The trick of Mt.Fuji on the left: 吉原宿(Yoshiwara inn town)

There are couple of things I want to touch before entering Yoshiwara inn town in Fuji city. First, here is the overview Google map. 


Before entering the inn town, there are two sites we should stop by. 
On this part of Tokaido, you will see Mt.Fuji on your left side. Up until here from Edo/Tokyo, Mt.Fuji has been our right side. 
On the map here, Tokaido is going northward. See Hiroshige’s Ukiyoe artwork below. (Yoshiwara, Hidari Fuji. Hiroshige Utagawa. Art Institute Chicago. Public domain. Accessed in 5/6/2025) 

Coming close to Yoshiwara inn town, there is “Heikegoe” monument. This is about the battle of River Fuji in 1180 of Heike clan vs Genji clan. At Hara inn town, we touched a little bit about a temple of which lord Yoritomo Minamoto played falconry at. He was the head of Genji clan and established Kamakura shogunate in 1192. His opponents, Heike, set up the base camp here in 1180, in order to engage in the battle. However, at one night, they heard lots of loud noises. These were just the sounds of large flocks of birds taking off from the marsh. Heike army thought that the noise was a large army of Genji, and they were so afraid that they just turned back to Kyoto without engaging in the battle. 
Alright, now we are entering Yoshiwara inn town. There is a sign that says there was Higashi-kido(東木戸), which literally means east wooden door. But it’s the same as Edo-side Mitsuke guard gate. 
In order to get to Yoshiwara inn town, remember this place: Yoshiwara-Honmachi station of Gakunan railways is by the Tokaido route, which is very convenient. This train company is advertising as “the railways of Mt.Fuji view from all stations”. They only take cash, and they don’t accept IC cards such as Suica, Pasmo, Toica. 
Tokaido route goes through a scramble crossing. If you want to experience super non-busy scramble crossing, here it is! 
This camera shop, ノグチカメラ(Noguchi Camera) is apparently where Noguchi wakihonjin inn used to be. I am not sure if the current owner of the camera shop is related to the founder of Noguchi wakihonjin inn. 
The red circle is a pharmacy today. It used to be one of Honjin VIP inns. AI search shows there were two Honjin inns in Yoshiwara,and I confirmed it with other online resources. 
Another wakihonjin inn, Ougiya Suzuki Ihei wakihonjin. 
A road sign to show Yoshiwara inn town and directions. Here the route takes 90 degree turn, which is a typical structure of inn towns to slow down roots or enemies in case they decided to attack Tokugawa shogunate. 
Here I got confused. Google map shows to continue Honmachi-dori avenue straight(which means to continue left on the picture), but the sign says to take 90 degree left turn, as I marked with yellow. This could mean the difference between Edo-time Tokaido and Meiji/Taisho-time Tokaido. Edo-time Tokaido was built based upon horse traffic, which Meiji/Taisho-time Tokaido was often widened and changed for car traffic. 

I was looking for something like a temple or park. So I found former Fujisan Tosen’in temple, which is today’s Yoshiwara park. The temple is itself is gone but you will still find something about the temple at the park. 
One of the most fun things to see on old routes is to find old houses, built in pre-WWII time. So far, I found none in Yoshiwara, but I found one here. 
And another one almost next to the previous one. The reasons why we don’t see many old houses in many parts of Tokaido and others are 1) air raid during WWII, 2) natural disasters such as typhoon, flooding and earthquakes, and 3) post-WWII reconstructions and developments.
And here we are: the Kyoto-side guard gate, Nishi-Kido(西木戸), aka Kyo-gata Mitsuke. 













References: 

Tokaido old Yoshiwara inn town course. Fuji city (original title:東海道旧吉原宿コース　富士市) https://www.city.fuji.shizuoka.jp/sp/kyouiku/c0701/fmervo000000l72p.html (Accessed in 5/6/2025)

Tokaido Yoshiwara inn town. Fuji Files.(original title: 東海道吉原宿　ふじふぁいるず) https://fujifiles.com/history/tokaido/ (Accessed in 5/6/2025)
















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