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Japan March 4th-25th, 2025 |
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[Click on any photo to get a higher resolution.
I really don't know what a Shinto moment is, but, I thought to myself, this might just be one. It was snowing hard enough such that visibility was limited to twenty or thirty meters. It is not the cold snow of Alaska, but rather the warm snow at the tail end of winter. It wasn't deep, just cresting the toes of my boots as I kicked through it; new, wet, white stuff. I made my way down the old road, through the pines. And then out that wet fog, a Torii arch. A flight of stone stairs and there, an old Shinto shrine. The shrine matches the forest in that its post and beams are a plain and the bare wood has been allowed to weather gracefully. The roof lines curve like the boughs of the trees which shelter it. The forest matches the shrine in that it too is weighted with this spring snow. Just beyond the shrine is a picnic area with a stone tablet commemorating the poet Bashō, who passed here three hundred years ago and wrote the haiku, ひばり より / うえ に やすらう / とうげ かな But to me it is, Silent wet snow flakes Why Japan?One of my oldest friends is Bill Snyder, who I met while running cross-country in high school nearly half a century ago. Bill has moved all over the world but somehow, every few years we cross paths. In Chicago, Stockholm, New York City and Muhlenberg County. But it has been a few years and I want to see him again. Bill is pretty well established in Japan, and has married Eucharia. Still, I have not yet visited. In the Spring of 2020 I was on the verge of committing to a trip when . . . But maybe you remember that year? After a number of emails last year, in December I proposed to Bill that I come and visit. If I am going that far I want to spend some time there. But I also don't want to be a burden and wear out my welcome. I also assumed (incorrectly) that Bill and Eucharia would be in the middle of class. So I proposed that I come and spend three weekends with them, and go for two walking tours, Monday to Friday. Bill counter proposed that I sign-up with Duolingo and learn some Japanese. Learning JapaneseFrom the time I bought my ticket in December, until I got on the airplane in March I spent one to two hours everyday online with Duolingo. I learned a lot about the language, even if I was still terrified to use it. Japanese is not simple. To start with it has three alphabets, or more correctly, three sets of characters; Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji. Hiragana and Katakana, have a symbol for each syllable whereas Kanji are pictograms, based on ancient Chinese. Most things are written in Hiragana, with Katakana being saved for "borrowed" words, words from other languages. But the author of a sentence may choose what set to write in, and will often skip from one set to another mid sentence - or even mid-word - in order to make a point. My lessons started with Hiragana and that is what I'll mainly talk about. So If I look up "Hello" in Japanese, I would see, "こんにちは" -- but how do you read that? There is effectively one more alphabet in Japanese, "Romaji", writing with the "Roman" or latin alphabet. There is a one-to-one relationship between Hiragana and Romaji. So I can take the above word and "Romanize " it; こんにちは -> ko-n-ni-chi-wa. When I meet someone while walking I'll say "Konnichiwa". Even with this incredible rudimentary understanding of Japanese I felt better about tackling Japanese pronunciation because all syllables (except ん -> "n") end in vowels. So Kawasaki -> ka-wa-sa-ki -> かわさき which is the name of a city we traveled through near Tokyo. Of course, just to confuse me, on maps that city's name is often written in Kanji. There are forty-eight Hiragana characters, plus a few modifiers. When I quizzed myself I would get 80-90% right, but there are a few which I confuse, for example "ね" (ne) and "れ" (re) -- which one has the loop in the toe? Even if I am 90% right, that means that every 7th character I feel uncertain. Or they have mixed some Kanji or Katakana characters into the flow.
