Tenjinbashi-suji Shopping Street ( 1 Chome )

This guide to Tenjinbashi-suji in Osaka starts on the Yodo riverbank in 1653, when city officials let fruit and vegetable merchants set up where boats unloaded crates before dawn. It follows how pilgrims heading to a nearby shrine for a scholar revered as the god of learning began passing through the market, and how their footsteps nudged vegetable stalls toward tea houses and kimono sellers. You're standing in the oldest stretch, closest to the old bridge, where that shift began first.