Walking the streets of Yamaga, Kumamoto, part 2

Taking a short break at the Sakura-yu sento public bath, we walked around the Somon (惣門) area where are the Machiya (町屋) style houses in the street.

It's a beautiful old post town, either there's no telephone pole or electric wire on this road.

Near the factory of the local sake brewing company,  Chiyo-no-sono-shuzo (千代の園酒造) .

Kiya-shoten (木屋商店), a retro style miso shop in front of the Chiyo-no-sono breweries.   

Walking the streets of Yamaga, Kumamoto, part 1

After visiting the Yachiyoza kabuki theater, we took a walk through the old street of Yamaga in the city. Yamaga was an important post station on the Satsuma-kaido (薩摩街道) during the Edo era.

The arch stone gate of Kongojo-ji (金剛乗寺) Temple. It's very unusual temple gate that makes a circle. 

The Yamaga Lantern Folk Museum. Yamaga is famous for its lantern festival held on the Obon holiday in August every year. Many local lanterns are putting on display at the museum. You can make your own lantern from paper, too.

Ashi-yu (足湯) or a foot bath on the other side across of road from Sakura-yu public bath. People enjoy relaxing foot spa and it's free of charge.

The Sakura-yu (さくら湯) public bath. The building, a reproduction of Ochaya (御茶屋) tea house, was built by the Hosokawa clan of Kumamoto. 

Sakura-yu loved as a local hot spring for over 50 years, from Meiji to Showa. However, it was dismantled in 1973 for the redevelopment building construction. The current building was completed in October 2012.

The Yakushi-do (薬師堂) temple standing in front of the entrance of Sakura-yu. Once the hot springs withered, it was built to pray for the restoration of the spa town and they prayed together. A few days later, hot water gushed out from under the ground.  

Visiting the Yachiyoza (八千代座) Theatre, Yamaga, Kumamoto

In the afternoon we went to Yachiyoza, a Kabuki theater in Yamaga, Kumamoto. The theater was open in 1910 and was designated as an important cultural properties of Japan by the Government.

==Summary==
In 1910, the Yamaga kabuki dancers association set up a union and sold 30 yen per share for the purpose of prosperity of the town. The designer of this kabuki house was Kametaro Kimura who was also the owner of a lighter shop and a lantern maker. At that time, Yamaga was the center of land and water transport that was used the Buzen/Satsuma Kaido highway and water transportation in the Kikuchi River, and was crowded as a place of distribution of supplies and one of the best hot springs in Kumamoto prefecture. The construction work was started in October of the same year and was completed after two months. After that, it was used for various types of events such as Kabuki, Rokyoku (also called naniwa-bushi), activity photos, modern comedy plays, concert of Japanese and classical music etc. However, the Japanese way of life changed drastically after the World War Two and thus the entertainment industry was also changed from movies to television. The theater was closed in 1973, and leakage became serious at around 1985. In 1986, the Yachiyoza Rebuilding Council was established and re-roofing in the following year. The great Heisei renovations started in 1996 and it costs 760 million yen. The repair work is done in 2001.

Let's take a tour to the retro style building of the late Meiji 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.