Latest news with #Edo-period
SoraNews24
21-05-2025
- SoraNews24
Respect the salmon – a visit to an off-the-beaten-path foodie destination in Niigata【Photos】
This charming town on the Sea of Japan coast is a great place to dive into a local culinary culture without massive tourist crowds. By now, there are certain parts of Japan that just about any traveler knows are famous for certain types of food, such as Kobe for beef, Hokkaido for sea urchin, and Osaka for takoyaki. But part of what makes Japan such a great place to explore is that there are always other hidden gems off the beaten tourist path, and today we're taking a trip to a lesser-known culinary culture destination, the town of Murakami in Niigata Prefecture. For many foodies, rice is the first thing that comes to mind when they think of Niigata, as it's where the prized Koshihikari strain of the grain is grown. Murakami, though, is all about salmon. Murakami is located on the coast of the sea of Japan, and the river which flows through the town is also a salmon run waterway. Salmon are deeply engrained in the local way of life, and the locals' respect and gratitude towards the fish is so great that it's said that Murakami has over 100 different salmon recipes, so that as much of the fish as possible can be eaten and only the bare minimum thrown away. ▼ Salmon drying in Murakami It'd take far more than a single visit to Murakami to sample all of its salmon specialties, but we still wanted to try as many as we could fit into or schedule/stomach, so we headed to Kikkawa Izutsuya, a Murakami restaurant that offers multi-course salmon meals. ▼ Kikkawa Izutsuya As you might imagine, though, Kikkawa, which is only open for lunch, tends to fill up with reservations pretty quickly, and unfortunately we'd rolled up without having arranged for a table. This didn't turn out to be a major problem, though. The restaurant doesn't start serving customers until 11 a.m., but at 9:30 they start a waiting list for non-reserved tables for the day. After giving them our name they told us the approximate estimated time for when they'd be able to seat us, and while it was several hours away, this meant that instead of having to stand in line, we could go explore the town. The neighborhood around Kikkawa Izutsuya has some very picturesque machiya (traditional townhouse) architecture, and even amongst the buildings that don't have the look of Edo-period shopfronts there are some with the cool retro atmosphere of two or three generations ago. Since we had a while to go before our Kikkawa Izutsuya seating, we went cruising for breakfast, and found it at a place called Echigo Iwafuneya. ▼ The walk from Kikkawa Izutsuya to Echigo Iwafuneya Full disclosure: Echigo Iwafuneya is a sweets shop. While we're being honest, though, we should also say that we have very few qualms about eating sweets for breakfast while we're traveling, especially when the glazed dango mochi dumplings look like this (and yes, they tasted as good as they looked). ▼ Plus Echigo Iwafuneya has an eat-in area, so in our book it counts as a proper restaurant. By the way, the 'Kikkawa' part of the name of the Kikkawa Izutsuya restaurant we were waiting to eat at refers to its parent company, which sells dried salmon, salmon roe, and other salmon-related foodstuffs. Aside from the restaurant, Kikkawa's main store is also located in the area, and is worth a visit even if you're not planning to buy anything. ▼ Echigo Iwafuneya to Kikkawa main store ▼ Kikkawa main store Not only does the building look extremely cool from the outside, inside you'll see… …just how much dried salmon they produce! You might expect the…bouquet of that much fish to be unbearable, but there's also a strong aroma of salt, since it's used in generous amounts as part of Murakami's local drying process. After being left salted for roughly a week, the salmon is rinsed and hung up to dry, with the best results said to come from salmon that dries in the cold winter wind. We still had time to spare before our Kikkawa Izutsuya seating, so next we strolled down Murakami's Kurobei-dori, or 'Black Wall Street,' so named for the classically styled dark wooden panels at the edges of the properties on either side. ▼ Kurobei-dori is found near Anzenji Temple (walking route from Kikkawa main store to Anzenji shown) As further proof of how much Murakami loves salmon, on the north side of the town you'll find Murakami Salmon Park… …and inside the park is the Murakami salmon museum! ▼ Anzenji Temple to salmon museum Inside are all sorts of exhibits about the life of salmon and their importance to the local community. Not only are there a