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The original was posted on /r/japantravel by /u/Sucitraf on 2024-09-03 20:04:09+00:00.
This will be a bit long at the beginning as it has some extra details - feel free to skip the first few days if you care more about the logistics/non-heritage stuff we did. We did get the 21 day JR pass (math said we'd get a little extra value so we wanted to see how well it did with the new pricing) and it ended up being worth it, but it requires a LOT of travel, so I'd still probably not recommend it unless you're moving around a lot on Shinkansen.
My wife and I are both Yonsei - 4th Generation Japanese Americans - and have always wanted to dig further into our heritage in Japan, so the main focus of the Honeymoon to Japan was to visit the village locations that each of our great grandparents were born in, and if possible, find a grave or something. Unfortunately, we didn't get all of our Koseki in time for that, but we did get a big surprise with my paternal line (detailed below).
Note - Because we're 4th gen (from California) we don't have much Japanese speaking or as much information about our family history due to WW2, so most of our digging came through old documents and asking any surviving Nisei what we could!
Day 1 - July 31st/August 1st - Arrival and Home Base Hotel
Depart SFO to HND on JAL 1.
Arrive at HND in the early afternoon, picked up a 21 day JR pass and headed to our hotel in Sumida.
Checked in to the hotel in Sumida- this would be our "Home" in Tokyo and where we would store our big luggage when it was not in use. The check out date was August 23rd.
Got Dinner at our favorite Udon shop in Tokyo (Taniya) and then passed out at the hotel.
Day 2 - August 2nd - Treats, Temples, Tokyo Dome
Explored a confectionary shop in Setagaya my wife had found online, visited a few parks and shrines/temples in the area and then headed to Tokyo Dome City.
At Tokyo Dome, we visited the Baseball hall of fame, got dinner, and then watched the Giants vs Swallows.
After game finished, went back to Sumida, picked up some snacks at 7/11 and packed our carry on bags for the trip to Kochi Prefecture.
Day 3 - August 3rd - Arrive in Kochi and Meet Locals/Hidaka Village
Kochi is where my paternal line is from, and thus my family name and family crest (which we did not know). When doing my ancestry research, I found that the original village was no longer around, as it merged with 2 others some time in the 1950s due to shrinking population. Luckily for me - the newly merged village had a small Tourism Board, and when I reached out using bad google translate, the person running it happened to know English, and said they would be more than happy to help me find out where my family lived, and if they could, find the gravestone of my ancestors!
We woke up early Tokyo so we could make sure we were packed and ready for an early afternoon flight from Haneda to Kochi Ryoma airport. Flew into Kochi, picked up a rental car and checked in to a hotel in Kochi City to use as home base while we were in Kochi (I could not find any hotels in the family village, but was told later they have some, but they don't have an online presence, so next time I'll just use my contacts there!).
When we arrived, I messaged the tourism board on Line to let them know we were in town and excited to meet them the next day for some exploring around the area. They invited me to a small "Izakaya" sort of gathering in the village that night, so my wife and I drove down, ate at a local restaurant using the tiny bits of Japanese we know, and met up with my contact at the tourism board.
It was a VERY small location that looks like it is rented out on occasion for small get togethers like this one, but I got to meet the person I had been communicating with, his friends, and his friends' kids. We chatted a bit (with the contact doing his best to help translate, but also with some of the locals using small bits of english and us using small bits of Japanese), ate, drank, and set off some fireworks and played with some bubbles. One of the people also gifted us a pair of Naruko hand clappers with our names in Katakana, the wedding date, and art/kanji to wish us a happy marriage. Incredibly fun and kind folks, and one of my favorite nights of the entire trip.
After hanging out with them for a few hours, we headed back to Kochi City with plans to meet back up for a caving expedition - The first full day in Kochi was to explore the area and learn about it.
