31 May 2024

Ancient stories and modern art in Akita

After travelling through the scenic Tsugaru Strait, we arrived at the beautiful destination of Akita in the morning. Following an interesting lecture on Geisha on board, we were welcomed at the port with a traditional song and dance including artists playing shamisen and a geisha in her traditional costume and make-up.

As usual, we had a range of ways to explore the many attractions of the Akita area. The first destination for some was the museum and a performance dedicated to Kanto – which included the balancing of huge frameworks of lanterns on long poles with accompanying taiko drumming. It was fun to see the performer's skills and imagine hundreds of them out at night during the August festival.

We explored the city en route to the Akita Museum of Art. The building designed by Tadao Ando is a work of art itself, and houses work by Tsuguharu Foujita and other Japanese who painted in the European style.

The drive to the Ogi area was along the waterfront with many towering wind turbines, then past terraced rice fields as we climbed into the mountains. There we visited the Namahage Museum to learn about the tradition in this area of ogres that visit on New Year's Eve to search for lazy children or wives. The re-enactment in a traditional house was both fun and a bit frightening. In the museum, we saw many examples of the costumes and could dress ourselves as Namahage too and the grounds of the museum and the shrine at the rear were fantastic to explore.

The Suishin Garden visit featured many pathways, bridges, ponds filled with Koi, waterfalls, and bird songs and we enjoyed photographing several gorgeous green tree frogs. We had the place to ourselves and plenty of time to admire the scenery and explore the iris fields, some of us ventured further and found extra delights in the form of a complimentary refreshing tea.

The farewell performance on the wharf featured an energetic taiko performance – with a special guest appearance of Namahage on the drums! As we pulled away the fireworks display stared off the starboard bow. It was far more than just a few bangs and featured a long and dazzling sequence of fountains of colours and rosettes in the sky. Thank you, Akita.

Images © E Bell, Heritage Expeditions