Uwajima

Shikoku, Japan · Town / small city, Sea / Beach

An hour and a half south of Matsuyama, where Shikoku breaks up into a coast of rias and almost nobody comes down. The Date ruled here: Date Masamune's eldest son founded the domain, and what remains is one of the twelve original castle keeps left in Japan - though not the one people think. Guidebooks credit it to Todo Takatora, who built the castle between 1596 and 1601; the town hall says the keep still standing is the second Date lord's, from around 1666, and that the exact year it was finished has not been established. The family's garden is planted as a joke about their own family tree: bamboo for the crest, which is a sparrow among bamboo, and wisteria because their ancestors were the Fujiwara, whose name carries the wisteria in it. Then there are things that resemble nothing else: bulls that fight bulls in a covered ring four times a year, stone terraces climbing out of the sea on forty-degree slopes, protected as a cultural landscape, a July rite in which the palanquin bearers wade into the river to fight over a sacred paper, and a bream-and-rice dish eaten raw here and cooked in the rest of Ehime - two different dishes under one name.

The essentials

Getting there

Train — The Uwakai limited express leaves Matsuyama and arrives direct, no transfer, and since 2016 it is the only express serving Uwajima. The published figure is one hour thirty-three minutes for the unified-timetable slots since the change of 15 March 2025, and it is worth knowing that this is second-hand: the JR Shikoku notice behind it could not be read. What the station's official timetable sheet does show is sixteen services, roughly one an hour. From Takamatsu or Okayama you change at Matsuyama. There is a highway bus, but it does not end at the station: it ends at the bus centre some eight hundred metres away, and no source publishes where it comes from or how long it takes. By car the interchanges are Uwajima-Asahi, next to the station, and Uwajima-Kita; the city was joined to the national expressway network on 10 March 2012, which tells you how out of the way this is. There is no airport and no source consulted gives the distance to Matsuyama's. The port is a designated major one with boats to the islands of Hiburi, Toshima and Kashima, but no route to Kyushu. Inside, the centre is walkable: Warei Shrine is ten minutes from the station, the castle fifteen plus twenty uphill, and the Kisaiya market a kilometre, about fifteen minutes. For Tenshaen garden there is a bus, ten minutes to the East High School stop and five on foot. What lies outside is another matter: the Yusu terraces are an hour on the Komobuchi bus, and Nametoko gorge has no direct road from the centre — you take a taxi from Matsumaru station on a different line. For lodging the sources name only the hotel in the station building itself, rebuilt in 1992; none mentions an onsen or a ryokan, and none gives bed numbers.

Frequently asked questions about Uwajima

What to do in Uwajima: 11 activities

• Bull against bull, four times a year 2.5 h must-see only four tournaments: 2 January, 3 May, 23 July and one Sunday in October

  This is not Spanish bullfighting and that is worth saying first: there is no person pitted against the animal. Two bulls face each other, shoving horn against horn in a ring called a dohyo like sumo's, and the vocabulary is sumo's, with a ranking of yokozuna and ozeki. The only rule is the one the organiser publishes: the one that runs away loses. There is no time limit. The bulls are attended by seko, who adjust the animal's stance with the nose rope and shout encouragement from alongside, and the organiser lists ten basic techniques, from the head-on charge to the sideways shove. None of the sources consulted mentions the animal being killed or deliberately injured, and none denies it either: they do not say. There are four tournaments a year, and the organiser's dates for the latest cycle were 2 January, 3 May, 23 July inside the city's great festival, and 25 October; the five-tournament lists circulating online, with one in April and one in August, are from earlier years. Tickets are three thousand yen on the day and two thousand five hundred in advance, two thousand for over-sixty-fives, and under-fifteens free; all seating is unreserved and the box office takes cash only. The ring has been covered since March 1975, when the town hall built the country's first domed one, and on tournament days there is a free bus from the station and the bus centre between ten and twelve. There are two hundred and fifty temporary parking spaces and they warn these fill up. There are two versions of the origin and both are told as oral tradition - Kamakura-period farmers breeding strong oxen, or two oxen given in the late seventeenth century by a Dutch ship whose crew local fishermen rescued; what is documented is a ring in the early nineteenth century. In 1948 the occupation banned the fights on animal-welfare grounds and the ban was lifted two years later.