Day 4 - August 4th - Learning about Hidaka and watching minor league baseball
We woke up early and met up at the Tourism Board office at 8am to explore a local cave (Saruda Cave), a flood abatement pond area with a LOT of Dragonflies (got to see the rare Oni Dragonfly alongside a bunch of others), and then took a tour on the Niyodo river for lunch. All of these were incredibly fun, and it was pretty cool to imagine that my Great Grandparents may have explored the cave for fun as a kid, or swam in the river to cool off on the warm summer days.
After our lunch on the river (they have a boat that explains some local history and a shop that sells bento to eat on the boat), we headed back into Kochi City for baseball. We got back to the hotel to change out of our caving clothes and into some lighter clothes AND our Fighting Dogs Jerseys to support the local team! Got to enjoy a Kochi win and then headed to the local Round 1 to play some DDR and a few other arcade games. Went to sleep early so we could be ready for a full day of family history on the 5th.
Day 5 - August 5th - Learning about my family and Hidaka
Woke up early again to meet up at the Tourism Board office at 8am. From there we caravaned in our cars to the Okina area of Hidaka where my ancestors apparently originally lived. They had a small meeting center there where I got to visit people currently living IN the Okina area, and they showed me the land records dating back to the 1920s or so. Unfortunately my family had apparently moved out of Okina before the 1920s, so while the Koseki had their address, the land records indicated that a separate family had bought and worked on the land afterwards. They still were able to track down the actual locations of the homes, however, so we hiked up the hills to see the 1st original dwelling that was on record, and I took a photo next to the well that would have been used by my family for water. The 2nd dwelling had been destroyed in a mudslide sometime in the past, so the building had been rebuilt, but we still hiked up there too and visited the area.
Around this time, the group showed me some photos of them going through the forest just outside town and up into the mountains searching for my family's old gravestones, and they told me that the gravestones USED to be right outside the 1st and 2nd dwellings, but had been moved around 10 years ago by the descendants of my great grandfather's brother, and they were excited to meet me and show me the current location of the graves later that afternoon/evening! Until then, however, we had a few more things to do in Hidaka.
Next up was the local Temple. The priest? (Not sure the title used) had helped with determining the correct temple/shrines my family would have utilized, so I was shown how to pray/pay respects to the souls of my family that had come before. He also provided me with 5 sticks of incense for us to burn at the actual gravesite (that was located in Kochi City).
After all of the heavier emotional stuff, we had a little break for Omu Raisu (the local specialty in Hidaka) and after learning that my hometown in California had a lot of Tomato farming too, they showed me to their main greenhouses and tomato/produce factory. It was pretty fun to see, as I've spent a LOT of time on my cousins' tomato farms back in the states when I was younger, and it was fun to see the differences (mainly their greenhouse use for their specialized Tomato stuff vs my US family just having giant tracts of land uncovered for the tomatoes. Also - different varieties of tomatoes too due to the specific needs of one vs the other.)
When we finished with all the produce related activities, including a stop to buy produce as tribute for the ancestors, we caravaned again to Kochi City (the exact location I saved on my phone, but I can't remember the area off the top of my head, and it's not too important for the internet to know) where we met up with an older gentleman and his two sons. They ran over to our car, gave us ice cream and ice cold bottles of tea and said "follow us" and jumped into their cars to show us the gravesite (which was maybe 1 km away from their house I think). I was able to "meet" my ancestors. There were a good chunk of graves, and I was shown the different stones for each relative, as well as the Family Crest. We paid our respects/prayed, and talked a bit at the gravesite, eventually moving to a local cafe to continue the conversation for a few more hours. Exchanged contact information and helped update each other's family trees! Once we were all done, and lots of bowing and gift exchanging later, my wife and I finally got back to our Kochi hotel and rested. That was the end of our Kochi stuff for the most part, and we would be leaving to Osaka (area) the next day.
Day 6 - August 6th - Udon and heading to Koshien
Our favorite food is Udon, and we had a mission to eat Udon on every island of Japan this trip for fun. We already had some at the first restaurant in Kochi, but we don't know how...
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