Geography
Yamaguchi Prefecture is located in the extreme southwest of the island of Honshu, the largest in the Japanese archipelago. Its territories belong to the Chugoku region of Japan. The capital is a city of the same name. A mild, subtropical climate prevails here.
History
In the Middle Ages, the city of Yamaguchi was called "Western Kyoto", as it was built on the model of the Japanese capital of that time. The samurai families that ruled this region of Japan in the nineteenth century, particularly the Mori clan, played a major role in the fight against the Tokugawa shogunate during the Meiji Revolution.
Culture, attractions
and entertainment
One of the main attractions of the city of Yamaguchi is the famous Buddhist temple Ruriko-ji. It is a five-tiered pagoda and is considered one of the three most beautiful pagodas in all of Japan. The temple has a museum where you can see models and drawings of about fifty of Japan's most famous pagodas.
Near this temple is Kozan Park, famous for the fact that it was here, in a historical tea house, that prominent samurai leaders, including the famous Saigo Takamori (the inspiration for Katsumoto, the character of actor Ken Watanabe in the film “The Last Samurai”), planned the successful overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate.
Separately, we should highlight the Japanese landscape garden Sesshu, named after its creator, the famous Japanese artist and Zen monk Toyo Sesshu, who lived in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Another interesting temple is Zoe-ji, which is located not far from Sesshu Garden and was also erected by the designer of this garden. And the Yamaguchi Dai-jingu Shinto Shrine is famous for being a miniature replica of the Ise-jingu Shrine, the greatest Shinto shrine in Japan, located in Mie Prefecture.
The city of Yamaguchi, like the island of Kyushu to the south, also has attractions associated with Western influence on Japan in the Middle Ages. Here they include the memorial Catholic church of Francis Xavier, a sixteenth-century Jesuit missionary.
The city of Yamaguchi is five hours from Tokyo on the Shinkansen super express train.
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