And even if I can pronounce the word, I still don't know what it means! Late in my trip I asked for a ticket to Hachinohe and then Hachioji and I got the tickets I hoped for! I felt like these little success justified all those hours with Duolingo. Still, you are looking for a travelogue, not a language lesson - so let's move on. Getting to JapanTuesday, March 4th, 2025 I've decided that I don't have to rush trips. So instead of getting up at 3:00 in the morning to catch the 9:00am flight out of Boston, I'll take an extra day, travel to Brooklyn and spend the night there, then fly on. And luckily for me, Robin and Jane have offered a bed in Brooklyn! My bus isn't until 2:30, but I'm up early with anticipation, and quite convinced that I need to repack my bag and check everything. I have lunch with Kristina and a walk around town - I'll be sitting for a long time on the bus today and airplane tomorrow. An eventless trip to Grand Central in New York City. I then met Robin on the subway platform at Union square - he has just finished teaching his class at NYU - and we went on to Brooklyn. Dinner, talk and bed. Wednesday, March 5th, 2025 This ranks as one of my shortest days ever, curtailed at 18 hours because of the international date line. The alarm went off at 6:00 and I'm disassembling my bed by the time Jane shows up and makes coffee. Jane heads to school pretty early, but I'm the first out the door today. (Robin did make a brief appearance). S-train, to C-train, to A-Train to Air-Train to JFK. Check in and security went smoothly and we roll back from the gate at 10:00, as advertised. An hour later they feed us dinner, dim the lights, darken the windows and I slip into a type of time warp. If you were on the outside of the airplane the sun would almost stand still, we are moving west and cross 11 time zones in 14 hours. But the human bodies inside the airplane are digesting dinner (served at 11:00am) and settling down for naps, or watching movies, or something else. I love staring out the window and watching the frozen lakes of Canada glide by. Recently I have been reading about the travels of Alexander MacKenzie, so I recognize Lake Athabasca. I had calculated the great circle route to Tokyo and thought we should be north of here, over the Great Slave or Great Bear Lake, but we aren't. It looks like we are heading toward southern Alaska, and I start to question my calculations. One time I was reading about Patrick O'Brian, who writes novels which involve crossing oceans in the day of sails. He said that one of the greatest challenges when writing in that genre was to give a sense of how much times these voyages take. Day after day, the same routine, but for a hundred pages. I am trying to convince you that 14 hours is a long flight. As we passed Denali, on the starboard beam, they served us lunch. I dozed off and we crossed the International dateline. And even though the sun was bright and due south of us, it all of a sudden became tomorrow. Thursday, March 6th, 2025 All of Canada and all of Alaska, both very big places, and we are only half way to Japan. We now have seven hours of flying over the North Pacific. A few hundred miles to the west of here is the Kamchatka Peninsula, and now I think I understand why we are on this southern route. I remembered that a passenger jet had been shot down by the Russians a number of years ago, so now commercial flights tend to avoid Russian airspace. It adds about 100 miles and a dozen minutes to the flight. An hour and a half before landing they serve us breakfast. I know it is breakfast because it involves scrabbled eggs. And then we drop out of the clouds and there, stretching across the whole of the Kanto Plain, is Tokyo. Extending out for 40 to 50 km over the plains is the greater metro region. With 41 million people, this is the biggest metro region in the world. After landing, I stand and try to walk, but after sitting for fourteen hours my legs don't want to cooperate. The long walk to Immigration and Customs, although slow and awkward, is actually a good exercise. Bill is waiting for me beyond the last barrier and this is good; the Tokyo train and subway system is daunting. He hands me a "Suica" card, a transit pass, which is amazingly useful. We are on and off trains all day, and I use this card a lot. Every time you enter a station you tap in, every time you leave you tap out. And when you go from one company's lines to another, you tap a transfer. There are a several overlapping public carriers, as well as half a dozen private companies, each running a number of lines. They all accept the Suica card, as do busses. And it all seems to works! Was it four or five trains to Hachioji/Mejirodai station? I have lost track. Hachioji (pronounced: "Ha-chi-o-ji") is a city 35km/20miles from downtown Tokyo which has been engulfed by Greater Tokyo. Mejirodai is the neighbor where Bill and Eucharia live, as well as their local train station. It is a five minute walk from train to home. Eucharia has a quiche waiting for us. Bill and Eucharia returned from Chicago two days ago, so we are all feeling jet lag, and are to bed early. Around HachiojiFriday, March 7th, 2025 One would think that one would sleep in after a long flight, but instead my sleep cycle is just messed up. I woke at 