Station #4: By the bridge stands a restaurant, which serves soba (buckwheat noodles) with waitresses beckoning travelers to the restaurant. In the print the price of the noodle is listed as 16 mon, the same price of a Hiroshige print when they were first published (about the cost of a fast-food lunch today). But look closely at the center of the print. There is a komuso, a basket-headed priest who begged for alms and played the shakuhachi, the bamboo flute tucked under his arm. But many komuso were actually spies for the government, listening for rumblings of discontent along the highways and in the towns.

Image Copyright: Minneapolis Institute of Art