recreation of a traditional fisherman's dwelling and salmon-inhabited aquarium tanks, there's also a window that looks directly out into the river that's adjacent to the park, so if you come during the salmon run season (late fall/early winter), you can see them swimming upstream on their return to their birthplaces. Visiting the salmon museum (which is officially called the Iyoboya Kaikan) filled us with both an admiration and hunger for salmon…and luckily it was now time for us to head back to Kikkawa Izutsuya for our long-awaited meal! As the bilingual explanatory sheet shows, nothing is wasted in Murakami salmon cuisine. Kikkawa Izutsuya offers salmon meals with eight to twenty-two different dishes, and we opted for the 11-dish set, for 4,048 yen (US$28). Coming first to our table were sake-marinated dried salmon, a salmon temari sushi ball, and winter wind-dried salmon milt (pictured clockwise from right in the above photo). The dried salmon in particular was full of flavor, but we didn't have too long to get lost in reverie since the waitstaff next set a shichirin grill down in front of us with breaded strips of sake-marinated salmon skin cooking on it. They curled as they heated, and when we popped one into our mouth, it was delightfully crunchy. Next we were presented with dishes of stewed kabuto (salmon head), grilled pickled salmon, and miso-stewed salmon roe, arranged left to right in the picture below. All of the above items are also part of the eight-dish course meal, but upgrading to the 11-item one also got us simmered salmon milt, salmon sashimi, and kombu (kelp)-wrapped salmon, lined up top to bottom on the right side of this shot. While no dish alone was a huge portion, the number of different items meant that we had plenty to eat, avoiding the feast-for-the-eyes-but-not-so-much-for-the-stomach problem presented at some fancy restaurants, especially since we also had the star of the show… …the grilled dried salmon, which was fantastic. This is also part of the basic eight-dish set, and in addition to eating it by itself, we highly recommend eating some ochazuke-style, as a topping for a bowl of white rice and green tea. So with 11 Murakami salmon dishes down, but still about 90 more to go, we've got a lot of reasons to visit the town again next time we're craving fish. Location information Kikkawa Izutsuya / きっかわ 井筒屋 Address: Niigata-ken, Murakami-shi, Komachi 1-12 新潟県村上市小町１−１２ Open 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Website Iyoboya Kaikan / イヨボヤ会館 Address: Niigata-ken, Murakami-shi, Shiomachi 13-34 新潟県村上市塩町13-34 Open 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Website Iyoboya Kaikan interior photos: Murakami Tourism Association All other photos ©SoraNews24 ● Want to hear about SoraNews24's latest articles as soon as they're published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter! [ Read in Japanese ]
Metropolis Japan
20-05-2025
- Metropolis Japan
Chiran, Kagoshima Travel Guide
On a sunny day in July 2024, the Chiran Samurai Residences, a beautiful, well-organized streetscape, is located in Chiran Town, Minamikyushu City, Kagoshima Prefecture. Chiran Travel Guide was originally published on in June 2003. Updated April 2025. From above, the Satsuma Peninsula in southern Kyushu appears as a patchwork of emerald peaks, old tiled rooftops and winding lanes dotted with tea fields and historic hot spring inns. Nestled in this peaceful landscape is the town of Chiran, where history and beauty coexist in a way few places can match. This Chiran travel guide takes you through its somber wartime past and its quietly powerful samurai gardens. Chiran is most widely known for the Chiran Peace Museum for Kamikaze Pilots, built on the site of a former airfield used during WWII. Originally established as a training base in 1942, Chiran became a launch point for tokko-tai (Special Attack Forces, or more widely known as Kamikaze) missions starting in April 1945. Many young pilots flew one-way sorties from here during the final months of the war. Credit: Fuji-s The museum grounds include the solemn Toko Kannon statue, dedicated to the 1,036 pilots who departed from Chiran. Inside the statue, wooden plaques bearing their names are sealed in remembrance. Nearby, a motherly figure looks up toward the skies, evoking the family left behind. A visit to the Peace Hall, completed in 1975, offers even more intimate insights. Inside are letters, uniforms and photos capturing the final hours of these pilots' short but significant lives. One poignant image shows a teenager being given a puppy for comfort before his departure. The displays strike a tone that is more reflective