In Japan, Unexpected Holiday at the Beach

Most foreign visitors zip from Tokyo through northern Honshu to Hokkaido so quickly that they bypass some of Japan’s most spectacular country without knowing what they missed--a 100-mile stretch of coast so rugged and spectacular that it is a national park.

It’s called Rikuchu Kaigan National Park. Kaigan means coast and Rikuchu is named after the ancient province that forms Honshu’s north Pacific bulge.

I nearly missed it too. A friend and I were enjoying a self-guided wine tour of northern Japan and headed toward a little winery, curious to find out why it called itself Edelwein. Before we got there the mid-August O’bon festival shut everything down and handed us an unexpected three-day holiday. Over coffee, we tried to decide what to do.

Looking for Edelwein

“We could go on to Hokkaido and stop at Edelwein on the way back.”

“No. We might miss it.”

“Well, we could spend a couple of days at the beach.”

“What beach?”

“The beach national park . . . Rikuchu Kaigan.”

“Let’s go.”

The next afternoon we found the beach we were looking for, a 10-minute bus ride from Miyako.

“What did you say the name of this place was?”

“Jodogahama. It means Paradise Beach. “

We took one long glance and could see that it really was.

Some people lay stretched out, relaxing on the pebbly strand, while others splashed, paddled and snorkeled in the smooth water of the bay. The beach was sheltered from the open ocean on the left by a narrow peninsula that jutted straight up to a jagged crest then slid obliquely into the bay’s aqua depths.

Atop the rocky summit stood a grove of ancient twisted little red pines, the lowest, lowliest members of which leaned precariously from their tiny vertical toeholds halfway down the cliff.

Green Kelp Forest

We jumped into the warm water and paddled out into the bay, floating above a sunlight-dappled, green kelp forest. Below us, orange and yellow fish wriggled among the fronds.

When we reached the peninsula’s far tip, only sea gulls and cormorants stood guard as we waded ashore between tide pool colonies of small purple mussels, punctuated by brilliant brown and green algae and miniature blue-green anemones.

Continuing our swim around the point, we rode the mild swells of the ocean. Paddling farther, we came to a rocky shelf where the currents swirled into deep yellow, green and purple tide pools. There, along with several other swimmers, we floated, snorkeled and sunbathed the afternoon away.

The next day we headed back by train through the green mountain and forest interior of Iwate Prefecture.

“This looks a lot like Oregon or Washington.”

“Or Germany and Austria.”

“Look at that golden wheat . . . waving in the breeze . . . just like South Dakota.”

“Yes . . . if it weren’t for one thing.”

“What?”

“It’s rice.”

No Eroded Hills

Never in all of our months in Japan had we seen one eroded hillside, and Iwate was no exception.

Everywhere, above the beautifully manicured fields of corn, beans, tobacco and rice, thick groves of conifers climbed the hillsides and filled every mountain draw. The forests, like the fields, were tended by farm families and their helpers.

Now and then we would see them in their little forest preserves, trimming cedar or fir, and measuring the progress of each tree against the time of harvest, 10 or 20 years hence.

We passed Iwate’s bays--broad, fiordlike drowned valleys--the source of the seafood bounty that we had admired at the fish market at Miyako. These had included, besides scallops, oysters and abalone, many kinds of fish--trout, bream, flatfish, salmon--and a variety of sea urchin that is steamed and served as a delicacy in restaurants.

Big Oyster Industry

From the shore we saw hundreds of wooden oyster frames, appearing from afar like a regatta of match sticks lined up on the shallow glassy water. Here and there we glimpsed a boat with people gathering oysters, which they would pry open and cut loose, bundling the empty shells into tall stacks next to their shoreline shanties.

Interspersed between the fishing villages and the oyster beds, at places where the bay seemed bluest and the sand brightest, we passed pine-shadowed beaches sprinkled with sunbathers where families played in the surf, while farther out, swimmers paddled among the gentle blue swells.

Our three days happily spent, we resumed our trip and arrived at Edelwein.

A conscientious young guide and wine maker, Masashiro Takahata, had just treated us to a very good Merlot. A clutter of opened wine bottles, glasses and corks lay on the table in front of us.

“How did your winery get the name Edelwein?” we asked.

Sister City in Austria

“Our town, Ohasama, has a sister city in Austria, Berndorf, near Vienna. Anyway, the Edelweiss flower, which grows in Austria, is also found on a mountain near here.”

Takahata pointed to a photo on the wall of a hulking, rock-crested green mountain.

“That’s Hayachine Mountain, where our Edelweiss grows. In Japan we call the Edelweiss the hayachine usuyukiso .”

My friend asked one more question.

“Does this mean that Edelwein is the ‘Sound of Music’ winery?”

Takahata smiled.

“That’s right.”

-- -- --

The Rikuchu Coast is famous for its towering, pine-clad seascapes all the way from scenic Goishi (north of Sendai) to the wave-swept sea arches below the soaring cliff at Kitamiyazaki, north of Morioka.

In Iwate most travelers’ tracks lead to the warm, summer-festive fishing ports of Kessenuma in the south or Miyako (which means capital, a name probably coined by the lords of old Japan who had been banished from Kyoto to this place and who longed for their beloved city).

Travelers can reach many beautiful places by taking the train to the Rikuchu Coast, from which they can loop back and rejoin the north-south Shinkansen line ahead of where where they left it two or three days earlier.

Edelwein is a city-owned cooperative winery that crafts the excess produce of about 300 small family growers into an ever-increasing annual total of about 15,000 cases of respectable white, rose and red table wine.

Edelwein invites visitors for wine tasting by appointment to the winery in Ohasama town on Route 283 about 10 miles by bus northeast of the Shin-Hanamaki Shinkansen station or about twice as far southeast of Morioka.

Contact the winery by writing to Edel Wein Co. 10-18-3 Ohasama, Ohasama-cho, Hienuki-gun, Iwate-ken, Japan.

The only eyesore along the Rikuchu Coast is the hulking steel mill on the harbor at Kamaishi, an hour by train south of Miyako. If you happen to pass through Kamaishi, do it quickly.

For more information about travel in Japan, contact the Japan National Tourist Organization, 624 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles 90017, or call (213) 623-1952.