Kochi

Shikoku, Japan · City, Sea / Beach

Here the bonito is seared over a flare of burning rice straw — that is where the aroma comes from — and eaten with salt: katsuo no tataki, which you can grill yourself. Every Sunday a kilometre of Otesuji street fills with three or four hundred stalls. The castle is one of Japan's twelve originals and the only one that still has keep and palace together, and at Katsurahama, where swimming is banned, Sakamoto Ryoma faces the Pacific.

The essentials

Getting there

Train — JR Nanpu limited express from Okayama (about 2h30, connecting to the Shinkansen) or a direct flight to Kochi Ryoma Airport from Tokyo-Haneda and Osaka-Itami.

Frequently asked questions about Kochi

What to do in Kochi: 36 activities

• Katsurahama Beach 2 h must-see

  A sand-and-pebble beach facing the Pacific, known for its wave-worn rocks and sunset views. Warning: swimming is strictly forbidden — the currents are very strong.

• Nichiyo-ichi Sunday Market 2 h must-see

  A street market stretching over a kilometre along Otesuji, held every Sunday since 1690. It has been running since 1690, so it goes back some 330 years: close to a kilometre of street with three or four hundred stalls.

• Searing your own katsuo over a straw flame 0.5 h must-see

  You scorch the bonito loin yourself over a blaze of rice straw, which is what gives it the aroma, then slice it and eat it with salt or ponzu. They stop serving when the day's bonito runs out.

• Dancing the Yosakoi yourself 4 h only 10-11 Aug

  The team open to the public accepts visitors of any age free, with same-day registration and an hour of rehearsal beforehand. All you need are the naruko, the wooden clappers. It is one of the most accessible forms of participation in the whole Japanese festival calendar.

• Hirome Market 1.5 h

  A covered food market next to the castle, with shared communal tables and freshly seared katsuo tataki.

• Hirome market at night 2.5 h

  At night Hirome stops being a market and works as a collective banquet hall, with long communal tables where you eat whatever you bought at any stall. A stranger inviting you to sit with him is normal and expected: it is the best way into Kochi sociability if you travel alone.

• Katsuo no Tataki Tasting 1.5 h

  Straw-fire seared bonito (wara-yaki), Kochi's signature dish, served at izakayas and at Hirome Market.

• Kochi Castle 1.5 h

  One of Japan's twelve original castles, the only one that keeps the keep (tenshu) and the honmaru goten palace together. It is one of the twelve original castles in Japan and, of those twelve, the only one still holding on to both the original main keep and the original honmaru palace.

• Kochi Castle Museum of History 1.5 h

  Sixty-seven thousand pieces from the Yamauchi clan, including National Treasures, and a third floor with a head-on view of the whole castle. On Sundays it opens at eight in the morning, meant to be combined with the Sunday market.

• Sakamoto Ryoma Statue 0.5 h

  A bronze statue of the samurai Sakamoto Ryoma gazing out to sea from a bluff above Katsurahama.

• Sawachi ryori and the Tosa drinking games 2.5 h booking

  Sawachi is an enormous communal platter shared without ceremony. Then come the games the city council documents as local heritage: hashiken, kiku-no-hana and bekuhai, in which some cups cannot be set down until they are empty. They are designed to make people drink a lot and fast: know how to decline.

• Whale watching at Usa 5 h booking

  From May to October, best in August and September, from Usa port in Tosa. The success rate is high because the skippers pass information between boats, but there is no refund if no whales appear and children under three and pregnant women are not accepted.

• Zazen and sutra copying at Chikurin-ji 1.5 h booking

  Temple 31, founded in 724 and called 'the first dojo of the southern seas', runs guided seated meditation and sutra copying sessions open to anyone regardless of religion, with support in English. Its Shoin garden is a National Monument.

• A night out in Obiyamachi and Yasube 4 h

  Nightlife is concentrated between the Enokuchi river and the tram line. Local custom: here people go out drinking at five in the afternoon, not nine, and the canonical end of the night is ramen or gyoza. The next morning, the 'Kochi morning' includes miso soup with breakfast.

• Chikurin-ji Temple 1 h

  Temple 31 of the Shikoku 88-temple pilgrimage, with a five-story pagoda and a garden on the slopes of Mt. Godaisan.

• Forging a Tosa knife 6 h booking

  Tosa uchihamono are free-forged without a mould, with four hundred years of tradition in mountain axes and sickles. The working smithies are outside the city, in Susaki and the Shimanto valley, with one-day courses to make your own kitchen knife.

