Last Updated: Nov 18, 2023

Fukui’s Town of Obama

Visiting So-called “Nara by the Sea”

This story was originally published on donnykimball.com and has been syndicated here on Medium

To understand the allure of Obama, we’re first going to have to take a look at the town’s legacy across the ages. Since the early mists of time, this seaside hamlet has played an important role as a port of trade with mainland Asia. In ancient tombs all throughout the surrounding regions, archeologists have uncovered artifacts and other relics from China and Japan’s other Asian neighbors. As the years progressed, Obama continued to be an important center for nautical trade and eventually was established as the capital of Wakasa Province under the Heian court’s Ritsuryo system.

Due to its commercial connections with China and the rest of Asia, Obama was an important conduit through which Buddhism flowed into Japan. As a result, Obama grew to be something of a temple town in its early years and even today, there’s a staggering number of influential establishments for a rural city of its size. In fact, Obama is home to so many Buddhist enclaves that it is often referred to by the nickname “Nara by the Sea” due to their peculiarly high number. What’s more, one of the more eminent of the temples actually shares a deep connection with Nara’s Todai-ji (but more on that later on).

For a long while, Obama’s role was that of a provider to the ancient capital of Kyoto (then called Heian-kyo). The now small hamlet sat on the starting point of what would eventually come to be called the Saba Kaido which quite literally means “the Mackerel Highway.” As the moniker suggests, this road functioned as a way to ferry both fresh seafood as well as other commodities like salt down from Obama to the inner city of Kyoto. Moreover, this key conduit also helps to channel things like high culture that would otherwise never find their way out to a remote place like Obama.

As the years rolled by, Obama went on to become a bustling castle town. Though it would change hands a number of times over the decades of Japan’s Warring States period (1467–1615), stewardship of Obama ultimately ended up in the hands of the Sakai clan, a family that was closely related to the Tokugawa shogunate. Throughout the nearly three centuries of peace that the Tokugawas ushered in, Obama largely continued its role as a port town…