Visiting the Old Ito Den-emon Residence, Iizuka, Fukuoka

We made a short trip to the Old Ito Den-emon Residence (旧伊藤伝右衛門邸 kyu-ito-den-emon-tei), a traditional Japanese-style house and garden in the Northern suburbs of Iizuka city, Fukuoka prefecture. This house was initially build as his main residence in the early 1900s. At that time Den-emon was the kingmaker of coal mine in the Chikuho Region.

The entrance gate of this beautiful Japanese garden. The gate originated in his house of the Tenjin area of Fukuoka city, but was moved to its present location.

Passing the Samurai style wooden gate, the garden tour starts from here.

The main garden. It consists of three parts of the garden, the plaza around the house south of the horse-carriage turning, the inner garden surrounded by buildings, and the main garden, a stroll garden can be seen from the living room, is located in the north side of the house.

An Azuma-ya (東屋) or the Octagonal pavilion in the middle. It's the best place to rest, you can take a closer look at the big beautiful garden.

A five-story stone lantern in the main garden. It has been bought for a marriage of his second wife, Byakuren Yanagihara (柳原白蓮).

After the tour, we saw the living room of Den-emon's house. I took pictures of some household items where photos can be taken in the house. I'll show you my pictures on my next blog.

The Kaho Gekijo Theatre (嘉穂劇場), Iizuka, Fukuoka

Today, I'll talk about Kaho Gekijo, a Kabuki theater located in Iizuka City, Fukuoka prefecture. We visited there on our day trip on August 11.

The theater was first open in 1921 which was built to imitate the three-story wooden theater, Nakaza (中座) in Osaka. After that, it was once burned down in 1928, and was rebuilt in the following year. However, it was completely collapsed by typhoon of 1930. The present building was open in 1931.

The most audience at that time were workers of the coal mine and their families which was the center industry of the Chikuho Region (筑豊地域 -chiiki). It was crowded with such performances of Kabuki actors and various artists of Japanese enka popular songs. But because of the decline of the coal industry in Japan, and as a result, the number of performances was drastically decreased year by year. In 1962, it was held a total of 266 days. In the 1970s, however, was only 10 to 15 days.
Several years after, the theater has revived because of such retro style building is now become popular throughout the country. Since 1979, the National Chairman tournament will be held in every September, and now there are performances of 30 to 40 days on stage per year. In addition, it was a venue of Ringo Sheena's one night only live event, Zazen Ecstasy (座禅エクスタシー) on July 30, 2000.

Let's take a tour to the retro style building of the early Showa era.
There's no performance on this day, we could go there freely. Going up the stairs to the second floor.

A view of the stage from the audience seats on the second floor.

Audience seats. Seats are available from the following three types; Zashiki (座敷) with conformable tatami rooms located in the center of the first floor, Masuseki (桝席) or boxed seats on the both ends of tatami rooms, and they also provides free seats on the both sides of second floor.

 Going down the stairs, and finally we came back to the starting point.

Visiting to Uchino-shuku (内野宿), a post town on the Nagasaki-kaido

On August 11, we had take a drive to Iizuka city (飯塚市) located at the confluence of the Honami and Onga rivers in central Fukuoka Prefecture. The city was an important post station on the Nagasaki-kaido (長崎街道) during the Edo era.

We had decided to go to Uchino-shuku around the Chikuzen-Uchino Station on JR Chikuho Line. Uchino-shuku was opened in the Hiyamizu Highway that was developed in response to the life of Kuroda Nagamasa, the lord of Fukuoka Domain in about 300 years ago.  
Once some celebrities of the Edo era, such as Philipp Franz von Siebold, doctor of the Dutch Trading Post in Nagasaki, Ino Tadataka (伊能忠敬) who made a map of Japan, Sakamoto Ryoma (坂本竜馬) and major feudal lords passed through this road towards Edo.

Walking in the old town is so easy: There are only 600 meters long from the west of Yamae-shuku side to east of Iizuka-shuku side. A forked road that divides in the middle of reverse side by t-shape, is going to the town headquarter and rest house. The road through the side of rest house has continued to Dazaifu.

Kokura-ya (小倉屋) was a pawnshop who ran by a money exchange business at that time. It is a well-kept Machiya (町屋) style building which is the appearance of the Meiji era first half.

The Nagasaki-ya (長崎屋) rest house is the only tourist facility of the old town. It is used to be an inn for Sankin-kotai travelers. In 2004, it was opened as a rest facility to the visitors. And it provides local dishes using homemade foodstuff. Booking is required in advance 3 days before. Menu will be changed by season, but you'll enjoy the food of local mothers have made carefully adopting the wisdom of their ancestors. 
The museum has on display a number of valuable materials that tell the history as a post town, it's freely available as a resting place.

The Ito family's residence (伊藤家) at the south end of the post town. This is the mansion of the Ito Den-emon family, the kingmaker of coal mine in the Meiji era. He also had conducted to making sake inside the house at that time.