#122 - #125 Sunday, June 29, 2025: Handa Red Brick Warehouse, Noborigama Toei Kiln, The Pottery Footpath and Rinku Beach, Aichi.

Jun 30, 2025

They do like a red brick warehouse in Japan. Yokohama is proud of its red brick buildings, as is Hakodate, both of which have featured in these writings of mine. Today it was the turn of the Handa Red Brick Building in Aichi.

It felt very similar to the other warehouses I had visited - an aesthetically pleasing building that has been refashioned for a modern purpose. This is perhaps not surprising as its architect was Tsumaki Yorinaka who had been involved in the Yokohama buildings’ design. Clearly a fellow who likes a red box. The Handa Red Brick Building was constructed in 1897-98 and was home to the Kabuto Beer Brewery. A large sign still stands outside announcing Kabuto Beer and inside now consists of a cafe and a gift shop where Kabuto Beer can be purchased at a somewhat lofty fee of ¥700 a bottle. Mind you, the brewery did churn out a gold-medal-winning beer at the 1900 Paris Expo so perhaps it is worth every yen. Kabuto was a prominent beer during the Edo era, but along came the second world war and brewing ceased and the building became a storage reserve for aircraft parts. It later fell into disuse before finally being registered as a Tangible Cultural Property in 2009 and being renovated into its current state in 2015.

As well as the shop and cafe, the inside hosts a wonderful woody smell and a small museum dedicated to the history of Kabuto beer, including some rather splendid old advertising posters.I spent a happy half hour or so inside before getting back in the oven that was my car and heading to Tokoname to find an old kiln and discover some of Aichi’s history regarding pottery.

Tokoname has long been known as a pottery producing region in Japan and has been firing creations in noborigama, or ‘climbing kilns’ since the early 17th century. Noborigama kilns were often built on hillsides as they contain several chambers which rise in height, with each chamber building upon the residual heat of the previous one. This enables multiple glazes to be fired simultaneously. The most famous of these kilns is the Toei Kiln which operated from 1887 until 1974 and has eight firing chambers and ten chimneys.

This kiln can be viewed on The Pottery Footpath (Yakimono No Sanpomichi) a route which meanders for a few kilometres through narrow alleys and past ancient pottery workshops, kilns, and fabulous streets with repurposed pottery built into the ground and walls. Along the way you pass small sculptures dotted here and there. Amongst the dusty shops and arty looking fellows with wispy beards are normal houses with laundry hanging out to dry, reminding you that this is more than just a tourist site. People live here and hopefully don’t mind too much when outsiders turn up and peer over their garden walls at their socks and t-shirts. Anyway the walk is well worth doing and it made for a better stroll than the pottery footpath I had visited in Okinawa a couple of weeks ago.

Finally, it was time for the beach. Well, a brief stop anyway. As I was nearby, I thought I would pop along and have a look at Rinku Beach, a long stretch of sandy coastline that sits opposite Nagoya’s Centria Airport and offers both seaside frolics and Boeing-based spectacle. There were plenty of visitors and I sat awhile enjoying the sun and the ocean whilst also watching planes taking off and coming in to land.

The beach had a quiet side and a busy side. This was the quiet side.

Along the edge of the sand there was an area for eating and drinking, a nice Sea And Sky Terrace Cafe and, somewhat oddly in my view, a few sort of makeshift saunas. Yes, saunas. It was as hot and humid a day as you could imagine and I can’t for one second think of a single reason that somebody on that beach might think, ‘You know what I could do with right now? Being a little more sweatily uncomfortable in a small box.’ And yet it seemed to be doing a brisk trade. Some people are insane.