Take a culture trip - linking past and future, bringing people together.
The history of the town of Kikuyo is closely tied with the waters of the Shirakawa River that run through it. Kikuyo and the surrounding areas are filled with many tangible and intangible cultural assets that bear deep relationships with the Shirakawa and its water.
No history of Kikuyo is complete without mentioning the Bungo Kaido, a historical road that runs right through the region. Long ago, it was a major road along which many goods and people moved, yielding a unique history and culture in the local area.
Kikuyo Cultural Tourism follows in the footsteps of the people of long ago who controlled and used the water, and visits the heritage sites left behind by the many people who passed through this region.
The Bungo Kaido was an important old highway, traversed by peasants and royalty alike. Even now, the road is lined with cedar trees. This course visits the many sites involved in the many people who traveled along this historical route.
This course visits sites related to water and irrigation both historical and modern, including stone bridges and irrigation aqueducts and watercourses supposedly constructed by Kato Kiyomasa and the Hosokawa clan.
The Hanaguri Ide, supposedly built by Kato Kiyomasa, was constructed using state-of-the-art techniques and is still in use today. Click here to learn about its structure and what it looks like today.
Ide is the man-made channel designed to irrigate paddies and fields. Before water was supplied by well or tap, the water from the ide was used as domestic water as well.