Japan Local Sightseeing Guide: Hagi city and Matsushita Sonjuku; the cityscape and private school of Edo period

You can see the cityscape of Edo period at Hagi city in Yamaguchi prefecture. Hagi city is one of the most influential city in Japan at last years of Edo period, about 1860.

A samurai residence area remains there, it has a nostalgic atmosphere. This must be interesting for foreign travellers especially.

This is a street corner in Samurai residence area. The outlook is not good, it's an artifice for defending against the invasion of enemies.

Now the inside of some samurai residences is field of bitter summer orange. Actually, bitter summer orange is a specialty of Hagi city. Hagi is known as the first place that bitter summer orange is grown on commercial business in 1876.

The stone wall and moat of Hagi castle also remains, too. Hagi castle was built as a point of the Chugoku region by Terumoto Mouri in 1604. He is known as one of the leading feudal lord.

The castle tower of Hagi castle doesn't remain, but there is a one-sixth scale model of Hagi castle near Higashi-Hagi station. You can see the entire appearance there.

Matsushita Sonjuku is one of the most famous private school of Edo period, it was built in 1842. Many samurai studied a broad range of scholarship such as Confucianism, military science and history here.
They graduated this school and raised a Meiji revolution.

You can also enjoy the view of sea in Hagi. There are both beautiful sandy beach and cliff. Actually, there are many cliff at the coast of Sea of Japan side.