Hozenji Yokocho

photo by Maarten Heerlien · CC BY 2.0

photo by lumoplank · CC0

Eighty metres of alley, three wide, and a Fudō green with moss from the water thrown over it.

Two parallel alleys, eighty metres long and three wide, run from east to west one block from Dōtonbori, and the noise dies away at once. Passers-by pour a ladleful of water over the Mizukake Fudō, which is why it is covered in green moss from head to foot. On either side are old kappō, bars, okonomiyaki and kushikatsu.

Originally part of the land of Hozen-ji temple, the alley was destroyed by the bombing of the Second World War and rebuilt after the war as a street of bars and eateries. The statue of the Mizukake Fudō is among the few things left standing. The place entered the language of Osaka through the novel ‘Meoto Zen⁠zai’ and the song ‘Tsuki no Hozenji Yokocho’.

ℹ️ The alley is a public street and you can walk through at any hour, but it is at its best after sunset: opening hours are those of the individual bars and eateries, and by day it is a corridor of shutters. Five minutes on foot from Namba Station. It is three metres wide and people work and live here: walk through without making a racket.

🚉 Kintetsu-Nippombashi · 5 min walk

Sources: osaka-info.jp · skyticket.jp

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