Matsue Jozan

Hill district surrounding Matsue Castle, the only surviving original castle in the San'in region. The streets below the castle walls include a preserved samurai residential quarter where low-roofed clay-walled homes line a long narrow lane shaded by pine and cedar. One of those residences was once occupied by Lafcadio Hearn, the Irish-Greek writer who settled in Matsue in 1890 and wrote some of the earliest accounts in English of Japanese daily life. His former home is now a small museum open to visitors, and the adjacent Hearn Memorial Museum provides further context. The castle keep and gardens are a short walk uphill.