Tenjinbashisuji

photo by nakashi · CC BY-SA 2.0

photo by DVMG · CC BY 3.0

2.6 km and about 800 shops: forty minutes of walking under a single roof.

You go in at Minamimorimachi and come out forty minutes later at Tenjinbashisuji-rokuchōme without ever leaving the roof: it is 2.6 kilometres and seven numbered blocks, and it is the longest covered shopping street in Japan. There are about eight hundred shops, from fruit stalls to second-hand kimono shops.

The street began in the Edo period as a settlement in front of the Osaka Tenmangū shrine, which stands in the second block and is dedicated to Sugawara no Michizane, the god of learning. It became today's arcade in the Meiji era. The sources do not agree on the number of shops: the Osaka Chamber of Commerce counts about six hundred, the tourist listings about eight hundred.

ℹ️ The arcade is public and always open; the opening hours are those of the individual shops, and many close early. At the ends are Minamimorimachi (Osaka Metro Sakaisuji and Tanimachi) to the south and Tenjinbashisuji-rokuchōme to the north; halfway along you can get out at Tenma on the Loop Line.

🚉 Ōsakatemmangū · 5 min walk

Sources: osaka-info.jp · tenjin123.com

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