Music & Festivals
For a truly unique experience, head to Creole Cafe which is easily found immediately below the towering and iconic Beppu Tower.
At a glance
Eclectic restaurant by day and in the evenings a popular nightclub.
Visitors to Ota, a usually quiet village on the Kunisaki Peninsula, swell the local population by a factor of 30 or more over two days in mid-October when its popular Doburoku…
At a glance
A festival of raw sake that brings this sleepy village alive for two days each year.
Azul, found in Oita City’s central Takemachi shopping arcade, generally caters to clubbers with an appetite for left of field electronic music, but depending on the night can also…
At a glance
A popular night club with one of the best sounds systems in west Japan.
Like so much to be found in Kunisaki, nothing fully prepares one for Tennen-ji temple, a beautifully rustic and understated thatched structure protruding from a cave at the base of…
At a glance
Another of Kunisaki's serenly atmospheric temples. This one is famed for its rubustious Shujo-onie festival.
Usuki’s grand temples hints at the power it once held and wealth it accumulated in the Edo Period, when the samurai ruled the land. Today, it is a compact and quiet town of…
At a glance
An historic castle town with connections to the Portuguese, Dutch and British that stretch back over 400 hundred years.
Drum TAO, a flamboyantly, dynamic drum and dance troupe that has been lauded overseas as ‘Supernaturally fit and superbly trained… Stunning… Fully deserving of the standing ovation…
At a glance
One of Japan's most powerful and dynamic entertainments.
Mid-summer every year, Funai Pacchin brings a visually extravagant and wonderfully crashing soundscape to Oita City when thousands throng the streets to celebrate Tanabata, a…
At a glance
Oita City's wonderfully vibrantly vigourous and popular mid-summer festival.
TAO no Oka is the dazzling entertainment facility created by the dazzlingly entertaining Drum TAO. Set high in the Aso-Kuju National Park, it is certainly one of the world’s most…
At a glance
Drum TAO's new performance and art centre, which has one of the world's most dramatically located outdoor theatres in the world.
Yufuin, is a refined, up-market, onsen hot spring town in wonderful rural setting towered over by Mt. Yufu-dake, an extinct volcano. The town boast a wealth of cafes, restaurants,…
At a glance
A chic onsen hot spring resort in a beautiful rural setting.
Taketa is a popular with visitors and people looking for a life in the countryside. Taketa is replete with history, appealing townscape and verdant hilly countryside, great food,…
At a glance
An impressive piece of community architect and cultural hall.
Oita Prefecture is replete with a wide range of delicious foods from its mountains, rivers, fields and seas, and the ise-ebi spiny lobster is, undoubtedly, a crowning glory in this…
At a glance
A autumn gourmet delicacy.
The exterior clean, white modernist architectural lines of Sousou-An are an eye-catching anomaly in the rural Kunisaki Peninsula. Yet these walls delineate within a completely…
At a glance
A stylish and eclectically furnished cafe in rural Kunisaki.
Hidden within the myriad collection of izakaya restaurants and karaoke parlours at the core of Beppu’s nightlife district is The Hell Bar, a name being a hat tip to the city’s…
At a glance
Beppu's other hell, an intimate nightclub in the centre of Beppu.
CMVC is a contemporary live music and arts space situated in the heart of Hita, a regional town well-known for its historic atmosphere that is also home to a small but well…
At a glance
Hita's nightclubbing soul.
Kitsuki is a compact, quiet and genteel town that still retains the atmosphere it once had as samurai stronghold. The kitadai samurai quarter is reached via a flight of old…
At a glance
Once the strong hold of a samurai clan closely associated with the ruling shogun, this old seaside castle town retains a pleasant air of its past.
The ferry across the placid Seto Inland Sea only takes 20 minutes to sail from Imi to Himeshima, an island lying off the Kunisaki Peninsula’s north coast. Yet, however short the…
At a glance
A charming island off the Kunisaki Peninsula's north coast, where the locals are particularly friendly and the seafood plentiful.
Taketa developed at the foot of Oka-jo, to serve the castle and its samurai inhabitants, and the charm of an older time is apparent in the townscape to this day. However, Taketa,…
At a glance
An old castle town that is well-worth a visit.