Running Out of Luck in Fukui
Dinosaurs, mossy temples, and gloomy cliffs; what more could a girl want?
The moody cliffs of Tojinbo.
Fukui, Japan: a prefecture that was not on my radar until I resumed work as a travel consultant, where I happen to have not one, but two coworkers who reside there. Often overlooked as a thoroughfare to Kanazawa up north, even I wasn’t incentivized to pay a visit until hearing my coworkers’ pitches.
Determined to notch at least one more new prefecture into my travel roster by the end of the year, I set my sights on Fukui for the first long weekend of November. While train delays and perpetual rainstorms blighted my original itinerary and my mood, my husband and I stubbornly wrested a somewhat good time from the “lucky well” prefecture.
Over the mountains and through the rice paddies, to Fukui we go
The journey from rural Nara to the dinosaur city of Fukui is not a short one. Totaling 3.5 hours on a normal day, a further hour was added onto our agenda when we faced not one, but two delays in Kyoto Station and Fukui Station. The Thunderbird Express, which runs between Osaka and Fukui, was held up in Kyoto Station for 30 minutes while hungry passengers darted in and out to retrieve fortification. If I thought I was having a bad day, the poor soul who took a little too long to snatch up their bento and thus got left behind on the platform had it much worse.
The second delay occurred at Fukui Station itself, when, due to tight transfer times, we hadn’t had the chance to purchase tickets for the Thunderbird prior to boarding, and so, we were sent to the Shinkansen ticket window to pay. As my chances of seeing Yokokan Garden in the daylight dwindled, I stood in front of three unwashed Europeans and Americans enlightening all of us to the contents of their conversations for a further thirty minutes.
Not once in Japan have I had to wait in line so long for a ticket. We’d left the house just after 12, and it was 4:30 by the time I could breathe fresh air once more.
With an hour until our dinner reservation, Taka and I sped-walked to Yokokan Garden, the night sky already overtaking us, along with drizzling rain. With no more light left, there wasn’t much to see, and observing the rain patters in the koi fish pond did little to turn things around.
Cold and wet, all my hopes were hinged on the seafood dinner we had planned at Kaniemon. Knocking back a yuzu cider and sake, respectively, I was dismayed to find out that the local specialty, Echizen crab, was not actually available until the 6th of November, meaning that we’d missed the season by just a few days. Consequently, we resorted to regular crab rice bowls, sashimi, and a bisected crab grilled over open flame with egg yolk and scallions.
The food was great, but everything going wrong was really starting to get to me at this point. All I wanted was to bathe and get into bed, binge-watching our favorite YouTuber at the moment, Blondie in China, for the rest of the night. After picking up bread for the next day’s breakfast, that’s exactly what I did.
Things are going to get better, right?
Day two was even more chaotic. With a few hours of unexpected sun appearing on the morning forecast, Taka and I inverted our two scheduled items for the day en route to the train station. Because Daihonzan Eiheiji is mostly indoors, I pushed that to the afternoon, instead making my way straight to Tojinbo Cliffs.
Unfortunately, these last-minute attempts to outrun the rain didn’t mesh well with Fukui’s highly irregular public transportation. Another thirty minutes was spent sharing an espresso at Starbucks until we could ride the pink and green Hapi Line once more.
The prolonged travel time was mostly attributed to yet another twenty-minute wait in a station halfway between Fukui and the cliffs, where I tried Suko Cider, the local drink, only to find that it’s just a sweeter version of Fanta melon soda.
A final bus ride later, we’d made it to Tojinbo Cliffs. Wearing ten-year-old Doc Martens long missing their traction, I nearly lost my nerve climbing the rocks, but the viewpoint was incredible. There’s something to be said about the satisfaction of the environment matching how you feel on the inside, and that was certainly the case with these gloomy cliffs. Aquamarine waves rushed at the serrated rocks beneath a grey sky. The whole scene was deliciously moody and reminded me of a Matthew Arnold poem I was particularly fond of in college.
