The port where the bounty of Suruga Bay comes ashore. A street of restaurants serves seafood fresh off the boats, alongside shops selling dried fish and other souvenirs. At the Numazu Fish Market INO you can watch the auction from a second-floor walkway, and the port is home to Byuo, one of Japan's largest floodgates, and a deep-sea aquarium.
Sources: numazukanko.jp mlit.go.jp nippon.com
This moment in the journey
Numazu Port, where the bounty of Suruga Bay gathers
In the afternoon I went out shopping. Beyond the arcade of the shopping street, Mt. Fuji rose huge over the rooftops.
Numazu Port, where seafood from Suruga Bay gathers. Signs reading "Fishermen's Meals" and "Dried Fish" lined the street, with a puffer-fish ornament hanging out front. Past an arcade stacked with crates, a table of dried fish stood beneath the sign of Sakanaya Senbon-ichi.
Handwritten price tags everywhere: horse mackerel, four for 1,080 yen; splendid alfonsino, two for 972; squid dried overnight. There was even a tag for handmade kuro-hanpen, the dark fish cake Shizuoka is known for. Let's get some dried horse mackerel, a specialty of Numazu. I love the atmosphere of local stores.
Watch this scene on YouTube1:42
More notes from this journey
Numazu, Shizuoka
Rice-ball bento in bamboo sheath
I wrapped freshly made rice balls in bamboo sheath with rolled omelet and pickled cucumber and carried them down to the water.
From: Making sushi with a view of Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
The Numazu special: nigiri and gunkan sushi
Numazu Port is where the fish of Suruga Bay come ashore, with a street of restaurants serving seafood fresh off the boats.
From: Making sushi with a view of Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
Awashima Island
A small island in Suruga Bay at the boundary of Uchiura Bay and Enoura Bay.
From: Making sushi with a view of Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
Suruga Bay
Japan's deepest bay, reaching 2,500 meters at its deepest point.
From: Making sushi with a view of Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
Numazu's dried horse mackerel
Shizuoka produces more salted and dried horse mackerel than any other prefecture: 9,369 tons in 2021, or 42% of the national total, mainly from Numazu, Atami an…
From: Making sushi with a view of Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
Numazu Deep Sea Pudding
A pudding made by Numazu Shinkai Purin Kobo at Numazu Port (97 Senbon-minatocho, Numazu).
From: Making sushi with a view of Mt. Fuji
More notes from Tokai
Numazu, Shizuoka
Numazu bowl (Numazu-don)
Numazu-don is a local specialty born at a Numazu bowl contest in 2000: rice cooked with dried horse mackerel, topped with raw whitebait, raw sakura shrimp and c…
From: Gifts of the sea in a town that looks out on Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
Sakura shrimp kakiage
Every sakura shrimp landed in Japan comes from Suruga Bay.
From: Gifts of the sea in a town that looks out on Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
Horse mackerel chazuke
The half of the chopped horse mackerel I had set aside while making the Numazu bowl spent the night in soy sauce and became the next morning's chazuke.
From: Gifts of the sea in a town that looks out on Mt. Fuji
Hamamatsu, Shizuoka
Rice cooked over a kamado
In this house the tiled kamado is still in daily use.
From: Lighting the kamado in a house in the sky
Hamamatsu, Shizuoka
Satsuki's lunch box
A recreation of the lunch Satsuki gets up early to make in My Neighbor Totoro: rice cooked over a kamado, grilled dried sardines, green peas, pink sakura denbu…
From: Lighting the kamado in a house in the sky
Hamamatsu, Shizuoka
Wild boar hot pot over the hearth
Most of Hamamatsu's Tenryu Ward is forest, and the Tenryu Gibier Fes, a festival of wild game, is held in Futamata (its fifth edition was in May 2025).
From: Lighting the kamado in a house in the sky