than graphic, raising deep moral questions while also humanizing the individuals behind the history. Small, camouflaged barracks behind the museum recreate the room where pilots spent their final night: simple tatami mats, military blankets and a haunting stillness. While this part of the Chiran travel guide may not appeal to all, it's a powerful place of reflection for those interested in Japan's WWII history. Credit: Z3144228 After the heavy atmosphere of the museum, a visit to the Chiran Samurai Residence Gardens offers a welcome return to nature, beauty and quiet introspection. These Edo-period gardens, seven in total, are some of the best-preserved examples of small-scale Japanese landscaping and provide a glimpse into the aesthetic values of the region's former warrior class. These gardens reflect influences from Kyoto, where Chiran's elite once traveled to absorb the finest in Japanese culture. Back home, they recreated those gardens to suit the Satsuma landscape—each one a work of art using borrowed scenery, miniature hill-and-pond layouts and dry rock arrangements. Ōkarikomi sculpted trees and bushes at Chiran Samurai Residence. Credit: STA3816 Some highlights in this part of our Chiran travel guide include: Keiichiro Saigo Garden: Appears modest at first glance, but its subtly angled stones and layered trees come to life the more you look. Katsumi Hirayama Garden: With ancient stone lanterns and Buddhist relics, this space feels like a quiet temple. Ryoichi Hirayama Garden: Unique for its absence of rocks, it instead uses azalea hedges and color gradation to mimic the surrounding hills. The samurai gardens were not just aesthetic but defensive: winding lanes, thick hedges and stone water basins used for rinsing swords point to a time when form and function intertwined. Many of these basins remain today, silent reminders of samurai who returned from battle. The best time to visit Chiran's samurai gardens is late winter to early spring, when kantsubaki (winter camellias) bloom along the garden walls. Samurai were said to favor this flower, its sudden drop from the stem said to resemble the fall of a warrior's head in ritual seppuku. Although Chiran is growing in popularity, the samurai district remains peaceful and uncrowded. Few guidebooks cover the gardens in detail, which gives visitors a rare chance to form their own impressions without the influence of plaques or pamphlets. From Kagoshima City: Buses leave Kagoshima-Chuo Station roughly once an hour starting at 9am. The ride takes about 50 minutes. Get off at the Buke-yashiki-iriguchi stop for the samurai district and gardens. Bus Pass: A 'My Plan' bus pass (¥2,500) is available from the Kagoshima Kotsu office and allows unlimited travel in the region for two consecutive days. From Ibusuki: Sightseeing buses from Ibusuki also stop in Chiran. Most visitors stay in Kagoshima and visit Chiran as a day trip, but if you want to stay nearby: Nanshukan (Tel: 099-226-8188): A reliable business hotel near Chuo Park in Kagoshima. Nakazono Ryokan (Tel: 099-226-5125): A friendly, affordable guesthouse near the ferry port offering rooms from ¥4,000. The owner is known for local tips and warm hospitality. Don't miss our other Japan travel guides: Ishigaki Island Travel Guide: Beaches, Food and Hidden Gems in Okinawa Why You Should Visit Fukushima in 2025 Kanazawa – A Taste of Old Japan
Japan Today
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Japan Today
Himeji Castle Festival: A blend of Edo-period reenactments, traditional performing arts and lively community spirit
Every May, the grounds surrounding Himeji Castle hold the Himeji Castle Festival (Himeji Oshiro Matsuri). Held over three days, this historic celebration blends Edo-period reenactments, traditional performing arts and lively community spirit. First held in 1948 as a symbol of postwar recovery, the festival celebrates the cultural legacy of Himeji Castle. The celebration kicked off on May 16 with Takigi Noh, Japan's oldest form of theater performed outdoors by firelight. Set against the towering white walls of Himeji Castle, this exciting performance creates a powerful connection between Japan's ancient performing arts and its architectural heritage. On May 17, the streets surrounding the castle come alive with the Himeji Daimyo Procession, a full-scale reenactment of a feudal lord's parade from the Edo period. Dozens of participants dressed in meticulously crafted historical outfits march down Otemae Street, bringing Himeji's samurai past vividly to life. That same day, the Citizen Parade adds a burst of local pride and color. Community groups and performers join the newly crowned Queen of the Castle, a symbolic role given each year to a local woman who embodies the spirit of the city. Dressed in elegant traditional attire, she appears at the head of the parade. Each evening, the castle itself transforms into a glowing symbol of celebration with 3D projection mapping. Festival Highlights The festival isn't just about parades; it's a lively, family-friendly celebration filled with activities for all ages. On May 18, head to Kids Land in Otemae Park, where children can enjoy games and interactive play areas. Click here to read more. External Link © GaijinPot
