East Ehime · SaijoNo.955★Open in map →
Saijo Uchinuki
— Free-flowing artesian springs in a water town
Central Saijo sits on groundwater held under pressure, so a pipe driven into the ground flows on its own. These wells run all through the town, and a short walk strings the public ones together.
- FromMatsuyama Station
- ~1 hr 15 minJR limited express, about hourly
- Get off atIyo-Saijo Station (JR Yosan Line)
- On foot
- Saijo Uchinuki
The sweet spot
Saijo's water is well known inside Japan, but it is not a single sight with a gate and a queue. The wells are spread through an ordinary working town, so seeing them means walking a few blocks of everyday streets rather than joining a line at an entrance.
Where it is
29 more notes in Ehime · open the map →What to look for — in walking order
- Iyo-Saijo Station squarean uchinuki running as a fountain just outside the ticket gates
- The Aquatopia channelswater courses cut through the town centre, with a firefly reach and a stage over the water
- The jinya moatthe moat of the old castle-town headquarters, with carp and ducks on it
- Uchinuki Plazaa stone-paved plaza beside the city hall with a spring and the memorial that marks the listing
- Kobosuia spring rising inside the sea itself, where the Honjin River meets the harbour
How to actually get there
- Matsuyama Station → Iyo-Saijo Station (JR Yosan Line limited express, about 1 hr).
- Iyo-Saijo Station square → the Aquatopia channels and the jinya moat (walk, 10 min or so).
- On to Uchinuki Plaza beside the city hall, about fifteen minutes from the station in all.
- Carry on north to Kobosui, where the spring rises inside the harbour.
- JR limited express east from Matsuyama
- Matsuyama Station →(JR Yosan Line, Shiokaze or Ishizuchi limited express, about 1 hr)→ Iyo-Saijo Station. Departures are spaced roughly an hour apart through the day, so the trip does not have to be built around a timetable. From the station it is about a fifteen-minute walk northwest to the plaza beside the city hall.
- Return from Iyo-Saijo Station
- Limited expresses run back toward Matsuyama into the evening. The same line carries on east over the Seto-Ohashi bridge to Okayama, which is the route to use if you are heading back to Honshu. Local trains are slower and much less frequent, so check the board on the platform for which one comes next before you settle in.
About the place
Saijo lies on the plain between the Ishizuchi mountains and the Seto Inland Sea. Underground, an aquifer is pinned between layers that water cannot pass through, so it sits under pressure; drive a pipe down into it and the water climbs to the surface on its own. About 3,000 of these wells stand across the city, in gardens, in factory yards and inside shrine precincts. The local name, uchinuki, comes from the old method of hammering an iron rod down and threading hollowed bamboo through the hole. Several of the wells are public, and drinking from them costs nothing.
How to enjoy it
The public points are all outdoors and free, and the walk from the station to the plaza takes about fifteen minutes on flat streets. Bring an empty bottle: there is a purpose-built collection point on the south side of the welfare centre, set up for filling rather than sipping, though it keeps set hours rather than running around the clock. Water temperature barely moves through the year, so it tastes the same in August as in February.
Background & history
The technique dates from the middle of the Edo period: an iron rod was hammered into the ground by hand and hollowed bamboo threaded down the hole, and the name uchinuki comes from that driving and piercing. Rods and bamboo stayed in use until around the end of the war, after which air hammers and steel pipe took over. The Environment Agency put Saijo's water on the national list of one hundred famous waters in 1985, and the town's water went on to win the national water-tasting contest twice, in 1995 and 1996.
Before you go
- Cash
- Drinking from the public wells costs nothing, and there is no ticket or gate anywhere on the walk. Iyo-Saijo Station takes IC cards and cash; a limited-express seat needs an express charge on top of the basic fare.
- Before you go
- Everything on this walk is in the open air, so rain shapes the day more than the season does. The collection point at the welfare centre keeps set hours, and its car park is locked once the building closes.
- Another way
- From Honshu, the Shiokaze limited express runs straight through from Okayama to Iyo-Saijo across the Seto-Ohashi bridge. From Imabari the same line reaches Saijo from the west.
- After you get off
- Leave Iyo-Saijo Station on the side where the railway park and the tourist centre stand, then walk about a kilometre northwest through the old town to the city hall and the plaza beside it.