The Sunday Market

Kochi holds street markets on several days of the week, a system the domain began in 1690 to give farmers in a mountain-locked province somewhere to sell. The weekday ones are small. The Sunday Market is not.

It runs the length of Otesuji, the avenue leading to Kochi Castle's gate — about a kilometre, with something in the region of 300 stalls, from around dawn to mid-afternoon. It has operated continuously for over three centuries and now closes only for the New Year and for the Yosakoi festival in August.

What is actually on it

Not souvenirs. This is a working market and the mix is agricultural: yuzu by the sack, ginger (Kochi grows more than any other prefecture), aubergines, bamboo shoots in spring, sweet potatoes, live plants, cut flowers, dried fish, home-made pickles, hand-forged knives, and old tools laid out on cloth.

The stalls are largely run by the growers. Many are elderly. Prices are written on cardboard and are not negotiable, and nobody is performing for tourists — which is precisely why it is worth an hour.

The thing to eat is <strong>imo-ten</strong> — sweet potato fritters, fried in front of you, sold hot in a paper bag. There is usually a queue and it is always the right decision.

Alongside it: ice crin, a pale yellow street sherbet sold from cool boxes by women in aprons, which Kochi people are sentimental about; grilled corn; and freshly squeezed yuzu drinks that will recalibrate what you thought yuzu tasted like.

How to work it on a port day

The market ends at the castle gate, which is the useful geography. Walk up the avenue, browse to the top, look at the castle, then come back down the other side and finish at Hirome Market for seared bonito. That is a genuinely excellent four hours and it costs almost nothing.

Go early. It starts at dawn and the growers with the good produce sell out and go home; by two in the afternoon the far end is packing up.