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About Yamaguchi-ken Yamaguchi-ken ("mouth of the mountains prefecture") is at the very western tip of Honshu. Being largely a rural prefecture, Yamaguchi has many beautiful coastal areas, rice fields and mountain scenes, and offers you the chance to experience a slower paced, more traditional Japanese lifestyle where Western influence is not so dominating. A visitor, when traveling through the mountain towns and villages, can often find an old-time Japanese atmosphere. In many of these places, the people do not often come across foreigners, and often take a keen, and friendly interest. Yamaguchi ken has many beautiful and interesting attractions for anyone visiting the area.  Yamaguchi city enjoys a rich history as the alternate capital to Kyoto during the Warring States period and is home to Ruriko-ji, a beautiful five-story pagoda. Yamaguchi City is also the location where St. Francis Xavier, the first Christian missionary to Japan, spent a lot of his time. There is a church here erected in his honor. The historic city of Hagi is an ancient shogunate seat, filled with attractive temples and shrines, and has a ruined castle by the sea. Hagi was home to the philosopher Shoin Yoshida, whose followers helped to end Japan's feudal system. Many old streets of samurai buildings survive untouched and can be easily enjoyed on a bike ride. A unique natural attraction in Yamaguchi-ken is Akiyoshi-dai; an area where fields of rolling green hills are broken up by peculiar limestone spires. Underneath the fields is a vast series of limestone caverns. The most famous of these caves is named Akiyoshi-do, which many tourists come to visit. In March there is an annual festival at Akiyoshi-dai where the locals come to burn the grass in the fields. In addition to the permanent tourist attractions, Yamaguchi ken also is home to many weird and wonderful annual Japanese festivals: Hikari's plum-spitting contest, Hofu's naked man festival, O-Bon (festival of the dead) at one any one of the prefecture's temples, Aio's shrimp catching festival (caught by hand, of course!), firefly watching near Yamaguchi city, widespread potato digging and rice harvesting festivals, and countless other glimpses into traditional Japanese life that may escape you in the blur of the big city. Yamaguchi is a great place to come and discover the quieter side of Japan, but Yamaguchi is also very well situated for travel to more up-beat areas. Hiroshima and Fukuoka are both within easy reach of Yamaguchi if you feel the need to have a livelier shopping, dining and nightlife experience. Also, with 5 bullet train stops within the prefecture, other places in Japan, such as Kyoto, Osaka or Kobe, are only a couple of hours away. In addition to that, Pusan, in South Korea, is just an 8 hour ferry from Shimonoseki or a 3 hour hydrofoil ride from Fukuoka.

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