KANSAI JAPAN, 2015

Pastel white, pale crimson, moss blue, bright green, and various shades of charcoal filled up our viewfinder like an Impressionist painting capturing the colour palette of the Japanese spring. It was the second week of April. We set off to the Kansai region in central Honshu Island of Japan for a 9-day vacation. We spent over half of our time at the southern Kii Peninsula, where the century-old pilgrimage routes now known as the Kumano Kodo crisscrossing the Kii Mountains in the Wakayama Prefecture. In the midst of cedar groves, river valleys, bamboo forests, rice paddies, and tea farms lays the legendary Hongu Taisha, the spiritual centrepiece in this part of Honshu, and the charming Yunomine, the nation’s oldest onsen town which had been witnessing 18 centuries of the Japanese bathing culture. Apart from Kumano Kodo, we also had our first ever hanami experience at Mount Yoshino, where 30,000 sakura trees dotted over the hills from foot to summit. Tasting seasonal fruit and indulging in the local cuisines, from seafood in Tanabe and Kii Katsuura, onsen kaiseki in the Kii Mountains, beef teppanyaki in Kobe, to street food in Osaka, also heighten the whole travel experience. The journey is completed with a visit to the timeless masterpiece by architect Tadao Ando. Having a trip started from hiking in the mountains and visiting ancient temples along the way, and ended with some finest contemporary architecture in Japan allows us to appreciate the connections between Japanese minimalist design to the ancient aesthetic and spatial concepts of Shinto shrines and traditional timber houses.