The slope runs straight down to the water. Kuroshima was home to the owners of kitamaebune, the coastal trading ships, and their houses — black tile above, dark board siding below — stand along the lanes that fall toward the sea. Money made at sea was built on land, so the individual houses are large relative to the size of the settlement, and the former Kadomi residence, long open to visitors, is one of them and not the largest. The black of the boards and the black of the tiles are not the same black at all; one absorbs the light and the other returns it, and the difference shows better under cloud than under sun. Walk down to where the lane meets the water and you finally understand which way the houses were built to face, and why the windows are placed as they are.

Wajima's town centre is half an hour away by car along a coast road. Housing here was badly damaged and the recovery of ordinary living conditions is still under way, which is the first thing to know about the place and the last thing any honest description should leave out. Whether a particular building can be entered depends entirely on when you come, so check before travelling rather than after arriving. This is somewhere people are living through something, not a preserved village.

What survives is the shape that sea money took once it came ashore, standing in a row above the water. The ship owners lived here and sailed from elsewhere, so the village is a place of arrival and waiting rather than of work. The Amaharashi shrine above it was paid for by the same money. Everything you see was bought with voyages that started somewhere else. That is what the walk is for, and it does not take long.