A goldfish town where scooping is a sport
Yamatokoriyama, a former castle town near Nara, has bred goldfish for some 300 years, and farm ponds still dot the edges of town. Kingyo-sukui, scooping goldfish with a paper net that tears when wet, is a festival game in Japan, but here it is a sport, with a national championship every August. Try it yourself, then walk a shopping street where goldfish swim in tanks outside the shops.
A souvenir shop with a goldfish-scooping dojo, where you can try at the tanks out front for 100 yen a go, with two paper scoops. Competition-style scooping can be booked. About 6 minutes on foot from Kintetsu-Koriyama Station.
Along a 600 m shopping street, goldfish swim in tanks of all shapes outside the shops, some built into things like an old TV or a vending machine. They are out during each shop's opening hours.
A small museum on a goldfish farm, with about 40 varieties each swimming in its own tank, so you can see how different they look. Free entry; closed on Mondays.
A restored townhouse of an indigo-dyeing family that traded here from the Edo period, now showing goldfish-themed crafts and tanks of goldfish. You can dye a handkerchief in indigo by booking ahead; entry is free, and it is closed on Mondays.
A cafe where you watch goldfish in tanks over a goldfish soda or goldfish anmitsu, a bowl of agar jelly, sweet beans and fruit. Closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.