Places & destinations
JapanPlaces & destinations
Ōuchi-juku
An Edo-period post town kept intact, where soba is eaten using a leek as a chopstick.
On the mapFukushima
On the old road linking Aizu to Nikkō, Ōuchi-juku lined up inns for lords travelling under compulsory attendance to Edo. Its nineteenth-century decline froze it in place: some thirty thatched houses still line an earth street with no power poles, protected since 1981. The local dish, negi soba, is eaten with a whole leek serving as both utensil and condiment, a custom born at a wedding banquet where the leek stood for the bond being tied.