Uchiko in one unhurried day: a wooden kabuki theatre and Shikoku's old wax street

Uchiko is about twenty-five minutes south of Matsuyama by limited express on the JR Yosan line, and most travellers in Shikoku ride straight past it to towns with castles. That works in its favour. Uchiko got rich on wax, not warfare, and the street that money built still runs on shopkeepers' hours.

Morning at the wooden theatre

From the station it is a ten-minute walk to Uchiko-za, a kabuki playhouse finished in 1916. It was restored in the 1980s after residents argued against tearing it down. On days without a performance, visitors can go under the stage to see the revolving platform, which is still turned by hand, and the trapdoor pit, called naraku (奈落). The tatami seating boxes hold several hundred people, and the hall looks even bigger with nobody in it.

The wax street after ten

Carry on north to Yokaichi-Gokoku, a stretch of roughly 600 metres lined with merchant houses in white plaster and namako-kabe tile latticework. The Kami-Haga residence belonged to a family of wax makers, and it still holds the presses and drying racks that made the town wealthy in the late nineteenth century. Get there after ten, when the shutters are up and the tour groups from Matsuyama have not yet arrived.

Candles made the old way

At Omori Warosoku, a workshop that has been making candles for about two centuries, a craftsman makes warosoku (和ろうそく) by hand, building up layers of sumac wax around a wick of paper and rush. The work happens in plain view. Watch from the doorway, and don't take photos unless you are invited to. These candles burn with a taller, slower flame than paraffin ones, and a boxed pair packs easily.

通りの静けさは、蝋が町を支えた時代の名残である。

Most shops close around five. Take a late-afternoon train back to Matsuyama, or go one stop further to Ozu and spend the evening in that river town.