Karatsu

Each November, fourteen enormous lacquered floats shaped like sea bream, samurai helmets, and lion heads are dragged through Karatsu's streets by teams of hundreds. The Karatsu Kunchi festival has thundered through this pottery town since the early Edo period. Between festivals, Karatsu moves more quietly — kiln smoke drifting from ceramic studios, pine-fringed beaches stretching toward Korea.

Karatsu occupies the northwestern coast of Saga Prefecture, facing the Genkai Sea toward the Korean Peninsula. The city has produced Karatsu-yaki pottery since the 16th century, when Korean potters brought techniques that transformed Japanese ceramics — tea masters prized Karatsu ware for its rough, earthy aesthetic, and the phrase "first Karatsu, second Hagi, third Karatsumono" placed it at the pinnacle of tea bowl traditions. The Karatsu Kunchi festival, designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property, parades fourteen hikiyama floats through the old town and across Nishi-no-hama beach. Nijinomatsubara, a five-kilometre crescent of one million black pines planted in the 17th century as a windbreak, runs along the coast.