Four towns to visit in Kyushu, an often overlooked corner of Japan

Itoshima is a good place for gastronomy tourism. — Photos: Pexels

If I stared too long, the glossy, petrified tree trunk seemed to pulsate energy through the roof, down into the walls and past the fragile washi paper screens. “The house breathes,” Akihiro Tokunaga, the building’s owner, explained, snapping me out of the hypnosis.

“You can feel that this tree is still alive.”