6:00, but forced myself to stay in bed for awhile. Bill apparently was up much earlier - still recovering from his week in Chicago. Eucharia treated us to omelets with lots of mushrooms! Breakfast went on for hours as we just talked. Eucharia is off to a conference, but first reviewed my reservations for the first week of walking. In some ways Japan is technically advanced, in other ways not. Although I could read website about the places I'm staying, to actually make reservation you generally have to telephone and talk to the innkeeper. I had created a list of places, and Eucharia - who is very fluent in Japanese - had actually made all the calls. Eucharia and Bill also loaned me a "pocket wifi". This is a cellular wifi the size of a small paperback book. I can connect to it with my cell phone via wifi, and it connects to the cellular network via Bill and Eucharia's account. So I have internet access without doing anything. My leg gave me trouble this morning and I have real doubts about the walk. So at noon we stepped out and I tested the leg, and Bill showed me the neighborhood. The first 200 meters was painful, but then circulation seemed to be restored, and after a kilometer or so, confidence returned. We walked to Unryu-ji Temple, a Buddhist Temple, a kilometer from Bill's home. Bill tells me that in some sense this is a family business, a funeral home. The temple grounds include a pagoda which is also a crematorium, and across the ally is a cemetery. In Japan most cemeteries contain family plots made of a stone slab, with a head stone. The head stone can be slid back and the ashes interred beneath it. I told Bill that I once read that people in Japan are "born Shinto, married Christian, buried Buddhist", and he confirmed that there was something in that. We are visiting a big temple tomorrow .. so more then. My leg is feeling much better, so we take the long way home and visit Man-yo Park, a hilltop city park. Beyond the park is another Buddhist Temple, and a small Shinto Shrine. Often Buddhist temples, which serves as funeral homes, will also have a Shinto shrine on the side. I think it would be like a large Catholic Cathedral having a small Protestant chapel on the side for visitors who needed it. A house in Japan On the outside a Japanese house may look not much different than its American or European counterpart, but the insides are unique. First, when you step inside you leave your shoes. This was also true at the "Ryokans", or Inns where I stayed. Usually the first meter or so inside the house has a flagstone floor and then there is a step up to a wood floor, with no shoes on the wood. Your host will supply you with slippers for beyond here. Within the house some rooms, often the bedrooms, will have "Tatami" covered floors. These are mats woven from various types of straw. Before entering a room floored with tatami, you must remove your slippers. Socks are okay. And, of course, the bed is a futon on the floor with a great, thick duvet. Japanese homes generally don't have central heating. During my trip the weather was generally in the forties, so localized heat is important and explains a number of things. First, houses have space heaters. In Bill and Eucharia's house they have a natural gas heater which we moved back and forth between the eating area and the living room, with a hose connecting the heater to the outside tanks. Secondly heated tables, called "kotatsu" are common. These are low tables with quilted skirts that you tuck your legs under. And finally, there is the famous heated toilet seat, which makes sense in a cold bathroom.
Saturday, March 8th, 2025 It is a cold and overcast day with some snow. After a leisurely morning we took the train east, towards Tokyo, for a few stops and go to visit the Takahata Fudoson Kongo-ji Temple. This is a large and very active Buddhist temple, with a dozen buildings. The gatehouse, pagoda, golden halls and so forth are very traditional in appearance. The dormitories, where the monks live, could be the dormitories of any modern college. The temple grounds are busy with visitors coming and going. What looks like a gift shop is selling charms, amulets, and other things, in much the same way you might buy a candle at a cathedral. One of the unique features of these temple grounds are the 88 Buddha. On the island of Shikoku, south of Kyoto, there is a famous 88 temple pilgrimage, a walk of about 1,200 km. Here, in maybe 1,200 meters you can visit 88 statues of Buddha, while walking over a wooded hill just south of the main temple grounds. Each of the Buddhas is numbered, so I used this opportunity to practice my reading of Japanese numbers. In truth, most of the time I see numbers in the Arabic form, but I have a curiosity about numbers, so wanted to learn and practice my 一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九 and 十. They don't have zero, so the number 88 is written: "八十八" (8x10 + 8). There are two words seven (七), but I can only remember "nana". We eventually head to the train station for lunch. Many train stations are also effectively modern malls. I suppose it is like airports becoming malls, except these contains shops which are much more part of people's daily routines. Most Japanese, especially in Greater Tokyo, pass through multiple train stations