Mochiidono Shopping Street
Centuries-old covered arcade of independent shops linking a temple town to its old merchant quarter.
This guide follows the legend behind Mochiidono Shopping Street in Nara, more than eleven hundred years back to a giant serpent said to be terrorizing ascetics on Mount Omine. A Todai-ji priest named Rigen Daishi set out to face it, joined by a local innkeeper, Hakoya Kanbei, and seven young men from this very street, who pounded out mountains of rice cakes to carry with them and feed anyone the serpent had already hurt. It follows how that expedition's aftermath gave the street its name, and how a sweets shop, a pottery store and a paper shop still trading here today carry decades, even centuries, of that same lineage.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.