Kawachi Wisteria Garden

 

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Kawachi Wisteria Garden is a private garden at the Mountain foot of Sarakura in Kitakyushu-city

and famous for its spectacularly  presented, large numbers of wisteria flowers.

The garden is opened to the public seasonally during the wisteria season which usually peaks

around late April to middle of May.

 

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The garden’s most prominent features are two, roughly 100 meter long tunnels made of wisteria

trees of differing varieties and colors, ranging from white to dark purple.

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Featured tours related to Kawachi Wisteria garden  

 

Kawachi Wisteria garden & Kitakyushu one-day tour         

The tour is the customized private tour traveled in Kitakyushu-city including Kawachi Wisteria

garden, operated during Kawachi Wisteria blossom period from mid-April to mid-May depending

on the Wisteria condition.

 

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 General information  

Address	2-2-48 Kawachi, Yahata-higashiku, Kitakyushu-city, Fukuoka-prefecture
Access	25 minutes by a vehicle from JR Kokura station 70 minutes by a vehicle from Fukuoka-city
Open hours	9:00 to 17:00 Middle of April to middle of May
Admission fee	JPY 500 to 1,500 depending on blossom condition

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Manga Museum and Aru Aru City

 

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The Kitakyushu Manga Museum is located next to JR Kokura station. The museum is located

on the 6th floor of Aru Aru City, a multi-floored shopping mall devoted to products and

services for anime, manga, idol culture, and cosplay fans, a kind of Harajuku in miniature.

 

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The permanent exhibition area on the 6th floor concentrates on manga writers and artists who

have a connection with Kitakyushu; and while more than thirty are listed, the best known is Reiji

Matsumoto, who is also the honorary director of the museum.

 

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The rest of the Aru Aru City shopping mall is devoted to shops and services for Japan’s pop youth

culture. There are lots of shops selling manga, anime DVDs, J-Pop CDs, computer games, trading

cards, as well as related paraphernalia such posters and figurines. There are games arcades, an

internet cafe, model car racetrack, a karaoke bar, and several cafes and bars serving alcohol, as

well as a full maid cafe.

 

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There are numerous establishments offering services for otaku, including a rehearsal space with

a recording studio for budding musicians, an event space with a stage and lighting that can be rented,

and a cosplay studio where cosplayers can be photographed professionally in a variety of settings.

 

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 General information   

Address	2-14-5 Asano Kokura-kita, Kitakyushu-city, Fukuoka-prefecture
Access	a short walk from JR Kokura Station 70 minutes by a vehicle from Fukuoka-city 100 minutes by a vehicle from Beppu 100 minutes by a vehicle from Yufuin

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Onga River Pump Station

 

 

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Built in 1910 on the east bank of the Onga River. It served, and still serves, to deliver 

industrial water to Yawata via an 11.4 km pipeline. This supply is integral to the steel 

production process and was necessary to cope with the 1st phase expansion of the 

Imperial Steel Works. The site has been registered on the UNESCO World Heritage,

Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution 

 

Onga River

Onga River Pump Station

Water piping to the Steel Works

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General information 

Address	1-3-1 Dotenouchi, Nakana-city, Fukuoka-prefecture
Access	40 minutes by a vehicle from JR Kokura Station 60 minutes by a vehicle from Fukuoka-city

Yahata port

 

 

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Japan’s Modern Steel Works history started here. Yawata was a rural village with a small

population of agriculture and fishing industry. And this place was decided in Parliament as

the Japan’s Modern Steel Works construction site in 1897.

 

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At that time, there were no construction machineries, the Steel Works was constructed

with human power in just 4 years.

 

 

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General information  

Address	Higasida, Yahata-higasiku, Kitakyushu-city, Fukuoka-prefecture
Access	10 minutes walk from JR Edamitsu station 20 minutes by a vehicle from JR Kokura station 70 minutes by a vehicle from Fukuoka-city 110 minutes by a vehicle from Beppu

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Minami Kawachi-bashi bridge

 

 

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Mojiko Retro

 

 

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Moji is the beautiful port town and facing to Kanmon Strait where one of the most

beautiful Strait in the World. On the other side of the Kanmon Strait is Shimonoseki.

Moji Port designated as a Japan’s special trading port in 1889.

 

Mitsui Club

It was built by the Mitsui Co., Ltd in 1921 as a reception centre and to provide accommodation for

VIP’s.   Albert Einstein (1879-1955), one of the world’s most famous theoretical physicists, stayed

here during his visit to Japan with his wife in 1922. 

What Dr. Einstein acclaimed Moji. Dr. Albert Einstein awarded Nobel Prize in Physic

visited Moji in 1922, and he acclaimed that everything could see were ARTS.

Kaikyo Plaza

The shopping area in the Mojiko Retro district located by the sea. “Full of a romance market which

stir up forgetting contentment” is the direct translation of the concept Kaikyo Plaza is based on. 

The area has a very romantic ambience and evokes feeling of nostalgia and contentment that will 

never be forgotten. 

 

Mojiko Station

It is the only Station building that is designated as an Important National Cultural Property 

together with Tokyo Station. Mojiko Station is a beautiful station built in the Renaissance 

style and modeled on the Termini Station in Italy. 

