1 / 5The Mongol invasion wallPhoto: そらみみ (Soramimi) / CC BY-SA 4.0
Tap a photo to see it large. 5 photographs, every one credited.
Checked against official sources · updated · Takumi Yamada
After the Mongols landed in 1274, Japan built a stone wall along twenty kilometres of this bay. When they returned in 1281 it held them offshore until a typhoon destroyed the fleet — the storm that gave the word kamikaze its meaning.
- It is not only a photo stop: two invasions landed on this bay, and the word kamikaze came from what stopped them.
- 3 hr door to door needs a 5-hour call: a 2–3 hour stop cannot hold it. Pick something closer instead.
- No single published ride covers this one. Budget for a taxi both ways, or fold it into a guided day.
Why The Mongol invasion wall is famous
Two invasions landed on this bay, and the word kamikaze came from what stopped them
In 1274 and 1281 the Mongol fleets landed here, and between the invasions Japan built twenty kilometres of stone wall along this coast. The second fleet never got past it, and then a typhoon finished the job, which is where the word kamikaze comes from. Sections of the wall are still in the dunes.
Kublai Khan sent two fleets against Japan and both made for this bay. The second was among the largest seaborne invasions in history before the twentieth century. What stopped it was a typhoon — and the word Japan used for that storm, kamikaze, was still being used seven centuries later.
Massed formations against single combat
~20 km of stone, paid for by the western domains
And the wall keeps it off the beach
Japan calls it kamikaze — the divine wind
Take the subway west and walk to the Genko Borui at Ikinomatsubara. Low stones under pines, and nobody there.
Where the 3 hr goes
Counted from the moment you step off the gangway, about 30 minutes after the ship arrives. The hour before all-aboard is not in this bar; it is already set aside.
65 minutes each way is the measured figure for bus + subway ~65 min, not the optimistic one. If your ship is late, cut the 50 min in the middle. Never cut the hour at the end.
What to put beside it
Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare.
Eat · ~2.5hA yatai on Nakasu, after dark
Around a hundred licensed street stalls — the majority of every yatai left in Japan — set up at dusk on the river and are gone by dawn.
See the detail
Eat · ~2hHakata tonkotsu ramen
Pork bone boiled until it emulsifies, thin straight noodles that cook in seconds, and kaedama — a second helping of noodles dropped into the broth you have left.
See the detail
See · ~4hDazaifu Tenmangu
Sugawara no Michizane was exiled here in 901 and died two years later; a series of disasters in the capital convinced the court he had become a god.
See the detail