尾道宿(Onomichi inn town) part 2: Japanese literature pilgrimage

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 see Fumiko Hayashi Memorial Hall, commemorating her life and work during her stay in Onomichi. 
 We no This is Fumiko Hayashi statue. According to several sources, there was an ichiruzuka milestone nearby. 


From here, JR Onomichi station is less than 5 minutes’ walk. 





This is Yamatoyu, a former public bathtub aka sento. And today this is a pub-style restaurant of dim sum. We did not go inside as we were looking for local specialities like Onomichi ramen noodle or Onomichi-yaki pancake. 
A narrow street toward mountain side. 
Fumiko Hayashi memorial hall. We ran out of time to visit on our last trip, which means that we have reason to go back again. 










This is where you can set up your own bicycle. There are many inns that accept bikers in Onomichi, as the terminal of Shimanami Kaido cycling route. 
An overview of Onomichi inn town today from Senkoji Park observatory. 

The next stop is Mihara inn town. 

References:

A Dark Night’s Passing. Wikipedia.com. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dark_Night's_Passing (Accessed in 7/24/2025)

Fumiko Hayashi(author). Wikipedia.com. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumiko_Hayashi_(author) (Accessed in 7/23/2025)

Japan Heritage Onomichi City Introduction Website. Onomichi City Hustorical Culture City Development Promotion Council. https://nihonisan-onomichi.jp/en/ (Accessed in 7/24/2025)

Onomichi Hayashi Fumiko Memorial Hall. Onomichi City Hustorical Culture City Development Promotion Council. https://nihonisan-onomichi.jp/en/tourist-spot14/ (Accessed in 7/23/2025)


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

山陽道/西国街道(San’yodo/Saigoku Kaido overview)

Image
While we are still working on Tokaido chapter, I decided to start working on San’yodo/Saigoku Kaido chapter.  What were routes covering west of Tokaido prior to modern-day Japan? Which was the popular route in west Japan that people used in order to go east?  Today JR Tokaido line officially goes down to JR Kobe station in Kobe city, and Tokaido Shinkansen goes down to Shin-Osaka station. Beyond these stations, you will notice that these train line names are changed: JR San’yo line from Kobe station, and San’yo Shinkansen from Shin-Osaka station.  Old San’yodo(旧山陽道) starts at Kyoto, and goes through north shore of the river Yodo, bypassing modern-day downtown Osaka, then through Kobe, Himeji, Okayama, Hiroshima, and to Shimonoseki, with the 577km length in total. This route is actually longer than old Tokaido or old Nakasendo. Until the administrative capital was moved from Kyoto to Edo(modern-day Tokyo), San’yodo was regarded as more prestigious than Tokaido and Nakasend...
Read more

Starting the Kaido 101: Tokaido/Nakasendo-Nihonbashi(日本橋)

Image
 I wonder how many of my readers thought how long this guy’s lecture will continue.  As a visual learner, I would prefer to get the basic quickly, then as I practice, I want to go in depth.  One of the most popular trails of Kaidos is probably Tokaido. Some might say Nakasendo is arguably the best. But historically Tokaido has been a top traffic route, probably “the busiest” one. It is hard to figure out data of Edo period. One research shows that 40,000-260,000 people used parts of Tokaido, while  most parts of Nakasendo hardly reached more than 50,000 travelers. (Resource: “Main routes traffic amount n Edo period” by Ryoichi Tsuchida. 1982. 土田良一著「江戸時代における街道交通量」歴史地理学通号117  歴史地理学会編　1982年6月発行   http://hist-geo.jp/img/archive/117_028.pdf ) Today, “Tokaido” Shinkansen is often referred to as “The Aorta of Japan.  The Tokaido route consists of 53 stations(inn towns), from Edo(Tokyo) to Kyoto. Some would add 4 more stations(inn towns between Kyoto and Osaka...
Read more

Off the beaten paths in Japan: how I find these places

  I created this blog, hoping to build a bridge between Japan and others, Japanese and other people, whether travel or work or study.  I have read and seen blogs and videos of the same topic. So I have to creative, because otherwise it will be one of these blogs. And it can be very boring.  For those who don’t know me, I am Japanese, born and grew up in central Japan, living in northeastern USA. My wife is an American. And I am a nurse in Japan and the US.(I guess there aren’t many Japanese male nurses working outside Japan). We have 2 kids. We are homeschooling.  I have weird academic degrees: associate degree in nursing, bachelor in German, master in cross-cultural education.  And my tendency is that, when everybody goes on one direction, I go to the other direction.  Anyhow, from these background, I am figuring out what I can do and what I can offer.  I consider the foundation of my Japan travel is central Japan, specifically Aichi, Gifu, Mie, south...
Read more