Do you look for “Koyo, (Autumn leaves)” in Kyushu?
No need to travel so far, there’re many “Koyo” places near Fukuoka.
When I looked for the changing autumn colors in 8-14 Nov 2014, I found that Koyo near Fukuoka is excellent.

By train, you can go to Dazaifu city, a small quiet city located in Fukuoka Prefecture only within 40 mins.

Dazaifu was the imperial office governing Kyūshū (corresponding to Tagajō in Tōhoku) after it was moved from present-day Fukuoka City. There’re many attractive places such as The Kyushu National Museum, Kōmyōzen-ji, Kanzeon-ji, Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine, etc.

I had a half day tour in Dazaifu, so I had to make this half-day valuable. The first place I went was … Komyozen-ji, a Zen temple, located just south of Dazaifu’s famous Tenmangu Shrine, very close to Dazaifu shrine.

Komyozen-ji is celebrated for its karesansui garden, the only example in Kyushu. The Japanese rock garden or "dry landscape" garden, often called a zen garden, creates a miniature stylized landscape through carefully composed arrangements of rocks, water features, moss, pruned trees and bushes, and uses gravel or sand that is raked to represent ripples in water.

You can see the Japanese garden at the front and the back of the temple.. The front garden is the smaller of the two and is composed of fifteen rocks laid amongst a plot of raked pebbles. The rocks are distributed so that they form the Japanese character for "light".

The back garden can be viewed from the main temple building. It is larger, and incorporates a lot of plant life in addition to its stones and pebbles. The garden's moss patches, rocks and pebbles are laid out as an abstract representation of large land and water bodies.

Maple tree branches hang over the garden, making the temple a popular autumn leaf spot when they change color and fall. It’s worth seeing in Mid-November.

Have you ever seen many stars on the trees, here they are.

After we took more and more photos of Komyozen-ji’s Koyo, we walked to Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine. The way from Komyozen-ji to Dazaifu shrine is natural, peace, no more shops there.

Dazaifu Tenman-gu shrine is a Shinto shrine in Dazaifu. Tenmangu Shrines are dedicated to the spirit of Sugawara Michizane, a scholar and politician of the Heian Period.

Because of his great learning, Michizane has been associated with Tenjin, a Shinto deity of education, and is popular among students. There’re many students come here everyday.

In November, Chrysanthemum Festival is held. The shrine gardens were established as a place for the exhibition of chrysanthemum flowers, thereby providing parishioners with a calming atmosphere, and stimulating their sense of closeness to the earth.

You can find Chrysanthemum trees in everywhere near the shrine, in November. How beautiful they are !

Don’t let Dazaifu lack of travelers. Please come, you’ll see something surprised every seasons.