I spent a grand total of ten minutes hearing its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar before the water began pouring from above. Hordes of umbrellas flared up, retreating for cover in the shops just above the cliffs. Oshima, the small island in the distance, would have to wait for another day.
And who could believe it, but we missed the bus by just a hair, adding to the time it would take to get back to Fukui. Too early for lunch, however, Taka and I sucked it up and waited for another lengthy increment.
After finally making it back to dinosaur city, we stopped by a nearby restaurant for a second—but not final—round of kaisendon (seafood rice bowl), this time with the sweet shrimp specialty I was craving. Caffeinated and stomachs full, we still had more time to kill and thus patronized the Fukui Station Starbucks once again until the bus for Eiheiji arrived.
Just thirty minutes later, we pulled up beside the verdant complex of Daihonzan Eiheiji Temple, one of two sites in the entire country for practicing members of Sōtō Zen Buddhism. Even so, I was here for the moss.
Built into a hillside, Eiheiji (as it is often shortened to) forms a series of squares that make it feel endless, yet meditative to walk through. The long, uphill corridors called to mind those of Hasedera Temple in Nara. In contrast, Eiheiji features ornate gold ceilings and statues, and the design of the building offers views of the courtyards from every angle.
Of particular interest to me was the fact that the monks here are not allowed to read. This is the first time I’ve heard of this particular rule, and it’s stuck with me in the weeks since my trip. I wondered if this is thought to allow better focus on the Buddha’s teachings, but the brochure didn’t elaborate.
Just as gorgeous as the interior is the exterior, with moss as far as the eye can see. Beside the exit point lay a small pond with a Buddha statue and frog statue sitting peacefully in the middle, framed by flowers, a moss-covered andon (stone lantern), and cedar trees. These are the sights that make me feel so lucky to live in Japan.
Like Fräulein Maria, I, too, can’t resist a river, so I spent the better part of fifteen minutes traipsing along the Eiheiji River, taking pictures from every single bridge to capture all the angles. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted my husband waving his bright red jacket at me, signaling that it was time to leave. Reluctantly obeying the matador, I caught up before noticing our bus quickly approaching its stop and sprinted to meet it.
Out of breath, I arrived to find a line of maybe 50 people before us, all desperately hoping they’d fit on the bus. Figuring we were in for a long wait in the now heavy rain, I grabbed a bottle of tea from the vending machine and began to plead internally with the heavenly beings above.
My divinations must have reached a merciful ear because, after seeing the pathetic faces of the stragglers about to be left behind, the bus driver decided to make use of the pop-out aisle seats and allowed Taka and me to board. Luck was at last bestowed upon us.
The two of us wrapped up the day with a visit to a nearby izakaya, where we feasted on deep-fried tofu (another Fukui specialty), even more sashimi, and scallops grilled in butter and garlic. Scallops are one of my favorite seafood dishes to order, and this restaurant did not disappoint.
With that, it was time to get cleaned up and binge-watch Brad Mondo before turning in for the night.
The dinosaurs save the day
Day three began with a pitiful breakfast at Toyoko Inn, a budget hotel that’s become twice as expensive and halved in quality over the years. But a free breakfast is a free breakfast, so after washing it down with tea in our tobacco-scented room, we boarded the blue Eiheiji Liner trolley towards Katsuyama.
Originally, I’d planned to head down to Obama on this day to hike part of the Saba Kaido, a road spanning from the town of Obama to Fukui. As is probably made clear by now, the on-and-off rainstorms put a dent in that plan, so we finally gave in to the dinosaur hype and reserved tickets for the Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum.
With the excavation site of Katsuyama Dinosaur Park nearby, the Dinosaur Museum is the largest of its kind in Japan. Fukui City is clearly proud of this establishment, as it is plastered with dinosaur memorabilia. From the animatronic dinosaurs in front of Fukui Station to the dinosaur eggs perfect for photo ops, you can’t help but get swept up in the dinosaur fervor.
Despite the out-of-the-way location, I can attest that it’s genuinely worth going. I don’t have a particularly strong interest in dinosaurs beyond a fondness for the Jurassic Park franchise and nostalgia for The Land Before Time series, but I found myself enthralled by the geologic exhibit, the fossils, the depiction of evolution, and the sheer scale of how big and small the dinosaurs were in life.
