In the latter half of the last decade the ‘On The Fox Trail…’ series spawned over 20 posts, and I really did think I had covered pretty much any fox-related place in Japan. That wasn’t the case though as this fox-blessed hot spring town somehow bypassed my attention.

It was only whilst I was checking out the nearest stations on Google Maps for accessing Renofa Yamaguchi’s football stadium last August that I came across a few interesting sights. Yabara is actually the closest station to the Ishin Me-Life Stadium but Yudaonsen is also within walking distance and proved to be an undiscovered gem for me.

My time at Yudaonsen was fairly limited as I didn’t arrive until just before 5:30 pm with the J2 match scheduled to kick-off 90 minutes later. 30 minutes of that time would also be needed for walking to the stadium but thankfully the onsen (hot spring bath) town was fairly small and I was able to do what I wanted to do in my allotted time.

Legend has it that about 800 years ago a priest witnessed a white fox delicately dipping its damaged paw into the therapeutic waters of a small pond at the foot of a local mountain. The fox was instantly healed and as news of this mircale spread people from all over Japan began to visit the area to benefit from such healing properties in the local waters. That fox was later honoured by the erection of a wonderful eight-metre high white  statue.

It’s located right outside Yudaonsen (Yamaguchi Line) and has a strong impact as you exit the station. There is also a foxy post box nearby.

The female fox mascot in the face-in-the-hole board is called Yuko, and the girl on the left is local table tennis star Kasumi Ishikawa who won medals at the 2012, 2016 and 2020 Olympic games.

There is an information board detailing the story of the legendary white fox.

A short distance up the road were a couple of fox statues. The first one I noticed was a sleeping fox behind a wooden bench.

Behind that was another small fox statue and a map. I didn’t know it at the time but there are many fox statues dotted around the town. I managed to see a few but didn’t have time to research and locate all of them. I still haven’t done that and maybe won’t as it’s not like I’ll be revisiting this area anytime soon. Ignorance is bliss sometimes!

Next up was Inoue Park; a pleasant area of greenery with another statue.

There was even a climbing frame and slide designed to look like a fox but had it not featured the head then I wouldn’t have guessed it was such an animal! Sadly, I don’t consider it decent enough to justify its inclusion in the long running ‘Interesting Japanese Playground Structures’ series on Tokyo Fox!

There are a few footbaths available for free use in the neighbourhood and the first one I encountered was a small one in the park and naturally it was guarded by a couple of foxes.

There was another footbath just beyond that.

The one I opted to go to was a bit further on from that. It was a pleasant wooden one on Yunoka Street and was still only a ten minute walk north of the station.

I may have only soaked my weary feet in the bath for a few minutes but it felt so good, and was a much welcomed stop for a bit of revitalisation ahead of my half hour walk to the Ishin-Me Life Stadium.

Some of the views en-route to the stadium were glorious with nature aplenty including the beautiful mountains fringing the region.

The match itself (a seven goal thriller) was the main reason to be in this part of Yamaguchi Prefecture but I felt lucky to have come across this fox-blessed hot spring town in the process of preparing for that which was a huge bonus.

Click here to read ‘TF Top 10……Fox Shrines In Japan (On The Fox Trail Special)’

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Click here to read ‘On The Fox Trail……At The Babymetal Shrine From The ‘Megitsune’ Video (Tokyo)’

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