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Akashi is a city of about 300,000 people in southern Hyōgo Prefecture, stretched along the Seto Inland Sea where the narrow Akashi Strait separates Honshū from Awaji Island. The 135th meridian east, which sets Japan Standard Time, passes through the city, and its clock-tower planetarium has made Akashi known as the town of Japanese time.
Akashi appears in a poem by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro and in a chapter of The Tale of Genji. From 1617 it was the castle town of the Akashi Domain, guarding the San'yōdō highway to western Japan, and the swordsman Miyamoto Musashi is said to have helped lay out its streets.
Visitors walk up to the turrets of Akashi Castle and the cherry trees of Akashi Park, visit the planetarium and Kakinomoto Shrine on Hitomaru Hill, then shop for sea bream and octopus in the Uonotana market and stop for a plate of akashiyaki dumplings near the station.
Akashi Castle is the hilltop castle in the centre of Akashi, built from 1617 on the orders of shogun Tokugawa Hidetada as a guard on the road to western Japan. No main keep was ever raised, but two three-storey corner turrets survive as Important Cultural Properties, seen right from Akashi Station.
Akashi Park is the Hyōgo prefectural park that covers almost all of the Akashi Castle grounds in Akashi, opened in 1918 with ponds, lawns and some 200 kinds of trees. It is one of Japan's top 100 cherry blossom spots, and a garden said to be designed by Miyamoto Musashi opened here in 2003.
The Akashi Municipal Museum of Culture is the city history museum on the hill north-east of Akashi Station, opened in 1991. Its permanent galleries tell the story of Akashi in eight themes, with a life-size model of the Akashi elephant of two million years ago and the armour of the castle lords.
Nakazaki Public Hall is a wooden hall of 1911 in Akashi, the oldest public building left in the city, built for the old Akashi District. Its designer, who had worked on repairs to Tōdai-ji, gave it the look of a Buddhist temple, and the novelist Natsume Sōseki gave a lecture at its opening.
The Akashi Municipal Planetarium stands right on the 135th meridian east that sets Japan Standard Time, and its clock tower is an Akashi landmark seen from passing trains. Opened in 1960, it is famous for its Carl Zeiss Jena projector, in use since opening and long the oldest working one in Japan.
Kakinomoto Shrine is the Shinto shrine on top of Hitomaru Hill in Akashi, dedicated to the great poet Kakinomoto no Hitomaro and worshipped as a god of poetry and learning. Tradition dates it to 887, and it was moved to this hill around 1620 when Akashi Castle was built on its old site.
Gesshō-ji is a Sōtō Zen temple on Hitomaru Hill in Akashi, next to Kakinomoto Shrine, with which it was once joined. Its founding is traced to 811 and the monk Kūkai, it moved here when Akashi Castle was built, and its gate is held to be a gate from Fushimi Castle, brought to Akashi.
Muryōkō-ji is a Jōdo Buddhist temple in the old town of Akashi, said to be the model for the seaside house of Prince Genji in the Akashi chapter of The Tale of Genji. Its gate, with carvings credited to Hidari Jingorō, survived the air raid of 1945 that burned down the rest of the temple.
Uonotana is the covered market street near Akashi Station in Akashi, about 350 metres long with more than 100 shops. It is famous for fresh fish landed from the Akashi Strait, above all Akashi sea bream and octopus, and many of its shops and stalls serve the local dumplings called akashiyaki.
Akashiyaki is the soft dumpling of Akashi, made from an egg-rich batter with pieces of octopus and dipped in a light dashi broth before eating. Locals simply call it tamagoyaki, and it is held to be the forerunner of takoyaki, with shops across Akashi, many of them in the Uonotana market.
Ōkura Beach is a seaside park of 32 hectares in eastern Akashi, with a man-made sandy beach opened in 1998 beside Asagiri Station. It was made as a viewpoint for the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge across the strait to Awaji Island, and the yacht Kenichi Horie sailed across the Pacific in 1999 is kept here.
Eigashima Shuzo is a sake brewery in the Ōkubo district of Akashi, founded in 1888 and known for its Kamitaka sake. It took out a licence for whisky in 1919 and makes White Oak whisky and Akashi single malt, and all seven wooden storehouses on its site are still in use today.
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