01 — Explore by area
Wakayama City & Around
Wakayama City is the prefecture's front door — an easy hour from Kansai International Airport, yet most travellers race straight past it. They miss a hilltop castle ringed by cherry trees, the 231 stone steps of Kimiidera and its early-blooming sakura, and Wakaura Bay, whose tidal views inspired the poets of the Man'yoshu thirteen centuries ago. Evenings belong to tonkotsu-shoyu ramen, eaten at counters that argue politely over which shop defines the style. Add the Amalfi-like fishing port of Saikazaki and the harbour lights of Porto Europa, and the city rewards a slow first day in Wakayama. Beyond the city line, this section also covers Iwade, home of the great Negoro-ji temple complex, and Kainan, whose Kuroe quarter raised lacquerware to a craft of national rank — all an easy day from the castle.
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Mogu: Cheesecakes and a Copper-Pot Rice Lunch by Wakayama Station
Mogu occupies the ground floor of Atlas Tower, three minutes' walk — about two hundred metres — from JR Wakayama Station, which makes it one of the easier stops in the…
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Wakayama Castle's Stone Walls: Three Lords, Three Kinds of Masonry
Most visitors photograph the white keep and walk straight past the better story. Wakayama Castle changed hands three times in its first forty years, and each set of…
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Green Corner: Tenkake Ramen and Green Soft, Wakayama's Soul Food
Wakayama City's soul food comes from a tea merchant. Gyokurin-en has traded tea here since 1854, and in 1958 — looking for something to sell through the summer, when…
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Menya Hishio: Yuasa Soy Sauce Ramen, and Gyoza Where the Dip Is the Star
Wakayama is tonkotsu-shoyu country, and its ramen is usually filed under the Ide school or the Shakomae school. Menya Hishio belongs to neither. Its bowl is jet-black…
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Wakayama Castle: The Third Keep and What to Look For Inside
Wakayama Castle stands on Torafusu-yama, a wooded hill of only 48.9 metres in the middle of the prefectural capital, and counts among Japan's hundred fine castles. It…
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Junkissa Lierre: Waffles and Morning Sets in a Meiji Villa at Wakaura
Junkissa Lierre occupies a Meiji-era villa at Wakaura, the stretch of coast on the southern edge of Wakayama City that poets have been writing about since the Nara…
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Michi-no-Eki Negoro Sakura no Sato (Roadside Station)
Michi-no-Eki Negoro Sakura no Sato is a farm stand and rest stop in Iwade, on the northern edge of Wakayama, five minutes by car from the Iwade-Negoro interchange. It…
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Tomogashima: Walking the Meiji Fort Ruins of an Uninhabited Island
Tomogashima is a cluster of uninhabited islets off Kada, at the western edge of Wakayama City. Under Meiji the army fortified them to guard the Kitan Strait and the sea…
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Summer Time Rendering: An Anime Pilgrimage to Tomogashima and Kada
Summer Time Rendering, Yasuki Tanaka's time-loop thriller, unfolds on an island called Hitogashima that does not exist — though almost everything on it does. Hitogashima…
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Sushi Tozaemon: Good-Value Sushi and Sashimi Lunches in Iwade
Sushi Tozaemon (すし藤左ヱ門) is a smart little sushi restaurant in Iwade, on the inland edge of the Wakayama City area, and it has earned a loyal lunchtime following for one…
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Michi-no-Eki Shiki-no-Sato: Wakayama City's FOOD HUNTER PARK
FOOD HUNTER PARK is the reinvention of Shiki-no-Sato, a long-standing farm-and-nature park on the eastern edge of Wakayama City and, unusually, the only michi-no-eki…
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Capsule-Toy (Gachapon) Hotspots in Wakayama City
Gachapon — the coin-operated capsule-toy machines you find all over Japan — are a small, addictive pleasure, and Wakayama City turns out to be a surprisingly good…