Uchikawa

Uchikawa rewards patience — the view most people describe isn't the one you get by rushing.

Uchikawa is a canal running through the middle of the old port town of Shinminato, and the fishing fleet ties up along both banks right in front of the houses — bows nosed almost into people's doorsteps, nets and floats stacked on the quay, twelve bridges crossing in the space of a couple of kilometres. Locally it gets called the Venice of Japan, which is the sort of claim to be suspicious of, and which in this case is at least pointing at something real: boats and domestic life share the same water.

The town was a stop on the kitamaebune coastal shipping route in the nineteenth century and the money from that built the merchant houses still standing behind the quay. Each of the bridges is architecturally distinct, several are lit at night, and a small sightseeing boat runs the canal from the Kawa-no-Eki. Sunset is the time — the light comes down the water between the moored boats and the whole thing turns orange.