Shimizu, a port city in Shizuoka Prefecture, is back in fashion again. In the Edo Period, Shimizu was a popular post town on the Tokaido Highway. Travelers liked its fresh fish and tasty Oiwake yokan bean paste. But the inauguration of train service between Tokyo and Kyoto spelled doom for Shimizu, as it did for many towns on the Tokaido Highway.
Local trains still stopped in Shimizu, but travelers could buy their Oiwake yokan through the train window; few people got off to spend the night. When the Shinkansen line opened in 1964, the tracks bypassed Shimizu altogether, and a city that had been known to travelers for 300 years found itself being dropped from guidebooks.
As Shimizu approached the 21st century, the city fathers decided it was time to turn things around again. They set out on an imaginative program to put Shimizu back on the map, and their efforts are paying off.