Takehara
A bout 90 minutes east of Hiroshima city on the local JR Kure train line, visitors will arrive at Takehara Station. If you intend to spend some time in Hiroshima prefecture, Takehara is definitely worth a daytrip.Located along the Honkawa River, Takehara’s interesting history still shows in the excellent collection of older buildings concentrated in the eastern part of the city. In the 17th century, the locals began trying to reclaim land along the east bank of the river for farming. Although they were successful, the new land proved to be too salty for cultivation. Undaunted, the town converted the land to salt pans, and Takehara began to enjoy a prosperity far greater than would have been afforded by agriculture. Wealth from the salt industry allowed the rise of a number of famous merchant scholars, including the great Confucian historian and poet Sanyo Rai.
Today, the streets of Takehara are well known for their many fine historic merchants’ and scholars’ homes, with their tiled roofs and white walls. There are also old breweries and their wells, and several interesting museums devoted to local history and craft traditions. A little farther to the east, visitors can take a pleasant stroll among the many old Buddhist temples dotting the mountainside. At the Takeno Yakata (House of Bamboo), a bamboo ecology garden about ten minutes car ride from the Station, visitors will even find an enormous pipe organ with pipes made from sections of bamboo. Where else will you ever see that? Come on, get on the train. More Info.:
Saijo Sake Festival
Sake and Shochu
Saijo
From Hiroshima Station, visitors can take the local JR Kure-line east to Takehara Station, with a travel time of about an hour and a half. From the station, the historic sections of the city are about a fifteen minute walk. Ask station staff for directions to the Honmachi section of town.
Takehara city:http://www.city.takehara.hiroshima.jp/
