Old Routes of Japan: Tracking down Japan off the beaten path from the eyes of a Japanese native

Continuing on exploring Onomichi inn town.  This structure of this part of street is typical defense structure.  Going further west.  On the right, there is Yamato’s. Today it’s a restaurant but originally it was a public hot tub, aka sento.  This is the former building of Onomichi Chamber of Commerce, built in 1923. Today, this is a museum about the history of business in this area as well as tourist information center.  Next to former Onomichi Chamber of Commerce building, there is a monument of Bugyosho, Edo-era’s city hall.  There is a bakery on the right side of the street, “パン屋航路”. The English sign on Google map says “Koro Bakery”, which does not communicate with us what it really means. The name comes from Naoya Shiga’s novel “A Dark Night’s Passing(An’ya Koro: note that the Chinese character of Koro in this bakery means “sea route”)”. Naoya stayed near Senkoji temple in 1912 to write this novel.  The arcade street is almost over. Then you will ...

Today’s Onomichi is a hard place to find what used to be of a San’yodo/Saigoku Kaido inn town, along the route itself. However, Onomichi has become an internationally-known place for travelers to visit.  Look at the overview map. Onomichi is long.  According to some of bloggers and Google map trail, pre-modern San’yodo/Saigoku Kaido passes by a hill, with old castle ruins, Matsuoyana castle ruins. Then the routes comes down straight south, until it hits JR San’yo line, then take almost 90-degree turn to downtown Onomichi, assuming this is the beginning of the inn town. I would be delightful to see old maps to find out where the inn town begins.  The very first attraction on east side of Onomichi inn town is  Soraiken Garden with traditional Japanese tea room, founded in Edo period.  This shrine gate is a part of Kubo Hachiman shrine, established in the 9th century. When you see the map, the actual shrine building is beyond JR San’yodo line railway track. You wil...

今津宿(Imazu inn town) is very close to Onomichi city but still in Fukuyama city. The very reason why I am writing about Onomichi-Fukuyama border is…number one, otherwise I don’t know how I can describe Imazu inn town. The second reason is that, indeed, it was a border inn town of Fukuyama domain and Geishu domain(today’s major part of Hiroshima prefecture). There was a checkpoint on the pass of Onomichi. A domain is a country during Edo-period.  Here is the overview of Imazu inn town.  There are a few things to notice in Imazu inn town, but don’t expect yourselves to find much here, comparing to places like Yakage, Kannabe, Nanokaichi etc.  As it goes in other inn towns, I simply assume that the bridge crossing Hongo river is most likely the east end of the inn town.  Imazu does not have many old buildings. Downtown Fukuyama city near JR Fukuyama station had very intense air raids during WWII. However, as far as my online research went, there was no evidence that Imazu...

神辺宿(Kannabe inn town) is in Fukuyama city. Finally we are in Hiroshima prefecture!  Fukuyama city is known for its beautiful fisherman’s port as well as an old cargo port, Tomonoura, which was featured in a movie “Ponyo” by Studio Ghibli. And Fukuyama castle is another one that attracts travelers.  However, this San’yodo/Saigoku Kaido inn town doesn’t get many’s attentions. Not far from Kannabe, there are several giants of old towns including Tomo, Kurashiki, Yakage, Saijo, Takehara, Onomichi. And unfortunately Kannabe is not a preservation district certified by any agencies or governments, or a place where has impactful well-known local products or stories such as sake in Saijo, and Japanese literatures in Onomichi.  Anyhow, getting on the street, I found a dike with the water gate to prevent flooding. It does not look being used for a while, but I assume that this is not an old structure.  From the drone views and street views on Youtube, Kannabe has a lot of old h...