If you’ve ever experienced the small thrill of finding a town or restaurant featuring your name, you will understand why this writer set out to visit her namesake Jade Coast on the Sea of Japan. While there’s no shortage of Chinese restaurants featuring the name “Jade”, a beach is arguably a whole different kettle of fish — especially when there’s a chance of finding precious minerals washed up on the shores.
The Jade Coast (hisui kaigan) is a collection of pebbly beaches straddling the border of Niigata and Toyama Prefectures on the Sea of Japan. Excavations have indicated that this area has been producing jade since the Jōmon period (6,000 years ago) making it one of the world’s oldest jade-producing regions. The mountains between Itoigawa, Niigata and Asahi, Toyama are home to the “Dedicated Natural Monuments” Hashidate Jade Valley and the Kotakigawa Jade Gorge, both abundant with the mineral and understandably off-limits to foragers.
Luckily, mother nature provides opportunities on the coast; one of the main tourist activities in Itoigawa and Asahi is to visit the beaches and look through the millions of stones that wash up in search of jade and other precious minerals to take home with you. Armed with this promise of fortune, we set off from our summer spot in Lake Nojiri, Nagano and headed for the shore.
Exploring Jade Beach
While there are a few beaches to explore along the Jade Coast, we decided to go to Asahi, which sits on the eastern edge of Toyama Bay. Famous for its luminous firefly squid, it’s one of the biggest bays in Japan and also officially listed as “One of the Most Beautiful Bays in the World.”
I can see the appeal; Jade Beach attracts plenty of visitors who come for the sun, sea and — of course — stones. Those who aren’t swimming in the emerald waters are decidedly picking through pebbles in search of jade. Though it’s getting less and less common to find these precious minerals on the shore, the thrill of the hunt is as strong as ever.
How to find jade
The Asahi Town tourism website has produced this handy guide (in Japanese) to identify the stones you come across. With this info and a keen eye, you may get lucky and spot things such as quartz, granite, basalt, jasper, agate, limestone and more. According to this guide, jade isn’t just green, it can also be white, purple, blue, ash and black. They also supply the following tips for finding jade:
- It is whitish in colour
- It is angular
- It has sparkling crystals
- It is heavy
- It has a smooth surface
- The best time to find jade is roughly 3 days after rough waves.
Unfortunately I didn’t have this info during my visit and was simply collecting anything that looked nice, from green to red to black.
For anyone who enjoys poking around the beach collecting things, or for any rock hound, it’s truly a dream. After our explorations, we had filled two sturdy tote bags with our favourite pebbles (some more like boulders), allocating some for gifts and others for home decor.
If you want to find out whether you’ve struck proverbial gold, you can bring your stones to the Fossa Magma Museum in Itoigawa where they can inspect them. Or, if you’re like me, you will be satisfied imagining you’re sitting on a fortune while you continue to watch rock tumbling reveals online.
How to get to the Jade Coast
From Tokyo Station, the Hokuriku Shinkansen can take you to Itoigawa Station in around 2.5 hours (¥11,000). From there you can walk to the beach, or hop on a local train (Nihonkai-Hisui Line) to Asahi which is another 40 minutes or so. While the Jade Coast can be accessed via public transport, the area is best explored by car — that way, you can head into the mountains to see the jade-producing sites. Another perk of driving is being able to explore fun roadside stops like the “Itoigawa Coast Geosite” observation deck.
While in the area, consider checking out popular nearby spots like Unazuki Onsen in Kurobe, the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route and Hakuba.
Name: The Jade Coast
Location: Itoigawa, Niigata and Asahi, Toyama.
Address: The beach mentioned in this article can be found here
Post by Japan Journeys.
