I always recommend venturing out of the city if you can. Rural Hiroshima Prefecture is a knockout, and this is a wonderful time of year. The spring foliage still shows its fresh, pale green on the hills, and the worst of the summer heat is weeks away. Most of the towns in the Hiroshima countryside […]
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Rice Planting Events in Hiroshima
May 29, 2018 by Matt ManghamVisit Miyoshi City in Hiroshima Prefecture
May 29, 2018 by Matt ManghamI’ve already tried to lure you out to Mibu’s rice fields this June. At the risk of being too insistent on the charms of the countryside, let me also suggest that it’s time for a visit to Miyoshi. Miyoshi is a wonderful little city, the largest town in Hiroshima prefecture that isn’t on the Seto Inland […]
Hiroshima’s Toukasan Festival
May 29, 2018 by Matt ManghamFor four hundred years, Hiroshima’s Toukasan festival has marked the arrival of summer for locals. Stretching over three days on the first weekend in June, the festival is officially in honor of Touka Daimyoujin, a deity enshrined at Enryu-ji, a temple one block north of Peace Boulevard on Chuo-dori. Also known simply as Toukasan, the […]
English Language Kagura Performances in Hiroshima
April 25, 2018 by Matt ManghamThere are a number of styles of dance and performance around Japan that go by the name of “kagura,” but in western Japan the word almost invariably refers to the lively, narrative performances centered on Shimane prefecture’s famous Izumo Shrine. Long popular throughout the Chugoku region (Hiroshima, Shimane, Yamaguchi, Okayama and Tottori prefectures), in recent […]
Hiroshima’s Miroku no Sato Amusement Park
April 25, 2018 by Matt ManghamTokyo has Disneyland, Osaka has Universal Studios. Hiroshima prefecture has, well, Miroku no Sato. Despite feeling somewhat like an abandoned theme park that people haven’t quite abandoned yet, Miroku no Sato (the name means Village of the Future Buddha) is a lot of fun, and a bargain to boot. It’s not the easiest place to […]
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