Southern Kyushu: Takachiho, Miyazaki
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August 30, 2015 - Southern Kyushu: Takachiho, Miyazaki
I visited the prefectures of Kagoshima, Kumamoto, and Miyazaki in a week-long vacation to Southern Kyushu. After spending the afternoon in Kumamoto visiting the castle, we continued driving east to Takachiho, Miyazaki.
Takachiho is famous for the legend of Amaterasu, the goddess of the sun, hiding herself in a cave because of the cruel pranks of her younger brother, and denying her light to the world.
The other gods and goddesses had a meeting to decide what to do to lure her out, but despite multiple attempts, Amaterasu wouldn't budge. It finally took the lewd dance of one goddess and the laughter of the rest of the lot to get her to peak her head out of the cave, whereby one of the gods threw the stone in front of her cave to Nagano and light was finally returned to the world.
Takachiho hosts both the cave Amaterasu hid in, and the cave the other gods and goddesses had a meeting in to decide what to do. We timed our arrival into town in order to check into our business hotel, eat dinner at a wonderful sushi place down the street, then head to Takachiho Shrine to see the nightly dances called Kagura, which depict the story.
There are 33 total dances, and each night about 4 are performed. I don't know if they perform the most popular parts of the story every night, or if they rotate through the entire set, but an explanation of each dance is handed out to the audience. We got to see the dance where the goddess Ameno-uzume performed her dance that made all the others laugh, drawing Amaterasu out of her cave, as well as Tajikarao taking the stone blocking the cave and throwing it to Nagano. We also saw Goshintai, when Izanagi and Izanami, the creator god and goddess of Japan, discovered sake and created Japan in their drunkenness.
The next morning, we went to Takachiho Gorge to rent a rowboat and see the waterfall.
I suggest going early and brushing up on how to row before you go, because it was a huge mess with lots of boats and no one knowing how to row. My husband was pretty bad at it... we finally switched and I rowed toward the end!
The boat is for 30 minutes, just enough time to figure out how to row the thing, see the waterfall, and head back. Then we walked along the gorge after a fruit smoothie to take a few more pictures.
It's a pretty short path, so we then headed back to Takachiho Shrine to see it in the daylight.
And then from there to Amano Iwato Shrine to view the cave.
So this shrine is interesting because it doesn't have a honden, the main area of the shrine where the sacred objects relating to the god or goddess enshrined are kept. For this shrine, the cave in which Amaterasu hid herself IS the honden.
If you ask, you can get a tour of the shrine and complex by a priest, and be led to the viewing platform where you can catch a sort-of glimpse of the cave where Amaterasu hid. You are blessed by the priest before entering the area, and pictures are strictly NOT ALLOWED! There is a short information sheet in English you are given at the start of the tour, but unless you've got a Japanese speaker with you it probably wont make much sense.
From there, you can walk down to visit the cave where the gods and goddesses met to discuss strategy.
My husband said it was creepy here, but I thought it was neat.
Takachiho took up the morning, but I expected to stay there longer than we did. After a snack we drove all the way back south to the Nichinan coast and Kitago Onsen, where we stayed the night and met a friend for dinner.
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