35th Station: Goyu

Goyu station, as with neighboring Yoshida and Fukagawa, was lined with many inns and restaurants and the meshimori onna, literally "woman serving (or selling) a meal", were renowned for their persistence in trying to entice customers into their shops. In this print Hiroshige humorously depicts the meshimori onna, on the main street at dusk attempting to drag travelers into teahouses and inns for the night.

Goyu was established in 1601, at the behest of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan. When the Tokaido Road Main Line of Japan Railways was laid down during the Meiji Restoration, it bypassed Goyu causing the loss of the town’s prosperity. Later, when Nagoya Railroad laid down what was to become the Meitetsu Nagoya Main Line, a train station was opened in former Goyu, but the prosperity that the town had before the Meiji Restoration never returned because express trains did not stop at the station.