every day. We lunched at "Ōtoya", where we ordered off of an iPad which can switch to English. I had a rice bowel combo. And tiramisu for dessert. Back on the train for one stop and we visit Koon Zen-ji Temple. This is a Zen-Buddhist temple. It is very quiet and very simple. It has a grand gates, great halls and a belfry, but right now we see no visitors, priests or monks. Whereas at the first temple buildings were ornate and often painted red, this place is much more natural in tone, with aged dark wood. The plum trees are in bloom and a wet snow is falling. It is very serene. We walked 2-3 kilometers home from here. Temples I had not appreciated how many temples and shrines I would encounter in Japan. They are every where. At first I want to understand them the way I would a church, but they are different. The official religion of Japan is Shinto. Shinto is polytheist, with many gods, many spirits who occupy many, many places. This also means that it is perfectly normal to be both a Shinto and Buddhist or Christian, that is just adding one more spirit to the mixture. I sometimes think that since many place host a spirt, no place is particularly uniquely holy. But I expect that my understanding of how Japanese relate to their temples and shrines will evolve over the next two weeks. Sunday, March 9th, 2025
After breakfast Bill and I walk a kilometer to the grocery store. Bill stocks up food for the week, I buy crackers and peanuts for my walk. We take the bus back, and I use my "Suica" transit card. After lunch we take the train three stops to the end of the line and the base of Mt. Takao. Mt. Takao is probably the easiest mountain to access from Tokyo, it is about an hour by local train. Since it is a pleasant day, a lot of people have escaped from the city. The trail we took was 3.3 km (2 miles), following a stream most of the way. A pleasant walk through a forest of cedar. On route I practiced my "konnichiha" ('hello'), my greetings to everyone on trail. I was reminded of muttering "ta", short for "tack så mycket" ('thank you') on the Swedish trails. Mt. Takao meets my criteria for a "People's Mountain". The summit is crowded. There is a road up it which services the snack bar. You can also take a cable car up half way and then walk the road. I can only speculate how people got here, but there are ten times as many people on top as came up our trail. I love to watch people enjoying themselves, especially "Purple Coat", a two or three year old who was being photographed on the summit with her mom. We took a combination of a trail, suspension bridge and road to come down the mountain. Half way down we made a little side trip to visit Takuo-in Temple, a Buddhist temple perched on the side of the mountain. I really liked the long avenue of great lanterns leading up to the temple. It was a steep descent and we rewarded ourselves with ice cream at the bottom - my treat so I could practice ordering. There is a word for 2, which is "ni". There is a different word for "two things", which is "futatsu", and I know both. But I panicked in my ordering and asked for "ni". We got two ice creams just the same. Back home Eucharia has returned from her conference and we review the plans for tomorrow, and then to bed. NakasendoMonday, March 10th, 2025 This is the day that I step out on my own - and I am nervous about it. I woke up at 5:00 in anticipation.
I finally get up at 6:15. Bill and Eucharia are also up, after puting me on the train they are renting a van and helping a friend move. Coffee, toast with olive paste and then Eucharia made us an omelette. Eucharia's omelette's have lot of mushrooms, but no cheese. Japan is just not a dairy place. We leave the house at 7:30 and take two local trains to the main Hachioji station. There we learn that the 8:31 train is completely booked. The next seat is on the 10:00 train. Or I could stand on the 8:31, and when a seat frees up, be seated. This seems like the better plan. At 8:31 I say farewell, hop on the train and head west into the mountains. I ended up standing the whole way, about two hours and 160km/100miles. The further we go, the more snow I see on the peaks surrounding our valley. At Shiojiri I got off the train, talked to one of the station staff who told me it was 200 ¥ (200 yen is about $1.20 USD) to Hideshio and the train left in 10 minutes. After watching a few people I figured out how to buy the ticket from a vending machine, and made it to the platform with nearly a minute to spare. This local train has only one car and is essentially a bus on rails. In fact I could have bought my ticket from the driver. Eight minutes later I'm in Hideshio. Hideshio is a cluster of a dozen houses and a train platform. And for me, the start of the Nakasando. I stepped off the platform at 10:30 and have 16km/10miles to walk and a whole new world to explore. The Nakasendo is a very old road which winds up and down a few valleys in the midst of the Japans "Alps", or the Kiso Mountains. A lot of the modern route 19 is on top of the Nakasendo (there is limited space in these valleys) which means sometimes I'm walking next to a two lane highway. But often rt 19 will circle a village or run through a tunnel under a mountain, and the Nakasendo will stick to the old route, which is now a quiet side lane.
