Shimotsukata 下塚田
Carp streamers over the hilltop
Come and see

Two reasons to make the trip.

A market that turns a farm road into a high street, and a small fire that returns every Saturday night.

You don't need a festival to feel a place. Sometimes a row of mini-trucks, or a single fire on a hill, says more about a village than any brochure could.

The rice-field kei-truck market

A few times a year, the narrow paths between our rice fields fill with kei-trucks — Japan's tiny work vehicles — each one opening its bed into a pop-up stall. Vegetables fresh from the soil, fruit, local tea, handmade things, and plenty of conversation. Mountains on every side, neighbours selling to neighbours, and visitors wandering the embankment in the autumn light.

A long line of kei-trucks and shoppers along a rice-field path with mountains behind
The market stretches along the field paths — our first one drew regional television coverage.

Our very first "Rice-Field Path Kei-Truck Market" was held in December 2025, and it drew families, curious visitors, and even local news crews. It's a simple idea with a big feeling: an ordinary farm road, alive for a day.

Every Saturday night, a fire on the hill

Beginning in the summer of 2026, we start something new and deliberately small. Every Saturday evening, from 7 to 9 pm, a single campfire is lit on the hilltop beneath our great carp-streamer pole — rain or wind, without exception.

It is not a grand event. The whole point is that it repeats. The hope is that anyone, resident or visitor, can simply know: "on Saturday nights, there's a light up there" — and come.
A campfire gathering in Shimotsukata at night
The fire on the hill — beginning summer 2026, every Saturday evening from 7 to 9 pm.

It begins with one person's wish to gather around fire, and grows only as far as the community carries it. If you visit on a Saturday evening, you're welcome to sit down beside it.

The carp streamers

Above it all fly the koinobori — carp-shaped streamers that ripple over the hilltop against the Kyushu sky. They are the landmark you'll look for, and the reason the hill became our gathering place.

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