Hello, everyone!
The rainy season is starting now in Japan. We have less tourists in rainy season in general, so it must be a good chance for me to introduce more hidden spots through Michi no Eki Aso blog.
I didn’t use to see many foreign tourists driving in Japan, but I think now everybody realize that it is definitely easy and convenient to have a rental car for the trip in Kyushu.
So, I can show more places where you can reach only by car then!
Today, I will feature Oshitoishi Stone Hill Park.
Oshitoishi park is located in the middle of the vast grassland outside of Aso caldera. The view of rolling and undulating hills made by the pyroclastics flow of massive eruption occurred in Aso 90000 years ago is absolutely amazing.
But what makes this park unique is not only this view. The hundreds of rocks lying on the top of the hill, they are very interesting geologically, archaeologically or even astronomically?!
Driving to this place is a little bit tricky. I recommend you go there on the clear day for the great view and also from the safety point of view.
After you turn at the sign on Mazeno Mystery Road, the road become narrow and unpaved.
Ditches are at both sides so please drive carefully. It is basically quite flat and easy to see the other car coming. There are a couple spots you can wait to let the other car pass as well.
After driving bumpy road for 5 min, all the sudden you will see a nice parking lot.
The car park is free but you need to pay the admission fee. (200 JPY/person) Here, you can have a compass with a guiding map. What is this for??
I can show you later. Let’s go!
After walking on the nice wood chip paved trail upwards for 5 min, we will reach to the top of the hill.
Many rocks with different sizes, different shapes are scattered everywhere.
The first big rocks you will see on this hill are these, called “HASAMI ISHI“.
It means “Sandwiching Rocks”, and if you are a liar you cannot go through between these 2 rocks.
See? It proved me a honest person!
Let’s see my husband.
He was.. cheating, he was a liar lol !!
It was just a fun game but there is another story for these rocks.
You can see the sun rises between these 2 rocks on summer solstice day, and you can see the sun sets between the rocks on winter solstice day.
I ‘ve always thought about coming here on these days, but I ‘ve never been able to come. Someday, I would love to see it!
Next big rock has petroglyph on it. Cattle and Snake.
The pronunciation of these 2 letters match to the name of area. Naka and Baru . Wow, really… .
There are a lot of mysteries here. Some other rocks were used for the local ancient people’s ritual. Some rocks are lining up and it matches to the path of the sun…etc.
And the last mystery was the largest rock,OSHITO ISHI.The park was named after this rock.
There is a story that the giant demons were playing juggling these rocks at night. Because of this story or not, the film shooting of “Attack on Titan” was held here.
Okay, finally it was the time to use the compass. Let’s walk around the OSHITOISHI rock with the compass on your palm.
The red hand was pulled by the rock and when I was behind the rock the compass got lost and the hand spined around. It was my third time to do this, the compass never worked right here.
Honestly, there is a way to explain the lining up rocks and the huge magnetic rock geologically, but I will remain it as a big mystery this time 😀
We can see the rocks on the top of the hill in the middle of vast grassland in distance even nowadays. I can imagine easily how special and sacred and mysterious this place was for ancient people.
Just standing on the same hill, feeling the power of the rocks which had attracted people since the dawn of the history was a quite unique experience.
Kana
