Travel to Kyushu - Mar 13

We got up and had breakfast at our lovely ryokan, then drove to Yawatahama to catch the ferry from the island of Shikoku to the island of Kyushu. We will be spending the remainder of our tour on Kyushu. The Japanese ferries are quite interesting. This one had a very small seating area with tables and chairs (which were handily chained to the floor), and a large area with mats and cubby holes, where you could lie down, or just sit on the floor and chat. The last ferry we were on had more seating, but it still had the area to lie down on the floor in.
The ferry landed at the city of Usuki, and just outside the city we saw Buddha statues that were carved into the stone cliffs. There are 60 statues, carved during the 12th to 14th centuries, but we had to skip a few that were under restoration (putting roofs over them, etc., so they don't deteriorate.) Quite impressive, located on a mountainside in a bamboo forest.
We then drove via expressways and single lane mountain roads to Takachiho. Takachiho is full of Japanese mythology. It is the site of a legend where the Shinto sun goddess hid in a cave to get away from her brother's cruel pranks, causing the other gods and goddesses to try to lure her out by dancing. She left the cave to see what was going on and so returned her light to the world. After dinner at the hotel, we attended a Yokagura dance performance which is supposed to be examples of the dances used to coax her out. The performance is held in a tatami mat theatre, so Dave and I found pillars at the side we could use as backs, and stuck our legs out in front of us, rather than sitting Japanese style. Interesting culturally, the music and dance totally foreign to our Western kind.