cliff, which used to be a hideout of Kumano pirates in the Heian Era, about 1,000 years ago.  The elevator takes you down to the bottom and you will find passageways that the waves constantly splashes against.  It's depressing to imagine living and hiding here in this damp and dark place, planning a  next attack to ships.