• The keep that is not whose they say it is 2 h must-see

  It is one of the twelve original castle keeps left in Japan, and the story the guidebooks tell is wrong. Todo Takatora built the castle between 1596 and 1601, but the town hall says the keep you visit is the work of the second Date lord, Munetoshi, within the great rebuilding of 1661 to 1672, and that what he did was remove Takatora's watchtower-type keep and raise a layered-tower one in its place. The date it gives is around 1666, and the town hall adds something almost nobody publishes: that no document fixes the year it was completed and the question is still being studied. The pentagon is worth telling properly too: it is not the keep's floor plan, which is nearly a square, but the fortress's outer perimeter, and the idea that this was a Takatora ruse to fool the shogunate's spies is a legend - it even has a name - and the town hall's pages do not mention it. The keep was designated a property of national importance in 1934, under the old law that then called it a national treasure, and moved to the present category when the law changed in 1950; the whole hill has been a national historic site since 1937. It costs two hundred yen, under-eighteens are free, it opens 9:00 to 17:00 from March to October and until 16:00 from November to February, and it never closes. It stands seventy-three metres up: fifteen minutes on foot from the station and twenty of climbing. And check the state of the paths before going, because as of today one of the two southern approaches is still shut by a landslip with no reopening date, and the north gate is under repair from March 2026 to March 2027: you can walk up there, but not drive.

• Two dishes, one name: here the bream goes in raw 1.5 h must-see

  There are two taimeshi in Ehime and they are not variants of one dish: they are two different dishes with the same name, and knowing that saves you ordering something you were not expecting. In the east and centre of the prefecture, Matsuyama and Imabari, taimeshi is rice cooked with grilled bream flaked through it. Here in the south, with Uwajima at its centre, the bream goes in as sashimi, raw, dressed in a soy-based sauce with raw egg, sesame and chopped spring onion, and laid over the rice: you mix it yourself. The older name for this version was hyuga-meshi, and it was home cooking in one part of Uwajima; in the seventies and eighties a restaurant in Tsushima, now part of Uwajima, began serving it and the dish spread, until the two names merged into taimeshi and in 2007 the Ministry of Agriculture put it on its list of a hundred regional dishes as Uwajima taimeshi. A cooperative of local restaurants holds it as a collective trademark, though the source gives neither its name nor a date. There is a pretty version of the origin, told as legend and to be taken as such: that it began on board, with the pirates based on the island of Hiburi, who ate without lighting a fire. There is a third taimeshi in the prefecture, the Hojo Kashima one, with the bream cooked whole alongside the rice and nothing but kelp for the stock. The places serving it in Uwajima number about ten according to the tourism association, spread between the centre, the station and the Kisaiya market; no source publishes reliable prices or hours, so check on the day.

• The Yusu terraces: forty degrees of stone rising from the sea 2 h must-see Yusu Mizugaura, Uwajima · 60 min

  The phrase they use here is that you farm until you reach the sky, and you understand it on sight: dry stone walls stacked up the flank of a headland above the Uwa Sea, following the contours, at an average slope of forty degrees and with walls over a metre high. The state designated them an important cultural landscape on 26 July 2007, in the farming-landscape category, and they were the first in Shikoku to be so recognised. What grows there now is potatoes, harvested in spring. The history is not decorative: this is a steep, wind-scoured coast where people lived half off the land and half off the sea, the third Uwajima lord allowed the hillside to be broken in, the population grew in the late Edo period, and the walls were finished between the Meiji and Taisho eras. And it is worth knowing this is a place in retreat, not a set piece: of the thirty hectares of terraces that once existed it fell to about two, and what remains is held up by some twenty farming households and a local association that restores terraces. The published area figures do not agree with each other and are not repeated here. Looking costs nothing at any hour, there is free parking for twenty cars, and two places open only briefly: an eating house from 11:00 to 14:00, closed Monday to Friday unless ten people book, and a produce shop from 10:00 to 14:00, closed Mondays and Thursdays. You come on the Komobuchi bus from Uwajima station, an hour, and the stop is at the foot. In late April there is a festival on the shore below the slope, though no source publishes the exact day.

