Yanagawa, Town of water, Fukuoka

Tags

Fukuoka, Japan, photography, travel, Yanagawa

Yanagawa is a famous for their 470km of wide canals of town, located Fukuoka prefecture in Kyusyu of West Japan. I love the short novel “Haishi”(on obsolete and dead town) by Takehiko Fukunaga and its movie by Nobuhiko Obayashi director. The story is love triangle tragedy (correctly 3 women and one man love) located in the old town. The canals and boat is a romantic and nostalgic effects in the film. They didn’t say clearly its town was Yanagawa, but the reader or audience could notice it was Yanagawa by the picture of canal. In 17 century, Lord Yoshimasa Tanaka constructed the town and canal, after that people in this town usually used riverboats, now tourists can enjoy ride in a boat, called “donkobune”, like Venice. Meiji period famous poet Hakusyu Kitahara was born in Yanagawa, now there is his house as his memorial hall.

We can meet a wild duck in the canal.

Soda pop

Yanagawa’s donkobune (riverboat)

Willow and stone wall

Wedding at canal (from the Ohana’s poster)

Classical fishing trap

Yanagawa’s canal

Restaurant of boiled eel. Yanagawa is famous of eel.

Yanagawa’s traditional decoration for girl

Yoshimasa Tanaka, the first lord of Yanagawa

In this canal, the ship with engine is prohibited.

Japanese iris in the boat

hydrangea

Yanagawa’s canal

We can ride a ship and tour the canal.

Yanagawa’s canal

Yanagawa’s canal

Yanagawa’s wedding at riverboat (from the poster)

Ohana is the hotel of ex-lord Western and Classic Japanese style residence in Yanagawa.

Tortoise basks in the sun.

bridge of Yanagawa. We pass through under the bridge by the riverboat.

There are many willow trees at the riverside. Yanagawa means willow river.

Passing through the bridge by the boat. We can find the base was stone.

Pattern o the parapet of the bridge of Yanagawa

Japanese iris

Old house in Yanagawa

Kurume kasuri (Kurume’s traditional splashed pattern textile)

hydrangea

My ship’s boatman (he also guides). Most of boatmen are over 60 years old, now. He said the youngest is a high school student.

Children fish at the canal.

Yanagawa’s canal

There are many bridges on the canal. Some are too low that the boatman had to bend in the boat.