The Hachikenya Boat Dock stands at the previous site of the kelp shop Nagata-ya Kombu Honten and is said to be named for the eight boat charters that operated there historically (“hachiken” means “eight shops”). In the Edo period, this area thrived as a hub for traffic to and from the Kumano region on the southern tip of the Kii Peninsula. It’s also mentioned in classic compositions and was the point of arrival for characters like Yajirobe and Kitahachi, a pair from Jippensha Ikku’s comic picaresque novel “Tokaido-chu Hizakurige” (1802), and chivalric wanderer Mori-no-Ishimatsu, the subject of song in the rokyoku traditional (a genre of sentimental narractive music) called “Ishimatsu Sanjikkoku-bune.” Nowadays, you can get between Osaka and Kyoto by train in around a half-hour, but in the Edo period it would take six hours by boat from Kyoto to Osaka and twelve hours in the opposite direction going upriver. In modern times, the boat dock has undergone rebirth as a place where people can rest, relax, and enjoy a leisurely river cruise.