As far as day trips go, this one had all the trademarks of a typical Tokyo Fox one as it included train stations, foxes and football which have all played a fairly significant part over the years in terms of content. The planning of such trips generally starts with the football match and then the rest of the day is filled in and around it. Next up were the stations of interest, and finally I stumbled on the fox-blessed hot spring town which was a huge bonus for me.

Family commitments in the morning meant I didn’t actually leave my parents-in-law’s apartment in Hiroshima till mid-morning. Knowing I had no choice but to ride the Shinkansen (bullet train) back that night, I decided to save a bit of money on the outward journey by taking the long and slow local train route along the San’yo Line. Besides, I still had time to spare on this occasion, and it was quite a pleasant ride crawling along the coast.

The first stop in Yamaguchi Prefecture after about three hours was Yotsutsuji, and my initial impressions of this station were favourable. I enjoyed the sleek, modern simplicity of the waiting room as well as the two big trees either side of it acting like guards akin to the stone foxes at a shrine.

I left the station in a positive mood but many, many months later in my “research” (a quick look on Wikipedia!) I discovered the more visually pleasing station building of old. More details here.

For me, Yotsutsuji was just something of a pit-stop en-route to the next station which was  home to a platform zero. Ube station has a total of six platforms including a cutout one which allows it to serve two tracks. One of them is the Ube Line which runs on platform zero itself.

The journey north of there included a transit but ultimately my first ever visit to Shin-Yamaguchi station was quite disappointing as the platform zero is no longer in operation. There are some very limited signs of its existence down at the end of platform 1 where there’s a closed gate to the part of the platform which presumably served platform zero in the past. More details here.

It was only whilst I was checking out the nearest stations on Google Maps for accessing Renofa Yamaguchi’s football stadium that I came across my next port of call. 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.

Sadly, 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. More details here.

The fairly short walk from there to the footbath took me past a fair few fox statues. I didn’t know it at the time but there are many of them dotted around the town. As tempted as I am to research them it’s probably best to not know for now as it’s not like I’ll be revisiting this area anyime soon.

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! As for this post, not a problem!!

There are many hot spring baths and footbaths in the area but the one I opted to go to was a pleasant wooden one on Yunoka Street just ten minutes 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 sports  stadium.

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

It’s always nice to tick off a new stadium and my first impressions were favourable as I saw the fine structure that is the main stand which was rennoved in 2011. The rest of the stadium doesn’t look like it’s changed much since when it opened in 1963! I chose to sit in the back stand as I believe it’s better to be able to see the star attraction rather than being in it looking out at something less appealing.

The match itself was a seven goal thriller with the home side Renofa Yamaguchi edging it 4-3 thanks to their opponents Tochigi turning the ball into their own net twice! More details here.

Totally unexpectedly, my father-in-law then announced the following morning that we were all going to Yamaguchi to see a relative of his so back I went albeit via car this time. Yamaguchi is a place I’d love to explore more but even from neighbouring prefecture Hiroshima it is quite difficult (or certainly very time-consuming!) to do too much of it without a car.

Click here to read ‘The Station With A Great Sea-View In Yamaguchi Prefecture’

Click here to read ‘Akiyoshido Limestone Cave In Mine City’

Click here to read ‘On The Fox Trail……At Motonosumi Inari Shrine (Yamaguchi)’

Click here to read ‘A Day In Yamaguchi Prefecture’