The final day of our recent trip to Oita prefecture in Kyushu, I got the chance to go and experience what I have come to really love in Japan – nature, culture, religion blended in beauty and harmony. The history of buddhism and shintoism in this particular corner of Japan is so interesting, I had been reading about it for some time, and maybe I will make an effort to summarize and write about it in another post. While reading about Oita, there was an old mountain temple on the Kunisaki peninsula that I came across, and I really wanted to go there. The rain from the Typhoon a few weeks ago however had destroyed some of the roads so we had to turn around halfway up the mountain and find alternate routes to reach the temple. It was all worth it though, as we arrived to a cloudy humid and wonderfully magical piece of Japan, 両子寺, Futagoji.
We started by exploring together but as our son got hungry, my wife and son had a picnic lunch while I to the chance to explore the grounds. I got to talk to some pilgrims and the priest who told me about the place, about the mountain and about life at the temple. There were very few tourists and slowly walking around, feeling, seeing, climbing the old stone steps to reach the upper temple protected, hidden under a big rock of the mountain with a cave behind it – it was like entering another world. The gratitude with which the pilgrims visit sacred sites was so easy to feel here. And if my wife and son were not waiting for me, I would have sat down for a long time, just feeling grateful for being here.
Before starting the long drive home, we wanted to take one last hot spring bath. The Beppu-area that we drove through is famous for its hot springs, and my wife found a seemingly isolated small onsen that peaked our curiosity. An elderly couple welcomed us outside their home and told us about their hot spring establishment. The man seems to have created the baths all by himself and after having given us bags to put our towels in, the couple showed us where to go.
To our surprise we descended a steep dirt path surrounded by bamboo and several hundreds meter later arrived at the onsen, hidden deep in a ravine, surrounded by forest and next to a little stream. There were several small open air baths, foot bath, mud bath, very warm baths, a bath that suited our son, and to top it off I could take a shower standing in a little waterfall in the middle of the stream. Anyone visiting us in Japan, I would like to take them there – words cannot describe the place. I would have liked to stay for hours here too, but as it was getting late and the rain started to fall, we decided it was best to return home.
We arrived home quite late, full of memories and when I went to bed that night I could still feel the the sensation of lying in a white onsen bath in the middle of the dark foggy forest.
Share this story: