Michi-no-Eki Munakata

Michi-no-Eki Munakata opened in 2008 on Route 495, near the Genkai Sea coast between Fukuoka and Kitakyushu. Boats from Kanezaki, Oshima, Konominato and Jinoshima supply the fish counter, which fills about a third of the sales floor. Staff will gut or fillet most fish for a fee, so you can buy a whole fish even if you are not set up to clean it.

Popularity has a cost. This has been one of the top-selling roadside stations in Kyushu for years, and the good fish goes early; by afternoon the trays thin out. Local vegetables and fruit fill the rest of the hall. Ofukuro Shokudo Hamayu is a cafeteria where you pick small dishes of fisherman and farmhouse cooking.

Munakata Grand Shrine is in the same city, so the station fits easily into a day around the World Heritage sites. The station is open 9:00 to 17:00 and closes on the fourth Monday of each month (the next day if that Monday is a holiday), for the Obon break in mid-August and over New Year.