Siobawa, Yonezawa, Takahata, Zao San

Siobawa

In the evening we went on to Siobawa near Kitakata, where we stayed the night in a by-way park with a panoramic view in the morning of the local mountain, a volcano which had split in two last century. Kitakata had a number of old storage houses.

One of many forest by ways we stopped or stayed in

In the morning we went on to Yonezawa, where we saw the Uesgi clan shrine and had lunch at the clan mausolems.

Uesgi clan shrine, Yonezawa

mausoleums

We then drove on to Takahata where there was a neat temple temple on the hillside - Kameokamonju, one of the first of the many rustic hilltop Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines or jinja's we have visited and in the town itself, a three story pagoda and thatched burial chambers.

Kameokamonju

Primitive thatch dwellings in Kaminoyama valley

The nearby shrine

Then we took the back road to Kaminoyama and went up Zao San (mountain) and stayed the night in the forest just below Zao Onsen where there are hot Japanese baths and, in the winter, ski fields.







In the morning we went to a reggae concert ( tepees and dancing in the mud) after meeting two girls from NZ and Australia.