[Newsletter] Surprising stories at the old Ishizu tram stop

▶︎ Watch the new video → https://youtu.be/_Avh32e_0RY

Greetings once again from a central Japan that's finally, sort of, becoming perhaps slightly less hot and humid than last month. A bit.

In my latest wander, I return to the Hankai Tramway that runs between the cities of Ōsaka and Sakai, to the south. I've long wanted to do a more comprehensive video about the tram line itself – I've explored parts of it, but not the entire thing in depth.

Well that will have to wait; for now, I wandered around one of the stops along the tramway. It's called Ishizu.

I'll be honest: I chose Ishizu because it seemed the most average stop there. Ridership is roughly average for that line, and there didn't appear to be anything special, specifically, around the area.

And so I decided to accept the challenge: could I go to an apparently unremarkable place, and still find something interesting there? (And, gulp, could I make a decent video of it?)

Well, Ishizu turned out to be much more interesting than I expected. I'm usually surprised by how absorbing places are when you actually get there, but Ishizu was something else.

So, while I anticipated some simple little mid-20th century buildings and alleyways, what I actually found was some important and notable history on the deceptively quiet little roads.

For one thing, there was a shrine, the oldest of its kind in all of Japan. And, it houses a mysterious legend that tells the story of how Ishizu ("stone harbor") got its name. It's quite a tale.

And then there was a little roadside memorial to a fallen warrior from 700 years ago. The more I learned, the more interesting the guy, Kitabatake Akiie, got. And to think that his decisive battle happened right along the street I was standing on, one fateful day in 1338.

And of course, there were indeed the ramshackle little alleys and old buildings full of character in the area. I thought the checklist would go well, and it did.

I'd been excited to go to Ishizu, and also a bit fearful of what I might NOT find (i.e., anything interesting). What I actually found was a tiny community full of legends, soul, and eons of history.

Travel gods, you win again. And I still get to come back some day and see the entire Hankai Line in general properly too.

▶ TRAVEL LOVERS, PARTNERS, AND MASTERS: Watch the extended 28-minute ad-free version, including the other side of the tracks: a warehouse full of beer, a reverse river, older streets as grungy as they are tidy, and some surprising checklist finds → https://patreon.com/posts/138249394

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Everywhere is worth exploring!

–Jeremy