Japan's modern industry has a birthday, and in Kitakyushu they celebrate it with a rusting blast furnace. The Imperial Steel Works at Yawata began producing iron in 1901, a state-run enterprise financed with money from the war indemnity that China paid after the First Sino-Japanese War, and it was built to give a country that had just opened to the world its own supply of steel. German engineers advised on the early design. The works grew into the heart of the northern Kyushu industrial belt, and Yawata became a city that smelled of coke and smoke for most of a century.
UNESCO included the site in the Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution in 2015, a group of twenty-three components that traces how Japan went from feudal domains to a major industrial and naval power in barely fifty years. The old Higashida blast furnace, dating from 1901, stands near the present works and is the best-known feature, a tall dark cylinder with pipes and stairs, preserved as a memorial. Today it is surrounded by parks, shopping malls and a former theme park site, a strange mix of heritage and ordinary life.
Kitakyushu sits at the northern tip of Kyushu, facing the Kanmon Strait, the narrow channel that separates the island from Honshu. Ships squeeze through day and night, and the Kanmon Bridge and the tunnels beneath carry road traffic. The ride into the city is not a scenic one, with expressways, interchanges, factories and housing blocks, and the riding is best treated as a way to reach the interesting parts. Fuel, food and everything else are easy in a city of nearly a million people. The nearby Mojiko district has restored brick buildings from the days of the port's glory, and a ferry crosses the strait to Shimonoseki, famous for its fugu, the pufferfish served by specially licensed chefs.
For better riding, head south into the hills of the Hiko mountains or east along the coast towards Oita, where the roads loosen up. Weekday mornings are easier than weekends in the city, and the air is clearer in spring and autumn. If you care about the story of industry, this is a place to stand and imagine the roar of the furnaces, which once lit the night sky of Kyushu.