Kakunodate Samurai Heaven

Kakunodate is heaven for a samurai history lover. We arrived in Kakunodate, Akita Prefecture, at lunchtime on Thursday. We left our luggage at the extremely convenient check in next to the station and set out to explore in the softly falling snow.

Kakunodate is a mountain town about 45 minutes by shinkansen from Akita City, the prefectural capital. It has an old samurai district, a remnant from the Edo Period (1604-1868). The area is practically unchanged since the mid 1800s, with buildings and homes perfectly preserved.

Samurai Heaven

Many of the homes are still lived in by descendants of the samurai class. A few are now museums, and one is both, allowing visitors in to see parts of the house while family are living in another part.

The homes are beautiful, traditional homes. The preservation is due to a lack of fire and earthquake damage. There was so much to see, armour, swords, art, pottery, lacquerware, dolls, and an impressive gramophone collection. All were in perfect order as they had been stored in kura. Kura literally translates to storehouse, but the storehouses are impenetrable. The doors and windows are thick and multi-layered, providing security from theft and fire.

We could touch some of the swords, I tried on a helmet, and we saw the difference between samurai homes and merchant homes. It was fascinating.

We stayed in an old kura that had been converted into a home. It was beautiful and the attention to detail, as always in Japan, was flawless. The shiny wooden floors were heated, the toilet seats were also heated, and the house was warm, despite -9 degree temperatures over night.

Akita is famous for oyakodon made with Hinaijidori, a special breed of chicken. Regular readers will know this is in my top 10 favourite Japanese meals, and it was so good here, I had it twice in 24 hours.

Kakunodate was an excellent place for a samurai history loving girl to stop for a night. I loved walking in the snow.

Read more about Kakunodate here. The beautiful Akita dog in the last photo is Momo-chan. She was so friendly and sweet, and she wanted to kiss me x