|Places| tangy kabosu |Places| tangy kabosu citrus fruit as well as wild boar and other game. Breakfast is equally memorable: order the western option and you will be given your own miniature grill on which to cook your sausage and bacon to your own liking. On the far side of Kyushu, another new hotel offers a soft landing in a more rugged landscape. Floating off the coast near Nagasaki, the Goto Islands have a wild beauty that differs markedly from northern Kyushu’s more sedate landscapes. To create the archipelago’s first five-star offering, Okcs Retreat Goto Ray (goto-ray.com) on Fukue Island, the owners invited Yukio Hashimoto, the architect responsible for Tokyo’s Peninsula Hotel, to create an edifice that could match the island’s dramatic landscapes. Working on a grand scale, Hashimoto’s design frames epic stretches of sea and sky, with ornamental pools outside and metal-panelled walls inside reflecting the ever-changing vistas. Outdoor soaking tubs placed on the terrace of each room offer more opportunities for undisturbed appreciation of the island’s beauty. Local touches abound, from the bookends made of local lava to the porcelain made in Kyushu’s celebrated pottery town of Hasami and even complimentary vials of tsubaki oil. Extracted from the camellias which flourish in the island’s salt-tinged air, the oil has been used by generations of Japanese women to nourish their hair and skin and also features in many of the treatments offered by the hotel spa. Local flavours are heroed in the kitchen, where chef Kou Takahira avails himself of ingredients such as Goto beef, treasured by gourmands for its tenderness and flavour but produced in such small quantities that it is rarely found off-island. Hashimoto’s design frames epic stretches of sea and sky, with ornamental pools and metal-panelled walls reflecting the everchanging vistas The delicate glass vessels scattered around the hotel are another local speciality, one that reflects Nagasaki’s singular role as the first European trading port in Japan. The Portuguese introduced glassmaking to Japan along with another import that was less popular with local rulers: Christianity. After the foreign religion was outlawed in 1614, a number of Japanese Christian communities established themselves in the Goto Islands, away from the scrutiny of the shogunate. Around 50 of their churches survive to this day, recognised by a Unesco World Heritage listing. The hotel offers a boat tour that takes you past some of the island’s most striking churches, which include the serene white-walled Mizunoura church and the red-brick Kusuhara church, the only one still in use today. Equally alluring: a visit to the lovely Takahama Beach, washed by the sort of jade-tinged waters you would expect to find in Thailand rather than Japan – and a reminder of just how lovely and varied the Japanese countryside can be. The sea meets the verdant coast of Fukue Island just steps from Okcs Retreat Goto Ray PHOTO © OKCS RETREAT GOTO RAY 24 CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM
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