道の駅
Michi no Eki. You’ll want to be learning those kanji, as they mean ‘road station’, and you’re definitely want to stop in at some if you’re out and about in Japan. Basically they’re service areas, but often in the countryside and specialise in selling local produce or promoting local sights and history as well. They range from the very small, with a simple shop, to quite large, indeed their car parks range in size from ~ 10 vehicles up to multi-hundred vehicles ones where there are often meet-ups and events.
For more information, there’s a nice English language website, and the Japanese original.
This page is not part of some insane idea to visit them all – there are hundreds of the things – it’s more for just listing the ones I have stopped at, and likely I’ll do a normal post to tell any stories around the visits.