Karatsu

Karatsu means, roughly, “the port for the Tang” — the place ships once left from bound for China — and something of that outward, seagoing character still clings to it. We came across from Fukuoka on a local line that ran right along the coast for the last stretch, the sea flat and grey-blue on our left, and stepped out into a town that smelled of salt and low tide. On its own spit of land, white against the water, stood Karatsu Castle, and beyond it curved the great sweep of the bay. Lia, who by this point in the trip had seen a good many castles, said this was the first one that looked like it belonged to the sea rather than to a lord, and she was right.

The Seafront Castle

Karatsu Castle sits on a rise called Mount Mitsushima, on a narrow tongue of land with the sea on nearly every side, so that from its upper floors you look out over open water in one direction and the long green line of the pine grove in the other. The keep is a modern reconstruction, but its setting needs no help — it is sometimes called Maizuru-jō, “dancing crane castle,” for the way the walls and the pines are said to spread like a crane’s wings along the shore.

We climbed it late in the day with the wind coming hard off the water, and stood on the top gallery watching fishing boats work back toward the harbour, the whole bay turning pewter as the sun dropped.

Niji-no-Matsubara and the Pottery

Along the bay from the castle runs Niji-no-Matsubara, the “rainbow pine grove” — a curving belt of tens of thousands of black pines, planted centuries ago as a windbreak and stretching for something like four miles along the sand in a long shallow arc. We walked into it and the noise of the town vanished; underfoot was soft needle-fall, overhead the pines leaned and hissed in the sea wind, all of them bent the same way by generations of it.

Karatsu is also a byword among the Japanese for pottery — Karatsu-yaki, austere, earthy stoneware glazed in browns and greys, prized for centuries by tea masters above almost any other. We spent an hour in a small gallery near the station, and I bought a single rough tea bowl that we still drink from.

The Karatsu Kunchi

The town’s great yearly release comes in early November with the Karatsu Kunchi, the festival of the Karatsu shrine, and though we were there in the wrong season we went to the Hikiyama Exhibition Hall to see the floats up close. They are extraordinary — fourteen enormous lacquered figures built up over generations, a scarlet lion, a golden fish, a samurai helmet, a dragon, each one hauled through the streets by teams of men to the pounding of drums and flutes.

Even standing still under the hall lights they had a kind of coiled energy, and the attendant who showed us round spoke about “his” float — the one his neighbourhood pulls — with the pride of a man talking about family.

Getting There

Karatsu lies on the north coast of Saga Prefecture in Kyūshū, a little over an hour west of Fukuoka (Hakata) on the JR Chikuhi line, which runs through from the Fukuoka subway — a straightforward, scenic ride ending at Karatsu station. The castle, pine grove, and pottery shops are all within walking distance or a short bus ride of the station. The Kunchi festival falls on 2–4 November each year and draws large crowds; outside those dates the town is calm, and a half-day to a full day sees it comfortably.