At one point I see a Shinto arch or "Torii" off to the side of the road, and a trail and set of steps passing through it and climbing up the side of the valley and into the woods. This should lead to a Shinto shrine, and I have plenty of time, so I explore. At the top of the path there are three buildings. At the center is (I think) the Honden, which is essentially fenced off - so you can see in, but not enter. A Honden houses Kami, the local spirits. This one was covered with really interesting carvings. Next to the Honden is a small, secondary shrine. Downhill of it is something which really does look like a picnic shelter. I don't know if it qualifies as a "Haiden", the "hall of worship or oratory". Right now the ground is covered with 20cm of snow, the sun is shining and just being in the woods is very pleasant. As I walk I see a lot of houses, but almost no sign of people. This part of Japan is losing population. The younger generation moves to the city and so, I'm told, hous become abandoned. Or is it just March? The weather here is similar to New England's, and March is still a bit too cool to spend too much time outside. I'm carrying in my pocket the "Nakasendo Walking Map", a booklet put together by the Kiso Tourist Federation. It is a sketch of the trail, not to scale, but with lots of notes on what to look for while walking. This is how I knew that this village is Katahira and the next is Wakamiko. Or that I should look for the "grassy road" which gets you away from the highway. It is where I learned of the "Melody Bridge", "Tap on the rail to hear Kiso sushi song." In Momooka I decided I should try to figure out lunch. There is a pottery/craft/lacquerware shop which also has a cafe. It is also open! The young man who runs the shop tells me - via google translate - that they are sold out of the pastries, and all they have left to eat are hot dogs or noodles. I asked for the noodles, expecting some sort of udon. What came out of the kitchen was spaghetti with a tomato sauce. Still, I'm hungry and dig in. My next town is Kiso-Hirasawa. This is a pretty town, and clearly an old "post-town", a term I'll describe when I get to my sleep-over town tonight. For a short stretch the trail runs on top of a levee next to the river. Here I inadvertently interrupt two small boys (3rd graders?) who are investigating the mysteries and wonder of Mr. Tanaka's shed. And finally I reach Naraijuku, where my ryokan is. This too is an old post town and the few blocks at the center of town are pedestrian only. There are definitely tourist walking around and I hear snatches of English - but not many. Most of the shops and ryokans are closed for the season. There are no street numbers and address to help me locate my ryokan, and I am on the verge of asking the officer directing traffic. I haven't seen much Romji and think I will need to dig out my notes and try to find the name of this place, written in Japanese. But before I do, I realize that I am standing in front of "Ikariya Machida". If I had seen the Japanese, it would have said, "いかりや町田", the first four character I can read as "Ikariya", but the last two characters are kanji, which I don't read. I double check and then open the door. There are shoes in the hallway and a button to push. A minute later I meet the innkeeper, I leave my shoes here and put on slippers, and he shows me my room. Dinner is at 6:30 and breakfast at 7:30. It is only 4:00 now, there is a jug of steaming water and a tea caddy in my room, so this seems like a good time to explain the Nakasendo. Nakasendo - 中山道 The Nakasendo is a road which connects Kyoto (which means "capital") to Tokyo (which means "eastern capital"). It's precursor, "The Kiso Ancient Road", is probably a thousand years old or more. But in about 1600, with the establishment of the Edo dynasty the Nakasendo took on a much greater roll. A bit of Japanese history will help this make sense. Japan has had an emperor for 2,000 years or more, but how powerful the emperor is has waxed and waned over time. In about the year 1200, the Shogun - the chief military commander - usurped the emperor's power. So from 1192 to 1867 officially the emperor ruled Japan, but effectively the Shogunate did. There were several dynasties of Shogun, the last was the Edo (1603-1867). The Edo family's seat of power was the village of Edo - now Tokyo. To solidify their control the Edo Shoguns required the "Sankin-kōtai" ("alternate attendance") system. This required that the "Daimyos", the great feudal lords, or aristocrats, of Japan, to spend every other year in Edo/Tokyo AND to keep their wives and children in residence in Tokyo. Which meant that large and wealthy households were often on their way to or from Tokyo, and that ment traveling on the Nakasendo. When I read this I was reminded of Versailles. I think part of Louis XIV's policy was to make Versailles so attractive that the aristocrats of France would want to be there. And then the king could keep an eye on them. Coincidently, the Edo Shogun and Louis XIV started doing this in the 17th century. Along the Nakasendo there developed "post-towns". Messengers, merchants and aristocrats traveled this way, and innkeepers were happy to host them. A word about the name "Nakasendo" - 中山道. These are all Kanji, Chinese like characters. The first one 中 (Naka) means middle. The second one "山" (Yama) means mountain. The last one 道 (Michi) means road or path. So Nakasendo means "middle mountain road", and the Nakasendo goes up the middle of the mountains which form the spine of Japan. One other thing you might notice is that Kanji tells us meaning, and not necessarily pronunciation. Ryokan
