A Day Trip in Kyotango: Kumihama, Amino and Mineyama

Notes from a full-day or half-day trip around Kyotango, split into three areas by station.

Kumihama Station: the Inaba merchant residence and Nyoiji Temple

I was staying on the narrow sandbar of Kumihama Bay, and the nearest supermarket was in the station area on the opposite shore, directly to the south.

Spot one is the "Inaba residence, home of a wealthy merchant", which is just a rich family's house: not super special, but not boring either. Two exhibits stuck with me. One was a bridal palanquin (嫁入り籠) you can sit in. It's super tiny and narrow, and you can only hug your knees or kneel, and even if Japanese women back then were only 140 to 145 cm tall, this was still the only way to sit! The other was a Japanese koto you can play freely, the first time I'd seen one like that!!

Spot two is Nyoiji Temple. The plants and trees are well kept and it's very calming, and when you leave, the gate faces Kumihama Bay, beautiful right to the last moment.

Amino Station

I set out in the morning, took the train to Amino Station, and walked 40 to 50 minutes to Fujiwara Sengyoten uRashiMa for pizza as lunch, then walked another hour to Kotohikihama.

Fujiwara Sengyoten uRashiMa

I went alone to this pizza place in Amino, "Fujiwara Sengyoten uRashiMa". In 2012 the owner won a silver medal in the Fantasia (creative) category at the Neapolitan Pizza Olympics (Pizza Olympic).

The shop is small, with about 5 to 6 seats. Someone had a reservation that day, but I got lucky and got the one remaining seat. There are lots of pizza options: besides the classic flavors, there are original pizzas using local ingredients and seafood, and you can order half-and-half, so even one person can have two flavors, which is great!

The appetizer platter was rich, and I think each was drizzled with olive oil or something before serving (I forgot). Each had a different flavor, but several had the same oily texture, which felt a bit... distracting? One appetizer that particularly stuck with me was fried sweet potato bits with a sugar coating, very much like the "Yongbo sweet potato crisps" you can buy at Taiwanese supermarkets. (I later brought some of those crisps for Japanese people to try, and it was a sweet potato snack texture they'd never had either.)

Overall, it wasn't super, super amazing, but it was definitely tasty, and not that traditional or predictable. They all had a sense of variation, and I recommend it!

I spent around 5,000 yen eating alone (pizza + appetizer platter + a soft drink), which hurt a bit... hahaha

Notes

• Fujiwara Sengyoten uRashiMa: 11:30 to 19:00, closed Thursdays (other days off are on their IG). Pizza is around 2,500 yen.
• 40 minutes on foot from Amino Station, or 4 minutes by bus plus 20 minutes on foot...

Kotohikihama

Kotohikihama, the singing beach, is a famous nationally designated natural monument and scenic spot. The wife of the strawberry farm owner mentioned it when she heard I was coming to Kyotango next. It must be pretty famous, right? So why were there only two or three visitors...?

From uRashiMa I walked an hour to the beach (not recommended, so tiring XD). On the way I took a break at an ice cream shop run at a ranch (the ice cream was so-so... my top recommendation in Kyotango is "Sora", which also started as a ranch and is the most famous).

The wind on the beach was huge, sand flying everywhere, hardly anyone around, a bit scary. When I stopped and listened carefully, I really could hear the sand clinking and rustling, apparently because the sand is 75% quartz and makes a sound when rubbed. And you can really feel the sand hitting your body and your camera lens.

When I looked it up, I found there's also an area near the same spot called "Taikohama" (Drum Beach), where stamping hard supposedly resonates with the bedrock and makes a "don don" sound like a drum. (I didn't know then so I didn't go, so all I can say is "supposedly".)

On Google Maps I found a foot bath (Open-Air-Bath) landmark, roughly below the campground, next to the wooden stairs. It's a concrete artificial pool of about one tsubo. It looks very basic and nothing special, but soaking your feet while looking at the sea is what makes it special! You get the achievement of "soaking while looking at the sea". So cool.

When I arrived, three middle-aged foreigners who live in Japan were soaking their feet, and they said only locals know about this foot bath. On the way back to the bus stop I picked persimmons from the roadside, then took a bus of about 15 minutes back to Amino Station. So fast, haha!

Notes

• About 15 minutes by bus from Amino Station, then a 10-minute walk.
• Not open in winter. In July and August you can soak in a swimsuit, and in spring and autumn only the foot bath is open.

Mineyama Station: community café, Kotohira Shrine and the komaineko

Mineyama is where daily-life conveniences are most concentrated in Kyotango. I went in the early afternoon, first to "まちまち案内所 (Machimachi Information Center)", a place like a community café where people come to exchange ideas. It's a big space that used to be a lumber shop. I was mainly interested in the model of the citizen-started "みんなの図書館 (everyone's library)", since each shop plans and runs it differently, so whenever I have time I visit different examples.

After looking around, I originally wanted to go to the regional revitalization hub "Roots (Kyotango City Future Challenge Exchange Center)", but a big part of that space serves high school students, so I loitered in front of it three times and never dared to go in...! (So regretful! I came back half a year later and still didn't go QQ)

Next I went to Kotohira Shrine, ate takoyaki nearby, and went to see Japan's only "komaineko" (cat guardian) stone statue. In the end I decided to go back to Machimachi for an early dinner before leaving, and started chatting with the staff member serving me. We talked a lot about cooking, about how I didn't dare go into Roots, and about the shop's "一箱本棚オーナー制度" (one-box bookshelf owner system) and so on. She told me the person who planned the system would come by some day.

A few days later I went a second time, and something unexpected happened, which I wrote about in another post: 〈A Side Quest from Work Exchange: Cooking with Japanese People, for Japanese People〉.

Further reading: 〈A Working Holiday Year in Japan: Preparation, Costs, and a Life That Isn't Mostly Working〉 (2026-08-31)