SENNAN, OSAKAA MORNING AT SEA WITH SENNAN'S FISHING CREW

Fishermen hauling nets on a boat, Osaka Bay

Heading out on Osaka Bay with the Okadaura crew

Sorting the catch by hand on deck

A plane coming in to Kansai Airport, seen from the boat

The day’s catch on the barbecue

The auction at Okadaura fishing port

Old farmhouses at Waiwai Village in the hills

Around the irori hearth

A sukiyaki supper at the farmhouse

Rice over a wood-fired kamado

A goat at Waiwai village

Sennan is a fishing town on Osaka Bay, about twenty minutes by car from Kansai Airport but far from anything most visitors see. The night before, you stay in the hills behind the coast, in an old farmhouse: you light the bath with firewood and cook rice over a wood-fired stove, the way the house has been lived in for generations. The next morning you head out with the Okadaura crew for bottom trawling, hauling the net and sorting the catch by hand. No one knows what the net will hold until it breaks the surface, and that is the real thrill of it. That same catch becomes a fisherman’s meal, often a seafood barbecue, eaten at its freshest. In a single stay you take in both the sea and the hills, time spent inside the ordinary life of the place rather than watching it from the outside.

CustomisableEvery detail can be shaped around you.

Experience Stories

SEABED FISHING WITH THE OKADAURA CREW

You join the Okadaura crew for a morning of bottom trawling on Osaka Bay. Their method, ishigeta, drags the seabed rather than the surface, so it brings up the prized bottom-dwellers: shrimp, blue crab, flounder, cuttlefish. When the net surfaces, the crew haul it in by hand, open it, and sort the catch on deck, and you work beside them. No one knows what each haul will hold, and that uncertainty is the real pleasure of it.

THE DAY’S CATCH, AS A FISHERMAN’S MEAL

The catch you brought in becomes lunch the same day, often a seafood barbecue, grilled and eaten at its freshest. This is food at its most direct: what you pulled from the bay a few hours earlier, cooked simply and shared with the people who fish these waters.

RICE OVER THE FIRE AT WAIWAI VILLAGE

You stay in the hills behind the coast at Kisen Waiwai Village, a cluster of old farmhouses built around open hearths. You cook your own rice in a kamado, a wood-fired stove, measuring the water the old way, to the first crease of your wrist, and holding the heat for about half an hour. You eat it freshly cooked, around the irori hearth, the way rice has been cooked in Japan for generations.

A GOEMON BATH AND A NIGHT IN THE FARMHOUSE

You heat the bath yourself, a goemon-buro, an iron tub warmed by a wood fire you build and feed, which takes an hour or two to reach temperature. Then you spend the night in the old farmhouse. Unlike the active hours out at sea, this is slow, quiet time up in the hills.

Bespoke Japan Travel