---
title: Onomichi Hondori Shopping Street
url: https://karigurashijourney.com/en/notes/onomichi-hondori-shopping-street/
lang: en
journey: https://karigurashijourney.com/en/episodes/onomichi-2/
---

# Onomichi Hondori Shopping Street

A little of each town’s story　/　Onomichi, Hiroshima

An arcade about 1.6 kilometers long, running east to west between the sea and the hills. It is made up of five shopping streets, Ichibangai, Naka, Honmachi Center-gai, Chuo-gai and Onomichi-dori, with some 400 shops. The Center-gai and Ekimae signs in the photos belong to this street.

## This moment in the journey: Shopping arcades along the railway

Just outside the shop ran the railway line, and a yellow train crossed right in front of me. At the entrance to the arcade hung a sign reading Center-gai. Onomichi's main street is a shopping arcade about 1.6 kilometers long, running east to west between the sea and the hills.

I walked under the glass roof. A freight train slipped past at the end of an alley, and I passed a former public bathhouse that still carries the name Yamato-yu, said to have opened around the end of the Meiji era. Beyond the awning of the Ekimae shopping street, a hillside packed with houses came into view.

Onomichi is famous as the setting for many movies and anime. Just walking around, you keep meeting scenes you have seen somewhere before.

![The arcade entrance with its Center-gai sign](https://karigurashijourney.com/img/onomichi-2/s18-1200.jpg)
- Sources: https://www.gltjp.com/ja/directory/item/11374/

Read this scene in the full journey: https://karigurashijourney.com/en/episodes/onomichi-2/