Roadside Station Hiwaki

Enjoy the taste of Kagoshima,
Soothe your fatigue with a footbath!

Michi no Eki Hiwaki, located near the famous Ichibino Onsen hot spring, has a 24-hour free footbath "Shimadzu no Dono-sama-yu" (Shimadzu's Lordship's Bath). The main entrance is now on the south side, offering a view of Maruyama, the symbol of the town. With the expansion, the interior of the store has also been made brighter and more open, with a lineup of Kagoshima's mountain and sea delicacies. Product exchanges with roadside stations outside of Kyushu are held regularly and have been well received. A new take-out corner has also been added. The restaurant is filled with the warmth of wood and offers a wide variety of Kagoshima specialties. Don't forget to try your hand at traditional soba noodle making!

Map of Michi no Eki Hiwaki

Gourmet Information of Michi no Eki Hiwaki

Local product: Kibinago

The kibinago is a small fish of the herring family, about 10 cm long. It is a beautiful silvery fish with a blue band in the center of its slender body. They are caught throughout Japan, including Shikoku and Nagasaki prefectures, but most are used as bait for fishing and for fish farming. Most of them are used as bait for fishing or for aquaculture, while the most edible ones are caught in Kagoshima Prefecture by gill-net fishing. The main fishing grounds include Jeungdo, Tanegashima, and Yaku Island, among others. On Jeungdo Island in Satsumasendai City, the "Fisherman's Promise," a set of six articles is enforced. They are: no fishing during the spawning season in May and June; no light fishing after 2:00 a.m.; no fishing on Sundays and holidays; mesh size so that small kibinago are not caught; set up a sanctuary for young fish; and do not catch only kibinago all year round. In other words, the SDGs of kibinago fishing ensure good quality kibinago.

Satsuma cuisine loved by Saigo-Don? Sego Donburi, a local menu

When the NHK historical drama "Saigo-Don" was aired, the Satsuma Kawauchi City Tourism Association called for the development of "Sego Donburi" at local restaurants. The idea was to create a new local menu using the historical drama as an opportunity. Restaurants at the roadside station joined in on the effort. The three "promises" for the local menu were the use of pork from the prefecture, miso flavor, and a bowl of rice that everyone could enjoy. Therefore, head chef Hiroshi Yoshimitsu decided to use miso from Maruni Miso, a long-established miso manufacturer located across the street from the station.
In fact, there was originally a set meal of grilled pork with miso on the restaurant menu, which was the restaurant's specialty. The restaurant converted it into a bowl of rice and changed the flavor of the sauce. Maruni Miso" has a sweet taste. The sweet taste of "Maruni Miso" is sweet, but it is matched with the sweetness of the pork to create a taste that Satsuma likes. Ontama (soft-boiled egg) was added to the rice bowl menu. 990 yen (including tax)

Buy this Shochu

Kagoshima is also known for its shochu (distilled spirit). There are shochu breweries all over the prefecture, and there are seven shochu breweries in Satsumasendai City. Naturally, shochu from each brewery is available at the roadside station. The brewery closest to the roadside station is "Taen Shuzo", and you can also visit the shochu museum (see below). The product in the photo is Den-en Envelhecida. Envellecida" means "storage" in Portuguese, and as the name implies, all of the shochu is stored in barrels for three years. The amber color of the oak barrels gives it a fruity flavor with a gorgeous citrus aroma. It won the highest gold medal in the shochu category at the Tokyo Whisky & Spirits Competition 2020 Special Competition.

Around Michi no Eki Hiwaki

Ichihino Hot Spring

If you want to have fun in the area

It springs in the countryside along the Ichibino River. It is said that Mitsuhisa Shimazu, the 19th lord of the feudal domain, found this hot spring while hunting and had it built as a therapeutic bath for the people of the surrounding area. Since then, it has flourished as a therapeutic bath because of the quality of its spring water. The spring is a weak alkaline simple spring. It is said to be effective for chronic rheumatism of the joints and muscles, neuralgia and neuritis. It is also famous for its beauty. Hotels, ryokan, and minshuku type accommodations are available. Visitors can enjoy a one-day trip to "Kaminoyu" and "Shimonoyu," the city-operated inexpensive public bathhouses.

© K.P.V.B.

Shochu Museum (Den-en Shuzo Brewery)

If you want to have fun in the area

Founded in 1890, the Den-en Shuzo Brewery is less than a five-minute drive north on Prefectural Route 335 from the roadside station. The company relocated its 240-year-old brewery from Yamaga City, Kumamoto Prefecture, and opened it to the public free of charge as Japan's first shochu museum. Inside the warehouse, with its beautiful manako-walls still intact from the time of its construction, several hundred items are on display, including old tools, old folk tools, and old documents that were used in the former shochu warehouse. An ancient distillation machine called a "chintara" and wooden barrels show the efforts of our ancestors who went through many trials and errors in making shochu. The display showing the changes in maturation in the barrels is also interesting. In addition, classical sake brewery concerts are held here in the spring and fall.

Kurano Magaibutsu

If you want to have fun in the area

About 12 minutes by car from Michi no Eki Hiwaki. This is a Buddhist site in Kurano, which was ruled by Norimoto, the fifth son of Sadashin Shibuya, the first lord of Irikiin in Satsuma Province, at the end of the Kamakura period. Norimoto, who became a branch of the Kurano family, called himself "Kurano Araroku," and it is thought that the Buddha carved on the cliff was an annex of the Kurano family's family temple, Zuisenan. The Buddhist cliffs on which the Buddha is said to have been carved consist of 17 Buddhist sanskrit scripts, 1 yang-engraving Buddhist image, 3 yin-engraving five-ring pagodas, and other Buddhist seeds. The engraving of Sanskrit characters is the same as carving Buddhist statues, and the most notable of these Sanskrit characters is Ongk, which is written in the center of the moon ring. This Sanskrit onk representing Dainichi Nyorai is said to be the oldest in Japan and the only one of its kind in Japan and abroad. It is designated as a historical site by Kagoshima Prefecture.