Page 129 - homestyle New Zealand (February - March 2020)

Design destination —— LIVING

LEFT Looking across the
bay to Beppu at sunrise, the
steam billowing from the city’s
many onsens looks industrial,
but it’s actually completely
natural, emanating from the
hot springs they harness.

In eras past, Oita — a prefecture on
the island of Kyushu in south-western
Japan — was known as Toyo no kuni,
meaning ‘land of abundance’. The term
was coined to reflect the vast array of
food on offer from the mountains and
the sea, and the concept still resonates
today. This area is indeed a beautiful
setting in which to experience abundant
delicacies, as well as hot springs and
hospitality — the combination a recipe
for some serious rest and relaxation.
The coastal city of Beppu alone is home
to about 2000 onsens with a combined
hot-spring output greater than any
other area in Japan. Public steam baths,
ryokans (inns) with intimate bathing
facilities, mud baths, sand baths where
you can be buried in heated sand… you
can experience it all.
Culinary culture and bathing rituals
aren’t the only thing Oita is known
for, though. There’s a legacy of arts and
crafts here that a new wave of artisans
is adopting to carve out an alternative
way of life for themselves outside of
the main centres.
My host on this trip was Eiko
Hashimoto, a producer at the Oita
Asahi Broadcasting Corporation; I
tapped into her knowledge of the region
to visit makers, food producers and
hospitality specialists who have found
their creative calling here. We teamed
up with Oita Made — an initiative
developed to revitalise the creative
economy by stocking independent
artisans’ products in a dedicated store
and supporting their distribution —
to visit the studios and workplaces
of some of the people they champion.
In Beppu, Cotake — the workshop
and store of Mikiko Sato — is a great
place in which to observe bamboo
crafts in action. Mikiko specialises in
fine bamboo jewellery and also sells
a range of intricately woven baskets,
trays, kitchenware and decorative
objects. The skill involved in splitting
a hollow round of bamboo into the
thin strips required for weaving is
really quite something to witness. >

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