• A garden planted as a joke about the family name 1.5 h

  The best thing about this garden is why what is planted is planted, and the town hall explains it: the bamboo is there because the Date crest is a sparrow among bamboo, and the wisteria because the family's ancestors were the Fujiwara, whose name contains the word for wisteria. The garden, in other words, is a pun on the family tree, and there are nearly twenty species of bamboo around the pond. The history comes in two layers: the second lord reclaimed this land from the sea in 1672 for a shore palace, and the seventh, Munenari, built his retirement here and finished the garden in 1866, which is when he named it. It is a stroll garden around a pond and has been a nationally designated place of scenic beauty since 20 May 1968. What crosses the water is not a bamboo bridge, however often you read that: the town hall calls it a white-wisteria drum bridge. It opens 8:30 to 17:00 from April to June and 8:30 to 16:30 the rest of the year, and costs five hundred yen for an adult, three hundred for over-sixty-fives and high-schoolers, two hundred for middle school and a hundred for primary. Mind the closures, because the sources disagree: one warns it shuts on Mondays from the second Monday of December to the end of February, and another mentions no closure at all, so in winter it is worth confirming. No source says which month the wisteria flowers; for the irises it does - they peak in early June. You come by bus from the station, ten minutes to the East High School stop and five on foot, and there is free parking.

• Nametoko: three hundred metres of polished rock and a waterfall you can slide down 4 h Nokawa, Uwajima / Meguro, Matsuno · 70 min

  Twelve kilometres of granite gorge at the head of the Meguro river, inside the Ashizuri-Uwakai national park and in the Shimanto basin. An administrative split explains why it is barely associated with Uwajima: most of the gorge lies within Uwajima's boundary, but the tourism development has been done by the neighbouring town of Matsuno, so nearly everything published presents it as theirs. The centrepiece is the Yukiwa falls, not a drop but a sheet of water sliding over a single slab of rock: some three hundred metres long in all, twenty wide, of which about eighty are visible from the path. The gradient is gentle, which is why the source describing it says you can slide down from halfway, which is exactly what people come to do in summer. There is a warning to read first: the sources disagree on how long it takes to reach the falls, one saying twelve hundred metres of path and about forty minutes and another more than an hour of climbing, so allow margin. There is no direct road from central Uwajima; you get there on mountain roads with narrow stretches, or by taxi about thirty minutes from Matsumaru station, which is on a different line. There is free parking for a hundred and fifty cars. None of the sources consulted publishes a price, opening hours, a rain policy or which outfit runs the canyoning, so that has to be settled before going. There are wild monkeys.

• Uwajima's ox-demon and the scramble for the gohei in the river 5 h only 22-24 July

  These are two festivals at once and it is worth knowing, because almost everything published merges them into one. The shrine's is the Warei Taisai, and its rule is the 23rd and 24th of July; the city's is the Uwajima Ushi-oni Matsuri, from the 22nd to the 24th. What gives the second its name is the ushi-oni, the ox-demon: a float the organising committee describes as five to six metres long, with a demon's face, a very long neck and a body covered in red cloth and palm fibre, and a tail shaped like a sword - in the tradition the tail is called exactly that, sword. Dozens of young men carry it, children walk alongside blowing bamboo horns, and there are two parades on the 24th, the children's ushi-oni in the morning and the big ones from midday to mid-afternoon. One source tells the legend it comes from: a mountain ascetic killed the creature by blowing a conch and chanting a mantra, ran a sword through its brow, and the blood flowed for seven days and seven nights until it formed a pool. But the great moment is another, and it is not what it sounds like: on the night of the 24th, at around ten to nine, the mikoshi come back from a procession at sea in six boats, go up the Sugagawa river lit by bonfires and run about in the water around a sacred bamboo pole set in the riverbed, while the bearers fight to tear the gohei from its tip. The shrine is dedicated to Yamaie Seibei and the festival rests on the cult of the spirits of those who died with a grievance, though no source gives the year of its founding or says how he died. The organisers say this is more than three hundred years old and cite nothing. On the night of the 22nd there are fireworks over the bay from 20:00 to 20:30, with paid seats in three places, one of them the castle keep's main terrace, and the cruises to watch from the water sell out; one source mentions some seven thousand shots without saying where that comes from. On the 24th, after the scramble for the gohei, there is a second, tiny display of a few dozen shots. On the 23rd around midday there is also bull-against-bull fighting at the municipal ring, though one source places it on the 24th. Watch the transport: on the 22nd there are no restrictions in the centre, but on the 23rd and 24th the whole city is a no-parking zone and they ask people to use public transport; drones are banned. You come on the Uwakai limited express from Matsuyama, direct and roughly one an hour, and from the station it is seven to ten minutes on foot depending on the source. And the real problem: the rite ends after nine at night, an hour and a half by train away, and nobody publishes the last train back, so either you sleep in Uwajima or you check beforehand. None of the sources consulted gives a heritage designation, an entry price, attendance figures, the float's weight, how many of them turn out, or what happens if it rains. The 2026 edition, the sixtieth, has already been held.

