Asuke

Asuke is really a cool place to visit. The Japanese Maple trees there are fabulous and HUGE – nothing like the small ones we generally find in the states. There’s a large river that runs through the area – nice for wading into to cool off when it’s very hot. It does run quickly so you can’t swim very much. The bridges that span it are very picturesque.
There are a lot of hiking trails in the area. We took the large, main trail that meandered down the river to a shrine and a craft area. I’ll post a couple of pictures to show some of the things we saw.
The shrine is not particularly large but it does have more than one building in the area. The amazing thing is the extensive cemetery next to it. The headstones are found all over the hill, some with vines growing on them much like you would expect to find in a rainforest. They range from very simple, tiny stones to fairly large monuments. We walked through the area, wishing we could read more of them to know how old they were. Many had fresh flowers on them…one had an ornate tea cup on one side – and a can of Asahi beer on the other!!
The craft village was fabulous. They had craftsmen working inside each building. We first stopped at a woodworker – he was creating bowls from very large, dried bamboo pieces. The color that was in the bowl was the natural color of the bamboo and he cut and worked on it to keep some and take off some to create a beautiful bowl! He also had many beautiful (and expensive) bowls from wood I couldn’t identify. Next there was a charcoal kiln. Here the man burned the wood and then, at the proper time, he removed it, cooled it, and then cut it up for charcoal (we used some for the fire at our camp area).
They had a group who were working on creating the paper umbrellas the Japanese use. The work that goes into creating each and every spoke for it and the paper (hand painted, of course) and how they laid it out on the spokes. It was nothing short of remarkable. They are still purchased and used here – traditional weddings always use them. Other crafts included knife making, dyeing, boat making, weaving and, my favorite, paper making. (I’ll have to do a whole new entry on that).