I think I'll walk you through my first night at this ryokan in detail, because it had most of the elements of a ryokan experience. And I think it was the most traditional one I stayed at. A ryokan is a traditional Japanese Inn, whereas a "hotel", means western style. From the outside the ryokans in the post towns are all dark wood, usually two stories, shoulder to shoulder with the next building and right up to the street. The front windows are covered with a wooden grid, almost like a picket fence, and behind them, "shoji", windows which appear to be of paper. Although I'm sure most are not original, they are build to look like that early Edo period of four hundred years ago. Inside, there is a flagstone entrance where you leave your shoes or boots and put on slippers. The innkeeper showed me the dining area, the baths, and then at the end of the hallway, my room. I think he gave me two adjoining room, each room had its own hallway door, and there was no one else here tonight (it is March!). The floor of my room is covered with "Tatami", the woven mats, so I leave my slippers in the hallway. The entire ryokan has a slight smell of kerosene, as did most of the other places I stayed, because every room has a kerosene space heater. Fortunately the controls on the heater were similar to those at Bill & Eucharia's, and google translate filled in the rest. I have a table with a round canister, 30cm/1foot in diameter, containing tea leaves, tea pot, and cups. I was also given a thermos pitcher of hot water, so I could brew "Ocha" - green tea. Tonight I will be sleeping on a futon, on the floor, with a very thick duvet. I also have a traditional pillow, a "sobakawa" which is fill with buckwheat hulls. I remember reading about these hard pillows when I was a kid, but this is my first encounter with one. It is almost like sleeping on a bean bag, but a bit stiffer. On one side I could feel individual hulls through the cloth, but the other side seemed to have a layer of cotton batting between my head and the hulls. Maybe it was all the walking, but I had no problem sleeping on these pillows. Every place also gave me a "yakata" and an "obi", which is a robe and belt which you can wear around the ryokan. (I knew "obi" from cross-word puzzles). I was also given a "haori", a short jacket you can wear over a yakata. When I read about yatatas, most of the time haori are not mentioned, but I think I am traveling at the tail end of winter and these places are cold, so the haori was provided. Bill had forewarned me to be careful putting on the yukata, be careful to wrap left-over-right. Right-over-left is how a body is prepared for a funeral and getting this wrong is a major faux pas. Then down to the bath. First a shower and then a long soak in a hot tub. I want to call this an onsen, but a few days later I will learn the distinction. At 6:32, I'm getting ready to go to dinner (is two minutes fashionably late?) when the innkeeper fetched me and told me dinner was ready. I'm wearing my yakata and haori, with the obi tied over everything. Later I learned that the obi should only be warped around the yakata, and that the haori has its own system of ties. But my bigger blunder was when I got to the dining room and almost stepped on the tatami with my slipper. The innkeeper's look of horror caused me to step back and remembered that I really ment to leave the slippers in the hallway. The dining room is ready for only one guest - I had wondered if I am the only one here tonight. At my seat are fish of three types, various pickled vegetable, thin slices of (I think) beef and a hot pot. "Nabemono" (literally "things in a pot") is something I saw at most places. In the tetsunabe (the pot) is broth, vegetables and either fish or thinly sliced meat. My innkeeper lite the flame under the tetsunabe while I ate the other parts of the meal, the Nabe stewed and cooked. Sometimes the pots had something to stuff out the flame. I didn't have any idea how long it should cook - so I just let it go until the fuel burns out. And, of course, there was gohan - rice. An endless supply was available from a rice cooker on the table behind me. I expect there is a right way of approaching this meal, and perhaps if my innkeeper peaked through the crack in the door between the dining room and the kitchen, he may have shuttered. He is an eighty year old very proper gentleman. But I took chopsticks in hand and went at this array of food as best I could until there was nothing but fish bones left. I ended the meal with strawberries and cream. Back in my room I am writing in my journal, recharging everything and reading "A Haiku Journey: Bashō's Narrow Road to a Far Province". And then bed; or futon on the tatami floor.