• Jakoten: the whole fish, bones and all 0.5 h

  It is the fried fish cake of southern Ehime's coast, and what sets it apart from any other kamaboko in the country is that the fish is not cleaned: head and guts come out and the rest is pounded with the bones and skin still in, then fried. Hence the grey colour and the strong taste. The ideal fish, according to the source that explains it, is the hotarujako, called harambo here, and red mullet, horse mackerel and scabbardfish are also used. In Uwajima, besides, the product is simply called tempura, so if you order tempura you may not get what you think. On the name there is a conclusion and a legend: the conclusion is that jako comes from zako, trash fish, and the legend, told as one version among several, is that Uwajima's first lord, Date Hidemune, brought kamaboko makers from Sendai in 1615, which is where his father came from. The name jakoten itself, according to one maker, has only been in use for about three decades. None of the sources consulted gives it a protected origin or a trademark registration; what does exist, since 2005, is a local branding effort. You eat it hot, straight out of the fryer, and the handiest place is the Kisaiya market, which has a stall that fries it to order.

• Kisaiya: the roadside market with a pearl room and three ox-demons 1.5 h

  It is the city's roadside station and works as its shop window: a fishmonger, local-produce shops, restaurants and a stall that fries jakoten to order. It opens 9:00 to 18:00 every day of the year except 1 January, the restaurant 10:30 to 16:30 with last orders at 16:00, the toilets are open around the clock and there are two hundred and twenty-eight free parking spaces. Inside are two rooms worth the visit and they cost nothing: the pearl room, with a piece made from some two thousand Uwajima pearls representing the sea, a film about akoya cultivation and a timeline of the trade, and the ox-demon room, which holds three of the floats from the July festival - the only way to see them close up outside those three days. On pearls, the sources repeat that this is one of the country's significant pearl-producing areas, but none gives a figure or a production share: it is said that way and no number is put on it. What does appear is the list of what is farmed in this sea, which explains half the city: pearls, red sea bream, yellowtail, amberjack, tiger puffer, flounder and a locally branded tuna. From Uwajima station it is a kilometre, about fifteen minutes on foot, and there is a shuttle bus, though no source publishes its times or frequency. By car it is right off the Uwajima-Asahi interchange.

• The shrine of the murdered counsellor 1 h

  It stands ten minutes' walk from the station and it is the shrine that explains the city's great festival. It venerates Yamaie Seibei, counsellor to Uwajima's first lord and the man in charge of government affairs, killed by the opposing faction. What is practised here is the cult of the spirits of those who died with a grievance, and everything else follows from that: the shrine ended up as the shrine of the fishery and of ordinary people, a god of trades. The resting place where the palanquins halt during the July procession is another Warei shrine, the Marunouchi one, which stands on what was his house. The grounds are open and free; none of the sources consulted gives the year of its founding, or measurements for the stone torii, or opening and closing times. If you come on 24 July this stops being a quiet place: it is the climax of the festival, with the palanquins wading into the river and the whole city a no-parking zone.

• Kushima, the island that stopped being one in 2016 3 h Kushima, Uwajima · 20 min

  It lies about four kilometres from the centre, at the mouth of the bay, and until 2016 you got there by boat: that year the Kushima bridge opened and the ferry route was withdrawn, which is the kind of fact that changes a trip and almost never gets published next to the place's name. Today you drive or cycle in, and what you do is go round: there is a viewpoint taking in the bridge and the bay, a hill of three hundred and twenty-two metres, an old lookout post from which the sea was watched, a small temple, and a circuit of forty-five chapels that all open on 29 April. There is bicycle hire at three hundred yen a day, but the source warns the opening is irregular, so call first; and there are guides from the village itself who take people round the island, walking or out to watch the sunset. It is a fishing place, and by our lights it is not essential: it is the afternoon plan if you are sleeping in Uwajima with half a day spare. There is free parking for twenty cars.

What only happens on specific dates

• Bull against bull, four times a year four tournaments: 2 January, 3 May, 23 July and one Sunday in October
• Uwajima's ox-demon and the scramble for the gohei in the river 22-24 July

Chains well with

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