🐎 New Year Horse-Trail at Nasu Shrine 🗻
Start your New Year with a creative twist on tradition through a 24 km GPS-art trail that draws the shape of a “horse” around Nasu Shrine in Otawara, Tochigi. Nasu Shrine is steeped in history: in 1187, the war hero Nasu no Yoichi rebuilt the shrine buildings using Tosa cedar and dedicated the ceremonial yabusame ritual, a tradition that continues today during the annual festival.
The course leads you from Nasu Shrine to Michi-no-Eki Nasu Yoichi no Sato and the Nasu Yoichi Folklore Museum, where the legendary archer’s stories are preserved. Passing by the modern campus of the International University of Health and Welfare, the route blends the historical and the contemporary as your GPS traces the elegant outline of a horse.
Scattered throughout the area are small Bato-Kannon statues—guardian figures traditionally associated with horse safety and travelers’ protection—revealing the region’s long-standing connection with horses and horsemanship. Set on the expansive fan-shaped plains of the Nasu-no-hara region, the landscape is open, calm, and easy to walk even in winter.
A perfect fusion of shrine-visiting, cultural exploration, and GPS art, this trail invites you to welcome the year with vibrant energy—just like a galloping horse.
DETAIL (EXTERNAL LINK)
A PIONEER IN GPS ART.
1st work was authorized by Guinness World Records as “the Largest GPS Drawing”.
He is the only Japanese person to be featured in a Google documentary as an innovator. He is fascinated by the idea of drawing with GPS and has published more than 2,500 works.