• Godaisan night viewpoint 1 h

  The hill crowned by Chikurin-ji and the Makino garden has a free lookout regarded as the best night view of the city.

• Kochi Poka Poka Onsen 1.75 h

  There is real thermal water inside the city, though no hot-spring district or landmark ryokan: indoor and outdoor baths, a cold bath, saunas and the feel of a neighbourhood club, with no tourism whatsoever. The men's and women's sides swap over every other day.

• Kochi summer fireworks 1.5 h only 9 Aug

  On the eve of Yosakoi, the night of 9 August, beside the Kagami river: around four thousand shells and a 650-metre Niagara cascade.

• Kochi's covered shopping arcades 2 h

  Kochi keeps a living arcade fabric, rare in provincial Japan: Obiyamachi, the largest at 650 metres; Ohashi-dori, literally the city's kitchen, with vegetables, fish and a kamaboko factory from eight in the morning; and Tenjinbashi, for traditional sweets, with monthly wagashi workshops.

• Makino Botanical Garden 1.5 h

  A garden on Mt. Godaisan dedicated to botanist Tomitaro Makino, home to thousands of Japanese plant species.

• Museum of Art, Kochi 1.75 h

  A rotating Marc Chagall collection, one of the most important in Japan, and a centre devoted to the Japanese-American photographer Ishimoto Yasuhiro. It also has a working noh stage and opens every day of the year except New Year.

• Museum of Ryoma's birthplace neighbourhood 1 h

  It does not tell the national epic of Sakamoto Ryoma but what his neighbourhood was like in the Bakumatsu: who lived in each house and what he played as a child. It complements the Katsurahama museum rather than repeating it.

• Ryugado Cave 2.5 h

  A four-kilometre karst cave 175 million years old in Kami, about forty minutes away: there is a forty-minute tourist route and an adventure course with helmet and head torch, which is what hooks teenagers.

• Suigei Tosa-gura sake brewery 1.5 h booking

  Kochi has nineteen sake breweries. This one, opened in 2018 in Tosa about forty minutes away, is state of the art and specialises in junmai daiginjo, with a laboratory, tastings and alcohol-free amazake for non-drinkers.

• The other pilgrimage temples in the city 4 h

  Besides number 31 there are number 30 Zenraku-ji, number 32 Zenjibu-ji — on a headland overlooking Urado Bay, it was the seafarers' temple — and number 33 Sekkei-ji, the only Rinzai Zen temple on the whole circuit, linked to Chosokabe Motochika.

• Tosa no Okyaku 4 h only about 9 days in early March

  Kochi's drinking festival, in early March: banquet tables set up in the middle of the street in Chuo Park and the arcades, with sake from breweries across the prefecture and the Tosa games. It is the domestic okyaku scaled up to the whole city.

• Tosa washi paper 1.5 h booking

  Tosa washi includes tengujo, the thinnest paper in the world at two hundredths of a millimetre, used to restore documents in museums worldwide. The museum in Ino, twenty-five minutes away by train, is the most accessible workshop.

• Yosakoi Festival 3 h only 9-12 Aug

  A street dance festival held every August since 1954, with thousands of dancers using naruko wooden clappers.

• Harimaya Bridge 0.25 h

  A very small red bridge, famous for a folk song about a monk who bought a hairpin for his lover and was expelled. Locals themselves joke that it is one of Japan's great tourist letdowns: it is worth a five-minute stop on the way to the arcades, no more.

• Katsurahama Aquarium 1 h

  A small aquarium next to Katsurahama Beach, home to sea lions and local Pacific species.

• Kochi Fighting Dogs baseball 3 h

  Independent-league baseball at the city stadium, with cheap tickets and a very family atmosphere, from April to September.

• Kochi Ryoma Marathon 5 h booking

  A city marathon in mid-February with the whole town behind it; one of the liveliest races in Shikoku.

• Noichi Zoological Park 5 h

  Around one thousand four hundred animals of a hundred species in naturalistic enclosures, in Konan half an hour away; the artificial rainforest downpour runs twice a day.

• Tosaden Streetcar Ride 1 h

  A ride on Tosaden Kotsu, one of Japan's oldest still-operating urban tram systems.

• Umi no Terrace at Katsurahama 2.5 h

  Shops and restaurants beside the beach, where children hunt for the 'five-coloured stones' in the sand. Swimming on the beach is strictly forbidden: the currents are very strong.

What only happens on specific dates

• Tosa no Okyaku about 9 days in early March
• Dancing the Yosakoi yourself 10-11 Aug
• Kochi summer fireworks 9 Aug
• Yosakoi Festival 9-12 Aug

Chains well with

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