South Miyazaki · NichinanNo.526★★Open in map →
Obi Castle Town
The samurai quarter of the Ito clan's Obi domain, inland from the Nichinan coast in southern Miyazaki. Local stone makes the walls and gutters, local cedar makes the gates and fences, and the grid of streets still holds its Edo shape.
- FromMiyazaki Station
- ~1 hr 45 minJR Nichinan Line, then a 20 min walk
- Get off atObi Station (JR Nichinan Line)
- On foot
- Obi Castle Town
The sweet spot
Obi sits inland, off the coast road most travellers follow down southern Miyazaki toward the shrines and the beaches. It is well known within Kyushu and fully set up for visitors, so this is not a hidden town. The calm is a matter of layout: low walls and long straight streets give a crowd nowhere to bunch up.
Where it is
18 more notes in Miyazaki · open the map →What to look for — in walking order
- Otemon Streetthe straight approach to the castle, walled in stone with cedar-boarded fronts
- Otemon Gatethe castle's main gate, standing at the top of a flight of stone stairs
- The honmaru groundscedar planted across the old keep site, with moss underfoot
- Yoshokanthe last lord's residence, its garden laid out against the hill behind
- Shintokudothe domain's own academy, a short walk from the castle gate
How to actually get there
- Miyazaki Station to Obi Station (JR Nichinan Line; the Umisachi-Yamasachi sightseeing express takes about an hour and a half on operating days).
- Obi Station to the castle approach street (walk west about 20 min).
- Buy the combined ticket, then work up the approach street to the gate and the grounds above.
- Come back down to the lord's residence and the domain school before the paid buildings close.
- JR Nichinan Line, south from Miyazaki
- Miyazaki Station to Obi Station on the JR Nichinan Line, then about 20 minutes on foot west to the castle gate. Local trains run roughly one or two an hour. The Umisachi-Yamasachi sightseeing express covers the run in about an hour and a half on the days it operates, so check its calendar before building a day around it.
- Return from Obi Station
- Walk back east to Obi Station for a northbound service to Miyazaki. On operating days the Umisachi-Yamasachi leaves Obi at 14:29. Local departures are spread out, so note the return times on the board before you head into town.
About the place
Obi lies in a river valley inland from the Nichinan coast, and the Ito clan governed the domain from here for some 280 years on a stipend of 51,000 koku. The town is built out of what the valley produced. Stone quarried nearby makes the walls, the retaining banks and the gutters; cedar from the hills the domain planted makes the gates, the beams and the boarded fences. Samurai streets run in straight lines below the castle mound, while the merchant quarter spreads over the flat ground beyond, and the two halves still read as different places. Cedar money paid for all of it, and the same timber went down to the coast to be shipped out.
How to enjoy it
Buy the combined ticket at the first house you enter, because one building on its own does not explain the town. Do the interiors while they are open and save the streets for the end, since the paid buildings shut in the late afternoon and the lanes do not. On operating days the sightseeing express arrives at 11:09 and starts back at 14:29, which is about right for the main houses plus one merchant street. Obi's own snack is obiten, a fried fish cake sold from shops along the way.
Background & history
The Ito clan recovered the castle in 1588 and governed from it until the domains were dissolved in the Meiji era. Japan gave the townscape national protection in 1977, the first preservation district of its kind anywhere in Kyushu, and the great gate above the stone stairs was rebuilt in domain cedar the year after. Two Edo buildings still stand on their original plots below the walls: Yoshokan, the residence the last lord moved into, and Shintokudo, the school where the domain educated its retainers' sons.
Before you go
- Cash
- The streets, the approach to the gate and the castle stairs cost nothing. The interiors charge admission, and a combined ticket covering the castle history museum, Yoshokan, Matsuo-no-Maru and the Komura Jutaro hall is sold at the entrances. Check the posted rate and the last-entry time on the day.
- Before you go
- The paid buildings close in the late afternoon and take a short break at the end of December. The streets stay open at any hour but are unlit in places. The stone stairs up to the castle grounds are steep and slippery after rain.
- Another way
- Coming up from the Nichinan coast, Obi Station is two stops from Aburatsu, so the castle town and the port canal fit into a single day by train.
- After you get off
- From Obi Station, walk west about 20 minutes along the road until you reach the approach street. The castle gate stands at the far end of it, above a flight of stone stairs.