If you would like to experience a "time trip" to the old days Japan, Narumi would be the best place. This district is well preserved. You might feel like you live in the Edo period while walking down the street!! Narumi is well-known for its traditional industry, arimatsu-shibori, a type of tie-dyeing. Here is an interesting success story. This district used be a very small village. A man called Takeda Shokyuro moved to this place with other 9 people. Since there were no inductries, they had a very hard time to make a living. One day, Shokyuro got an idea to make Shibori through a technique of tie-dyeing towel by a visitor from Kyushu (a southern island) and started a new industry in this place. Since then, a various techniques have been introduced, and this industry has become very important among local people. However, the number of successors are decreasing year by year as other traditional industries.

• Distance from Nihonbashi: 341.1 km

Chiryu

Miya

Tokaido route

• Go back to Tokaido 53 tsugi

• Go home

• Go back to Hiroshige's page

This district is well-known as the birth place of Tokugawa Ieyasu, a founder of Tokugawa (Edo) government. You might want to spend a whole day for sightseeing in this district. In fact, there are many histrical spots. There is Ieyasu lived in the Okazaki castle for 16 years: 6 years from the birth (1542) to 6yrs old when he was held as a hostage by Oda family, a famous sengoku-daimyo or feudal lord during the Japanese civil war period (He got captured on the way to Imagawa Yoshmoto (another famous sengoku daimyo)'s place-- he was supposed to be a Imagawa's hostage); and 10 years from when Imagawa Yoshimoto lost a famous war, Okehazama no kassen against Oda Nobunaga in 1560 to when Ieyasu moved to Hamamatsu castle. After Ieyasu moved to Hamamatsu, his son, Nobuyasu became a master of the castle. Okazaki was very important place to control Tokaido during the Edo period and fudai daimyo or a damyo who was a hereditary vassal of of the shogun, was assigned as a master of the castle for defensive purposes. The original castle was ruined, but it was reconstructed in 1959 and became a museum.

Okazaki is also famous for haccho miso, a kind of fermented soy bean paste. Its history is quite long--it is said that hachho miso began to be produced in the Muromachi period (1333-1573).

• Distance from Nihonbashi: 315.1 km

Fujikawa

Chiryu

Tokaido route

• Go back to Tokaido 53 tsugi

• Go home

• Go back to Hiroshige's page