Kuroishi Komise Street
licensed photograph掬茶 / CC BY-SA 4.0

Aomori · KuroishiNo.815★★Open in map →

Kuroishi Komise Street

— Wooden arcades built against snow-country winters

localOff the trail — and worth it

A merchant street in the small Aomori city of Kuroishi, where wooden arcades built by each shop over its own frontage to keep the snow off still run unbroken in front of the houses they belong to.

  1. FromHirosaki Station
  2. ~40 minKonan Railway + walk
  3. Get off atKuroishi Station (Konan Railway Konan Line)
  4. On foot
  5. Kuroishi Komise Street
Directions ↗

The sweet spot

Kuroishi sits off the standard Tohoku circuit, at the end of a branch line, in a small city. It is not hidden — the street is signposted, listed and looked after. It stays quiet because it is short, because the town around it is small, and because most people travelling in Aomori never change onto the line that finishes here.

Where it is

34 more notes in Aomori · open the map →

What to look for

Narumi Brewery掬茶 / CC BY-SA 4.0
  1. The komise colonnadewooden posts and a boarded roof running along the house fronts, walkable end to end
  2. Takahashi Housethe home of a merchant family who supplied the Kuroishi Tsugaru, designated an Important Cultural Property
  3. Narumi Brewerya sake house still working on the street, behind the label Kikunoi
  4. Matsunoyu Koryukanthe old Nakamachi bathhouse, kept as a free community hall with its pine in the yard

How to actually get there

  1. Hirosaki Station → Kuroishi Station (Konan Railway Konan Line, to the end of the line).
  2. Kuroishi Station → Nakamachi (walk south-east through the old centre).
  3. Walk the arcade past the Takahashi House and the brewery to the far end, then come back along the other side.
  4. Kuroishi Station → Hirosaki Station (same line; every train runs back).
Konan Railway from Hirosaki to the end of the line
Hirosaki is the gateway. The Konan Railway's Konan Line leaves from beside the JR station and runs east to Kuroishi, where the line ends. Trains come about every half hour in the morning, roughly hourly through the middle of the day, and rather more often again in the evening. From Kuroishi Station it is about ten minutes on foot to Nakamachi.
Return from Kuroishi Station
Kuroishi is a terminus, so every train leaving the platform runs back toward Hirosaki and there is no wrong one to board. Departures thin out in the middle of the day, so read the board when you arrive rather than when you finish the walk. At Hirosaki the Konan platform sits beside the JR one for anything onward.
Directions from my location (Google Maps) ↗

About the place

Komise were never public works. Each merchant set wooden posts along the front of his own plot and laid a boarded roof across them, so that the way past his shop stayed passable when the snow piled up and shaded when the summer sun did not let go. Versions of this existed across the north, but where they survive they usually survive as a reconstruction or a single restored frontage. In Nakamachi the posts run on from house to house, and the buildings standing behind them are the ones they were built for. That continuity is why the street holds a place on Japan's list of one hundred selected roads.

How to enjoy it

The arcade is outdoors and public, so the street reads as a walk-through even when the buildings are shut. The old bathhouse hall keeps daytime hours and charges nothing to enter, while the Takahashi House opens on its own schedule — worth checking if you mean to go inside. Winter is when the arcades make their own argument, and it is also when the fewest doors are open.

Background & history

Kuroishi grew as the seat of a branch of the Tsugaru house, and Nakamachi was its row of merchants. The arcades date from that period and were paid for plot by plot rather than by the town, which is why the line of posts is continuous while the details change from one house to the next. The state selected the district for preservation in 2005. Among the buildings is the Takahashi House, a merchant family who supplied the Kuroishi Tsugaru, and its home is now an Important Cultural Property.

Before you go

Cash
Walking the street costs nothing and the arcade is open air. The community hall in the old bathhouse is free to enter. The Takahashi House and the brewery each set their own terms. The Konan Railway is a small private line, so carrying cash is the safe assumption.
Before you go
Kuroishi takes heavy snow, which is the season the arcades were built for, but individual houses shorten their hours or close through the winter. The buildings are lived in and worked in, so not every interior is open and photography inside is at each owner's discretion. Nakamachi is a narrow street and cars use it.
Another way
By car, Kuroishi lies close to the Kuroishi interchange on the Tohoku Expressway and the street is signposted from the middle of town. Coming from Aomori city, driving saves the change of trains at Hirosaki.
After you get off
Leave Kuroishi Station and walk south-east into the old centre. Nakamachi lies on the far side of it, and you know you have arrived when the house fronts step out over the pavement on posts.