Tuesday, March 11th, 2025 It is a very big breakfast, almost more than I can eat. But I make a gallant effort. I'll admit, I am not rushing out the door this morning, the weather looks less than inviting, in fact it is sleeting. I had packed long underwear with me because I find March weather to be uncertain in New England, and Japanese weather completely mysterious. The long underwear actually worked really well. I'm still out at about 9:00.
At the end of the main street of Naraijuku is a Shinto shrine, the last chance for a blessing before starting the climb to the Torii Pass. Beyond that, the next ten meters is the iciest stretch of the whole day - and it could have been avoided. Ten minutes later I met an English couple who have turned back from the trail because of the snow. "If you slip and twist an ankle, no one will find you", they tell me. I reassure them that I have been walking in 10 cm/4inches of snow (or more) all winter. I think to myself, if one of them fell, I would hope that the other one would go and fetch help. Torii Pass is where the Nakasendo leave the Narai River valley and crosses into the Kiso watershed. The highway and the railroad chose to do this through a tunnel, and I really am on a trail, in the snow filled woods and it is peaceful! Right at the beginning of this section the trail is cobble stones. When I had searched for photographs of the Nakasendo, I often see these sections because they really are picturesque. When I read about the trail I expected that originally it was paved like this, and like Roman roads. I now think the cobbles were only the sections of the trail which were prone to get muddy. This first few hundred meters, being in a depression in the hillside, is probably a stream bed in the spring. The snow and mist gives the place a special feeling - a bit mystic. Because of the close connect between Shinto beliefs and nature I find myself think that it looks very "Shintoesque". In Naraijuku I read that the daimyo/aristocrats who traveled the Nakasendo would rest in Naraijuku before climbing the Torii Pass, the highest pass on the road. I now think that the daimyo were out of shape. It is a climb, but it is not that hard. At the top of the pass there is 30-40cm/a foot of snow and big flakes are coming down hard. A visitor center is unlocked, but based on the number of footprints in the snow, rarely visited recently. A little side trail leads to "Emperor Meiji's Resting Place". Meiji was Emperor when the imperial force overthrew the Shogunate and restored the power to the Emperor. It was also the time when Japan opened to the west and went from a medieval, feudal country to an industrial power. The resting place should have a beautiful view down the Kiso valley and into the western mountains, but right now the air is full of big, wet, snow flakes. At a trail junction near here I meet a group of tourist, a "Walk Japan" group. They are mainly Australian, with one from Connecticut. I'm I also a tourist? I've decided that if you are out here on a day walk and you objective is mainly to see the place, to tour, your a tourist. My objective is to experience the walk; so I'll classify myself as a hiker. Or walker, or rambler.
The pass is named "Torii" or sometimes "Torii-toge" (Torii Pass), and the word Torii actually means "gateway". There is a Shinto shrine with a Torii (traditional gateway) near the top and all the guide books tell you that the pass is named after this gate. But I don't think so. It was the boundary between the old Shinano and Mino territories, and was the site of a number of battles. So I expect "Torii" ment the gateway between the two valleys or kingdoms. After one of those battles the victor went to a little knoll, about four hundreds meters away, where he had a view of Mt. Ontake, one of the sacred mountains of Japan. He thanked the mountain for his victory and build the Shinto Shrine. Today, coming upon that shrine when I didn't quite expect it, was mystic. The gateway ("Torii") appeared out of the falling snow, so I walked through it and circled the shrine. There is no one here, and based on footprints, almost never is. But I already told you about this at the beginning of this narrative. I easily drop down the trail, past the shrine, past a picnic area, past the monument to Bashō, through a chestnut grove which inspired stories and poems and into the village of Yabuharajuku. It is raining for the rest of the day. In Yabuharajuku I step into a WC just to get out of the rain for a few minutes. On my tour map of the Nakasendo every few miles a public rest room, is marked with a "WC". In fact the distances between rest room is meticulously tabulated. Japan has a unique obsession with cleanliness which extends to a proliferation of clean, well maintained rest rooms. I'm warm and pretty dry under my rain coat, but it feels nice to put my hands (gloved) under the dryer. The ending "-juku" on the name of a town means that it is a "post town". The work "juku", by