 

Mojiko Retro Observatory       

Situated on the 31st floor of the high-rise apartment building “Retro Hi-Mart”.  The 103 metre-high

observatory offers magnificent views of the Mojiko Retro district, the Kanmon-kyo Bridge over the 

Kanmon Strait, as well as the Shimonoseki area.

Blue Wing Moji

This bridge, made in 2003, is the only pedestrian draw bridge in Japan, and is one the

most popular photo spot in Mojiko Retro. The length of the bridge is 108 meters and 

it is opened 6 times a day at 10h, 11h, 13h, 14h, 15h and 16h.​

 

Kyushu Railway Museum

It is a railway theme park organized by JR Kyushu, showing the history of Kyushu Railways.

The display of steam locomotives and old trains used by Kyushu Railway is fascinating and 

always evokes feelings of nostalgia among visitors.​

Kanmonkyo bridge 

The suspended bridge crossing the Kanmon Straits, a stretch of water separating two of Japan’s

four main islands. On the Honshu Island side of the bridge is Shimonoseki and on the Kyushu

Island side is Kitakyushu.

Konamon Pedestrian tunnel

Only the place in the world .   You can cross the strait on foot. The Kanmon Strait, separating

Honshu and Kyushu, is a very beautiful and busy waterway with as many as 700 small and large

ships a day passing through it. 

 

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Local Cuisines

 

Kawara Sobe

Kawara soba is a local cuisine which Soba noodles and meat are cooked together on a Kawara

(stone roof tile) and dipped into a special sauce when eating it. It is said that the hints were

obtained from the time when during the Seinan civil war in 1877, soldiers of Satsuma who

surrounded the Kumamoto castle used kawara (stone roof tiles) to cook wild plants and meat.

Yaki curry

Yaki curry latterly means baked curry and is local cuisine in Moji which is curry with rice

topped with cheese and/or egg heated in oven. The melted cheese and soft-boiled egg

combine with the spicy curry to enhance its flavor even more.

 

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Higashida

 

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Birth place of Steel Making Industry in Japan. Located at the food of Mt. Sarakura and 

facing to Dokai Bay, which is used as a shipping port for the steel industry.  The area has 

various Industrial Heritages and Museums.

 

Higashida No.1 Blast Furnace

Only the Blast  Furnace in the world which preserved as it was. The birth place where 

Japan’s steel industry began in 1901. It contributed greatly to the development of the

Japanese steel industry and was used until 1972, and has been preserved just as it was.

 

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First Head Office of the Steel Works  / UNESCO World Heritage

Built in 1899, ahead of production facilities. It is an architectural fusion of Japanese and

European design, a two story red brick building with bilateral symmetry and a central dome

set in a Japanese tile roof.

 

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Mount Sarakura

 

Yahata port

Japan’s Modern Steel Works history started here. Yawata was a rural village with a small

population of agriculture and fishing industry. And this place was decided in Parliament as

the Japan’s Modern Steel Works construction site in 1897.At that time, there were no

construction machineries, the Steel Works was constructed with human power in just 4 years.

 

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Kurogane Railway         

Dedicated Railway for Yawata Steel Works. The railway connected between Yawata and Tobata,

construction work took three years, and completed in 1930. The most difficult and hard work was

making Miyatayama tunnel with a total length of 1180 m due to suffering from floods. The gates of 

the Miyatayama tunnel are decorated with stately designs.

 

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Kanmon Pedestrian tunnel

 

 

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Only the place in the world !   You can cross the strait on foot. The Kanmon Strait, separating

Honshu and Kyushu, is a very beautiful and busy waterway with as many as 700 small and 

large ships a day passing through it.

 

How to cross the strait on foot

780m length tunnel start   from Moji

The boundary of Moji and   Shimonoseki

to Shimonoseki

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Moji, Kyushu Island side  

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Shimonoseki, Honshu Island side  

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 General information  

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Kawachi Reservoir

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The first-class civil construction heritage, the triggered the registration of World Cultural 

Heritage of Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution 

The Kawachi Reservoir was constructed for the industrial water supply to Yawata

Steel Works. The dam was constructed at the Okura River and upper stream of the

dam was expanded and making the 7milion cubic metre reservoir.

 

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Specification of the dam  

・completion year : 1927

・height : 43.1 metre 
・Width : 189 metre

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All stones are cut into sizes and shapes by the stone technicians  according to the place of use. 

The large size stone were used at the main construction of the dam and the small size stones 

were used for other places as per size and shape. Construction was started in 1919 and was 

completed in1927 by 900 thousand total number of workers.

 

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Minami Kawachi-bashi bridge

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General information  

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First Head office of the Steel Works

 

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The the building for the Head office of the Imperial Steel Works was constructed in 1899,

two years before commencement of Japan’s Steel Industry.

The design of the building is a harmony of European and Japanese architectural styles.

The construction of the structure below the roof is a European style and uses red bricks

for the outside walls.

 

Aiming to symbolize a Good future for Japan, the roof was designed with a traditional

Japanese triangular shape and Japanese tiles were used to complete the roof. 

The building was initially used as a Head office until 1922, however with the expansion

of production facilities, the Head Office was moved to another place due to lack of space.

After that, the building was used for various purposes such as a Research and Developing

Center for Steel Products.

 

World leading rail produced in the Steel Works

First Head Office registered on the World Heritage

Observation deck of the World Heritage

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