Miyazaki
— — the warm coast where the sun comes back.
Not only on a wall.
“A subtropical city on Kyushu's Pacific shore. Palm-lined avenues, mango groves on the inland plain, and surf breaking along Aoshima's Onino-Sentakuita, a fan of wave-cut sandstone ridges the tide reveals twice a day. In Japanese myth this coast is where the sun goddess Amaterasu's grandson first stepped onto the islands. Locals know the warmth as ordinary. Visitors notice it the moment they step off the train.
Miyazaki, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Miyazaki sits on Kyushu's southeastern coast, the capital of Miyazaki Prefecture and a city of roughly 400,000 along the mouth of the Ōyodo River. The climate is subtropical, among the warmest in mainland Japan, with palm-lined boulevards through the centre and mango orchards on the inland plain. The Nichinan coast runs south toward Cape Toi; the Kyushu Mountains rise to the west. The Nippō Main Line links the city to Kagoshima and Fukuoka, a roughly two-hour run from either direction.
Aoshima, a small island ringed by the Onino-Sentakuita or Devil's Washboard, lies just east of the city. The formation is a series of parallel sandstone ridges, scrubbed flat by roughly seven million years of wave action, and is designated a national natural monument. A short causeway links the island to the mainland, and the Aoshima Shrine sits at its centre. Surfers work the breaks at Kisakihama and Aoshima through the year, and the Pacific is warm enough through autumn that wetsuits stay thin.
Miyazaki is the mythic landing point of Ninigi-no-Mikoto, grandson of the sun goddess Amaterasu, who in Shinto tradition descended from the heavens onto Mount Takachiho to the north. The prefecture holds the Takachiho Gorge and the Amano-Iwato Shrine, where Amaterasu is said to have hidden in a cave. Festivals tied to the cycle keep the story moving. The Miyazaki Jingu Grand Festival each October parades floats through the city, and night-time Kagura dances run through winter in mountain villages.