Sydney Morning Herald
11-05-2025
- Sydney Morning Herald
Japan's next big thing is already popular, but many miss its highlights
In Kanazawa it's clear the city is no stranger to visitors. Several hours north of Kyoto and touted as Japan's 'next big thing' it's been nicknamed 'little Kyoto' for its Edo-period architecture and rich tradition of arts and crafts. It's here that my guide has come to meet me at my hotel and take me on a tour of Kanazawa's greatest hits. Despite heavy rain, the city's beautiful gardens are full of visitors. The Higashi-chaya teahouse district is bustling, but the Geisha Museum is surprisingly empty when we visit. We slip out into the surrounding streets of this old town and encounter peaceful cafes and narrow lanes where the only sets of eyes belong to curious cats that peer out of windows, following you. It's the start of a tour with a difference. Swept into a carefully curated adventure that uncovers the secret side of this country with Inside Japan on their Hidden Zen itinerary, I'm seeing what many tourists miss. What's more I'm travelling solo for full immersion. Still in Kanazawa, Omicho Market is another highlight and a much more relaxed experience compared to Kyoto's Nishiki Market. Here, I take my time exploring without being rushed by crowds. Oden Miyuki is a cozy eatery serving Kanazawa's best oden – a hotpot of umami-rich dashi broth, simmering vegetables, kurumafu (a wheat ball which soaks up the flavour) and tofu. It's possibly one of the most deliciously ugly meals I've had in Japan, accompanied by creamy potato salad, savoury miso, and a refreshing yuzu-flavoured beer. On this wintry day, locals line outside the restaurant at 4pm, signalling just how beloved this place is. A 15-minute train ride south of Kanazawa is Kaga Onsen, the 1300-year-old town famous for its healing springs and I'm staying at KAI Kaga, a ryokan housed in a 400-year-old former tofu shop. The converted building with its red facade is filled with Japanese art and has a particular focus on Kutani porcelain.
The Age
11-05-2025
- The Age
Japan's next big thing is already popular, but many miss its highlights
In Kanazawa it's clear the city is no stranger to visitors. Several hours north of Kyoto and touted as Japan's 'next big thing' it's been nicknamed 'little Kyoto' for its Edo-period architecture and rich tradition of arts and crafts. It's here that my guide has come to meet me at my hotel and take me on a tour of Kanazawa's greatest hits. Despite heavy rain, the city's beautiful gardens are full of visitors. The Higashi-chaya teahouse district is bustling, but the Geisha Museum is surprisingly empty when we visit. We slip out into the surrounding streets of this old town and encounter peaceful cafes and narrow lanes where the only sets of eyes belong to curious cats that peer out of windows, following you. It's the start of a tour with a difference. Swept into a carefully curated adventure that uncovers the secret side of this country with Inside Japan on their Hidden Zen itinerary, I'm seeing what many tourists miss. What's more I'm travelling solo for full immersion. Still in Kanazawa, Omicho Market is another highlight and a much more relaxed experience compared to Kyoto's Nishiki Market. Here, I take my time exploring without being rushed by crowds. Oden Miyuki is a cozy eatery serving Kanazawa's best oden – a hotpot of umami-rich dashi broth, simmering vegetables, kurumafu (a wheat ball which soaks up the flavour) and tofu. It's possibly one of the most deliciously ugly meals I've had in Japan, accompanied by creamy potato salad, savoury miso, and a refreshing yuzu-flavoured beer. On this wintry day, locals line outside the restaurant at 4pm, signalling just how beloved this place is. A 15-minute train ride south of Kanazawa is Kaga Onsen, the 1300-year-old town famous for its healing springs and I'm staying at KAI Kaga, a ryokan housed in a 400-year-old former tofu shop. The converted building with its red facade is filled with Japanese art and has a particular focus on Kutani porcelain.
