Michi-no-Eki Kinokawa Manyo no Sato (Roadside Station)

Overview

This roadside station stands on National Route 24 at the western gate of Katsuragi Town, facing a stretch of the Kinokawa that early Japanese poetry could not leave alone. Fifteen poems in the eighth-century Man'yoshu were composed here, and the reason stands on the far bank: Funaokayama, and the paired rises of Imoyama and Seyama. In Man'yo usage imo meant a beloved woman and se a beloved man, so travellers who had left families in the capital rarely passed the two facing hills without a verse. Hence the name — Manyo-no-Sato, the Man'yo village. The poets were not the last to mark it: the river at Funaokayama is one of a hundred sunrise-and-sunset views chosen across the prefecture in 1999, listed for its sunsets, and the restaurant windows face it.

The farm shop opens 8.30am to 5pm, stocked by growers from around the town: persimmons, mandarins and peaches in season, vegetables and flowers, pickles and miso put up by farming households, and local craft besides. What most people come for is the station's own hand-made kaki-no-ha-zushi, pressed sushi wrapped in astringent-persimmon leaves — this is persimmon country, so the leaves are local. Restaurant Mahoroba serves it in sets with noodles, 10am to 4pm with last orders at 3.30pm, closed Mondays (the next day when Monday is a public holiday).

A small information room shows Man'yo verses beside news of what is on nearby. Parking (85 cars, 16 coaches) and the toilets stay open around the clock, the levee behind is a cycling route with the station itself a Cycle Station, and the riverbed below is used for barbecues. It is ten minutes by car from Katsuragi-nishi interchange on the Keinawa Expressway, or a 25-minute walk from Nishi-Kaseda on the JR Wakayama Line. Niutsuhime-jinja, part of the Kii Mountain Range World Heritage site, is twenty minutes on. The station closes over the New Year.