Kurayoshi

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Kurayoshi is a small provincial town in Tottori prefecture, worth visiting for its historic merchant quarter. There are dozens of similar places in Japan, but all of them will have some distinctive features – here in Kurayoshi it’s red tiled roofs and narrow water canal running alongside the street, with many small bridges over it leading to house entrances.

I visited Kurayoshi on a day trip from Tottori. It takes about an hour by train.

Kurayoshi historic merchant quarter (Tottori prefecture, Japan) — The historic merchant quarter in Kurayoshi is called Shirakabe Dozo-gun – literally meaning “white walled storehouses”.

Here is the water canal with bridges over it, each leading to a house. I saw a small car (like K-car small) go across and park inside.

Japanese K-car — The type of car that can go over that bridge 🙂

There are some interesting cafes too. The specialty of this one is coffee served with azuki beans instead of sugar (Café Kura)

A wooden sculpture of Hotei, one of the Seven Lucky Gods is tucked in a small corner between the houses. It’s said there’s more than 40 wooden Lucky Gods carvings in town, but I didn’t specifically look for them.

There’s also a couple of Buddhist temples. At one end of the street stands Dairenji with a picturesque narrow lane leading to its gates.

At the other end stands Daigakuin, notable for its connection to the famous Japanese novel Satomi Hakkenden.

The temple holds the graves of Satomi Tadayoshi and his 8 retainers who are said to be prototypes for the novel’s characters.

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Getting there

To get to the Shirakabe dozo-gun from Kurayoshi station you’ll need to take a bus from stall number 2. The ride takes 12-17 minutes depending on the line (make sure you’re on the right bus – buses for other destination depart from stall 2 as well). Here’ bus access info in English.