Another Road Trip Begins

The Drive to Tojinbo Cliffs and Eiheiji Temple in Fukui

It seems like ages since we landed in Japan and ran down the dark streets of Narita. That was our first night in Japan; the winter wind was so cold that we had to run to keep warm in our thin clothes. It’s only been three months, but we’ve travelled from Tokyo to Kagoshima and back to Osaka. We’ve seen spring cherry blossoms and some of the best gardens and castles in the country. Now we’re suddenly a week away from leaving Japan and there just doesn’t seem to be enough time.

Our last week in Japan was scheduled as a family trip with Yuki’s parents. Like all of our previous family trips to Korea and Switzerland, our trips are planned because Yuki’s dad wants to go somewhere specific. This time it was the Tateyama Kurobe Alopen Route, where we’d meet Yuki’s cousin P’Jeab and her son Jack too.

In all honesty, we didn’t plan this family trip as well as we should have. There were a lot of variables and we sort of thought that parts of the trip had been planned when they weren’t. One of the critical planning items was transportation, because we would be going to 5 cities over 7 days. Back when we were in Bangkok we looked into Japanese rail passes, which are great value for foreigners, but since Yuki and her dad hold Japanese passports, it was actually cheaper not to get them. After our unexpected drive in Tanabe, it occurred to us that renting a car might be cheaper, so I looked into that a week before the family trip. I did a cost estimate and found that it would be half the cost for four of us (compared to taking trains). This estimate actually turned out to be a mistake and it ended up costing 97% of the train option, but it did save us a lot of time and allowed us get to the places we wanted to go without relying on very infrequent buses and lengthy train rides.

After meeting Yuki’s parents in Osaka, we picked up our car and drove north towards Fukui, a city along the west coast. The drive took longer than expected because we avoided tolled expressways.

Our main attraction of the day was Tojinbo Cliffs. The non-expressway route towards the cliff followed the coast, which was a really nice drive through small fishing villages. Many places looked like interesting stops, but we were late getting to the hotel so we only made a few bathroom stops, one of which turned out to be pretty epic.

This rest stop had a bridge leading out to a rock formation that we were able to climb. The stairway leads up to a small shrine at the top. The rock formations are pretty impressive and are hexagonal in shape, similar to the Jungmun lava columns that we saw in Jeju, Korea in 2014.

We arrived at Tojinbo Cliffs late in the day, which saved us from having to pay for parking because the free lot was empty. The Tojinbo Cliffs are also hexagonal in shape. At first we were somewhat disappointed that they weren’t taller or steeper.

Yuki’s dad told us that per his travel book, the place was made famous because of the legend of a monk who fell in love with a woman. Because of either unrequited love or the fact that he couldn’t wed a woman (being a monk) he decided to commit suicide by jumping off the cliffs. The poster board at the cliffs, however, told the story of an even crazier legend. It said that several monks were jealous of Tojinbo’s “evil” character and his position of power at the temple, so they invited him to the cliffs under the guise of a party. They got him drunk and then threw him into the ocean to drown.

Apparently these bundles of hexagonal and pentagonal rocks are quite a unique geological formation and can only be seen in three spots in the world — and nowhere else in Japan. I guess we’ve seen two of the three (i.e. in Korea and Japan). We have yet to see the Giant’s Causeway in England.

On the next day, we drove out to Eiheiji Temple, which is located east of Fukui in the mountainous woods. Eiheiji Temple is a large and active monastery nestled in a forest of cedar trees. It is one of two head temples of the Soto Sect of Zen Buddhism and consists of several buildings and structures connected by beautiful covered walkways.

We were astounded by how large the temple is. The covered walkways and halls are located on a hill, with the main gate at the base of the hill. With large courtyards in between the halls, all the components combine to form a significantly larger complex than the site first appears.

It took us a few hours to walk through the temple and see all of the buildings. The covered walkways are important because this region gets a significant amount of snow in the winter. We could see snowguards on the houses in the village, as well as several snowblowers parked along the side of the road.

After Eiheiji Temple we spent the afternoon at Maruoka Castle, which is a short drive to the north. Maruoka Castle had an expensive entrance fee for what it was— just the main keep of a small castle. The castle itself is significant, however, for being the oldest remaining keep in Japan. It is one of just twelve original castles that survived the Meiji restoration.

It’s possible to go inside the keep and climb the 3-story building. One of the floors is “hidden” and isn’t visible from the outside. Nearby the castle was a koi pond with golden fish, which is quite rare. They swam up as soon as they noticed us (potential food sources)!

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