Most exhibits have descriptions in English and Japanese, making it accessible for visitors both foreign and Japanese, young and old. Indeed, people of all ages were fascinated by the museum’s offerings, and I found it heartwarming how everyone turned into little kids again walking beneath the towering skeletons.
Including a visit to the bankrupting gift shop to see about getting souvenirs for my coworkers (and a stuffed animal for myself), we spent around two hours in the museum. With the rain starting again, we elected not to venture out to Katsuyama Dinosaur Park, which is geared more toward kids anyway.
Katsuyama, as the “yama” suggests, is a rather beautiful mountain town that I’d love to come back to. Northern Fukui is home to plenty of hiking spots, but on this particular trip, all I could do was longingly admire their mist-covered forms from afar.
Unable to decide on a new restaurant for lunch, Taka and I returned to Kaniemon for our final seafood meal in Fukui. If only we had known that we’d have plenty more time in the area because, after waiting in line for another thirty minutes—if not longer—we discovered that the next two Hokuriku bullet trains down to Tsuruga were fully booked, giving us another two hours in the city!
Public transportation being what it was, there was nothing to do but sit and eat. First, dinosaur excavation pudding, made from Fukui’s dairy and topped by a layer of chocolate dirt, which, if you dig through, you can find a chocolate dinosaur cookie. Second was habutae mochi, a sort of layered hybrid between dorayaki and mochi, with walnuts in the middle for a crunch factor. While the pudding was fantastic, I am kicking myself that I didn’t get more habutae mochi while I had the chance; they were that good.
After a final stop by Starbucks, the two of us were at long last on our way home.
Making the most of trips gone wrong
This trip tested me in a number of ways. With the seemingly endless delays, the exorbitant amount of money spent on crappy hotels, and the rain impeding our original plans, I felt more than a little hopeless. I hate not feeling like I’m getting the most bang for my buck, especially when we had traveled so far to get here. In the moment and even after the fact, I struggled to feel anything but disappointment at everything that was going wrong, rather than appreciate what was going right.
That being said, I am only further encouraged to go to Fukui again, and hopefully, this time, we’ll have better luck with the weather. Looking back on the photos, we were able to see so many beautiful places in Fukui and eat seafood of a quality that I seldom find in landlocked Nara. Daihonzan Eiheiji might be my favorite temple in Japan, bar none.
At the moment of writing this blog post, now a couple weeks out from the trip, I’m finally making my peace with this somewhat failed jaunt to Fukui as an incentive to come back for more. Because that’s travel, right? Things more often than not go wrong, and all we can do is eke whatever joy we can out of the destination, especially one as fun as Fukui.
Access:
Yokokan Garden:
About a 10 to 15-minute walk from Fukui Station. Entry fee: 220 yen.
Tojinbo Cliffs:
From Fukui Station, take the Hapi Line Local to Awara Onsen Station (16 mins), boarding the 97 Tojinbo Line bus to Tojinbo (37 mins). Although this route appears to be the quickest, you will have to wait up to twenty minutes at Awara Onsen Station. Luckily, there is a souvenir shop selling snacks and hot meals while you wait. From the Tojinbo stop, it’s about a seven-minute walk to the cliffs themselves. There is a longer coastline walk you can do if the weather is nice. Either way, I recommend wearing shoes with decent traction, allowing you to climb on the rocks for the best views. Entry fee: none, but you can ride a sightseeing boat around the cliffs for 1800 yen.
Daihonzan Eiheiji:
Take the Eiheiji Liner, a direct bus from Fukui Station, to Eiheiji, lasting about 30 minutes. From the bus stop, it’s about a 10-minute walk to Daihonzan Eiheiji. Entry fee: 700 yen.
Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum:
Board the Echizen Railway at Fukui Station, getting off at Katsuyama Station (54 mins). Transfer to the Dinosaur Museum Direct Bus, arriving 12 minutes later. Ticket price: 1000 yen, available here.
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