This is Part 3 of a 3-part series on Yamagata Prefecture, as part of our Travel & Books focus. If you haven’t listened to the first two, you can find them at: Yamagata 1: Samurai, Beef & Bashō and  Yamagata 2: Dewa Sanzan and Mt. Yudono Secrets.

In this episode, Amy visits a secret train station. As the train from Fukushima slows down at the stop to let people off, she notices a definite excitement among the passengers. “She’s there!, She’s there!” they murmur to each other while SLR camera lenses are brought up to eye level, and people pose with their cell phones turned to selfie mode. What’s going on? A celebrity? Amy asks a local guide, who explains that the woman is the last train platform vendor in Japan, who has been making a certain product for over 100 years!

After that, she enters the mountains, visits the O-taki waterfall, and stays at the Fukushimaya Inn, founded in 1763, that is so immersed in snow in the wintertime, that the family can’t leave. Snowed in all winter, they wait for the snow melt in Spring!

Amy goes on to discuss climbing Mt. Zao and talks about the Yamabushi priests who practice Shugendō, as well as the Matsuo Bashō museum and the Yamadera temple where you can experience the atmosphere where the poet wrote one of his most famous haiku.

Recommended Reading:

The Catalpa Bow, A Study of Shamanistic Practices in Japan, by Carmen Blacker (Routledge, 1999)