Ouchi-juku — Edo-Period Thatched Village & Negi Soba

Ouchi-juku is a single street lined with 40 thatched-roof houses, preserved exactly as it looked in the 1600s when daimyo processions stopped here while traveling between Aizu-Wakamatsu and Nikko. The houses still have thatched roofs replaced every 30-40 years using traditional methods, walls of dark wood and white plaster, and narrow interiors that now function as restaurants, souvenir shops, and guesthouses. No telephone poles, no modern signs, no cars allowed during daylight — the village enforces strict preservation codes that keep it looking like an Edo-period film set.

The village's famous dish is negi soba: cold buckwheat noodles eaten by using a whole green onion as chopsticks. You bite the onion tip to fray the fibers, twist it to grab noodles, then alternate between eating noodles and biting the onion, which gets spicier as you work toward the root. The tradition supposedly started with samurai who valued the onion's antibacterial properties on long trips. At the street's upper end, stone steps climb to a hillside observation deck where you can photograph the full village — the thatched roofs aligned in a perfect row, the valley behind them, mountains beyond. In winter when 2 meters of snow pile on the roofs, the view stops traffic.