Koishiki

Koishiki: A Former Ryotei Inn on the Sekishu Kaido

Koishiki (恋しき) is a former ryotei inn in Fuchu-cho, Fuchu City, Hiroshima Prefecture, founded in 1872, whose street-front main house and four garden annexes were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2004. A ryotei is a high-end Japanese restaurant with private tatami rooms, and Koishiki also took overnight guests, which is why it is usually described as a ryotei ryokan.

Fuchu was the seat of the ancient Bingo provincial government. By the Edo period it had become a post town on the Sekishu Kaido, the road that ran north to the Iwami Ginzan silver mine, and cotton, indigo, tobacco and goods from the San'in coast passed through on their way to the rest of the country. Koishiki's main house stands on that road, and the property runs deep behind it, across two lot numbers in the Yokomachi and Nagai sections of town.

The business opened as the Habuya inn under its founder, Doi Risuke. The name Koishiki, which carries the sense of "longed for" or "dearly missed," was suggested later by the local businessman Nobuto Tomosaburo. Inns of the day were usually named after a place or a family, so the choice stood out, and when carp dishes were on the menu regulars reportedly joked about a "full carp course," since koi means both carp and love.

How Koishiki Grew, Building by Building

Koishiki was not built in one campaign. According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs database, the two-storey street front of the main house dates from the early Meiji period, and the three-storey guest wing behind it was added in 1905 and 1912. Of the annexes, the Kikyo and Kiku rooms date from the early Taisho period, the Kiri and Satsuki rooms from the late Taisho period, and the Take and Hagi rooms from around 1948.

The Fuchu City Tourism Association credits Doi's daughter Take, who became proprietress, with the inn's growth, and says that in 1918 she spent 20,000 yen, a very large sum at the time, on a stroll garden. A story also survives that the eminent priest brought in to lay out the garden directed the work from the third floor of the main house.

Fuchu City notes that Inukai Tsuyoshi, later prime minister, left a piece of calligraphy here during the Taisho period, and that the novelist Tayama Katai and the politicians Kishi Nobusuke and Fukuda Takeo visited in the Showa era. The tourism association adds that the guest register includes the writers Ibuse Masuji and Yoshikawa Eiji.

Koishiki closed as a ryotei inn in 1990. The founding family looked after the buildings for some years, and from 2005 a company funded by local residents and businesses opened the site to the public. Operation passed to Fuchu City in October 2020, and the main house has been open to general visitors since November 2021.

Finding Your Way Around Koishiki

A visit to Koishiki starts at the main house on the street and continues through the building into the garden at the back. The street front is a two-storey Hirairi facade, with its entrance on the long side, topped by a small third storey in the middle that looks like a lookout tower. From the garden side you can see how the three-storey guest wing rises behind it.

The garden is a stroll garden laid out around a pond and artificial hills, and the four registered annexes are set around it. The Kiri and Satsuki rooms sit just behind the main house; further back, the Kikyo and Kiku rooms face north and the Take and Hagi rooms face west. A fifth annex, the Fuji room, is not registered and is used as a rental room.

Each annex is a small building holding a reception room and an anteroom, and one includes a tea room. Glimpsing their roofs through the trees gives a good idea of the view guests once had from the verandas of their private rooms.

Visiting Koishiki: Hours, Admission and Access

Koishiki is open from January 4 to December 28, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and admission is free. Visitors can walk through the first and second floors of the main house (a few rooms are closed) and the garden. The interiors of the annexes are not open. The third floor of the main house can be seen in a 3D walkthrough published by the Fuchu City Tourism Association.

A mobile guide that runs on your own smartphone explains the buildings and garden in Japanese, English and Chinese. The city's notices do not state a photography policy, so ask on site before taking pictures indoors.

According to Fuchu City, the second-floor banquet hall, the smaller ground-floor rooms, and two annexes (the Kiri and Satsuki rooms and the Fuji room) can be rented by the hour, so a room may be closed to sightseers while it is booked.

The nearest station is Fuchu on the JR Fukuen Line, about 45 minutes by train from Fukuyama, and Koishiki is roughly a 10-minute walk from the station. By car it is about 15 minutes from Onomichi-kita Interchange on the Onomichi Expressway. For enquiries, call Koishiki (0847-41-5140) or the Fuchu City Tourism Association (0847-43-7135).