itself means a "cram-school", a place you send teenagers if they are preparing for an entrance exam. I've wondered if there is some relationship - as in studying "post-haste"? Right now what I am seeing is that towns sometimes include it and sometimes drop it. Perhaps it is like the way in English we may include the words 'town', 'village' or 'city' at the end of a place name. I'm trying to imagine the string of villages along the Erie Canal, where I grew up, without the suffix '-port'. The villages of 'Brock-', 'Spencer-", "Lock-", "Fair-" and so forth. I find that the tourist information almost always use the ending "-juku", I think to emphasis "this is an old post town". The villages sometimes use it. They also sometimes use the name of the train station. The railroad companies label stations such that they are not repeats through out the country. The busiest train station in the world is 'Shinjuku'. Was this a post town, or is it a cram-school? I'm out of the village and back along rt 19 which is busy and it is still raining. Wet pavement make big truck sound even louder. I'll be following the Kiso River for the next three days and the valley here has narrowed almost to a gorge. And then I need to pause and consult my map. The highway is heading into a tunnel. My map reassures me, "There is a sidewalk". My hikes would pass through a number of tunnels while I walked in Japan. There was always a sidewalk, about 80cm/2 1/2 feet wide and 30cm/1foot up from the road bed. It had the advantage of being out of the rain. But cars and trucks are deafening! So I always hurried through them. Beyond these tunnels the Nakasendo escaped the main highway for most of the rest of the day and I got to walk through villages and small lanes. I think I must has crossed into a new district or municipality. The signs for the trail are of a different style and much more frequent. Finally I reach Kiso-Fukushima, or Fukushimajuku. There are a lot of places in Japan called "Fukushima", and this is likely the smallest, even if it is the biggest town in this valley. Valley towns tend to be very narrow and very long and the day is starting to wind down. Tonight I am staying in an extra room on an elderly woman's homestead. She runs some sort of big herb garden. I would like to get there before the end of the afternoon. To find Minsyuku-Matsuo is not simple. I know it is beyond the rail station but had not realized now far, about another 2 kilometers. Eventually I am on a winding lane going up into the side valley which ends at this herb farm. Any farm, and herb farms in particular, are not at their finest in March, filled with last years dead planets and now under dark rain clouds. I approach the house, find a doorbell and ring it - I think. I can't hear anything. The doorway is just barely out of the rain. Nothing. I'm starting to wonder what 'plan-B' is as I ring the bell again. Nothing. Has my innkeeper gone on errands into town? I decide it is better to stand here for a while ringing the doorbell then to rush back into Kiso-Fukushima and look for accommodation. After the third ring I hear something from deep inside the house. And then I can make out a highly excited voice calling out something. Is it "go away - go away!!", or "I'm coming, I'm coming!!"? My innkeeper finally arrives in the entrance way, I can see her through the window. She then locks the door, and then she has to un-barricade it - it is a sliding door and she has a small beam to make sure it wouldn't be forced. She comes out, says something to me, smiles, gestures to a table around the corner - but out of the rain - and then runs back into the house. Next time she emerges she has her mask on, a plastic sneeze shield (from Covid) and some papers. She sets up the sneeze shield between us on the table, but then puts her head around it so we can talk. She has some English, but we use google translate too. She knows that I and from "a famous University". I fill out the form with address and passport number and pay my 5,500 ¥ (38$ USD). She gives me a key and then shows me to my room. It is a small apartment on the second floor of the equipment shed/barn for the farm. It incudes a sleeping room, a sitting room/kitchen, a glassed in garden room and a bathroom with a deep tub.
She comes back twice with my receipt and more information. Finally I settle in. The rooms all have tatami covered floors, so my boots are outside where they will never dry. I carry a ground cloth which I spread out, and brought my boots inside. I also carry about 3 meters of cord, so I then strung a clothesline across the room, hung out my clothes and turned up the kerosene heater. In the middle of the room is a "kotatsu", a heated table with a quilted blanket skirt. I put on the dry yukata, found green tea in the kitchen and stuck my legs under the table. I have no desire to walk back into town for dinner. I've already walked 30km/18+ miles and I have a blister forming on my big toe. And it is still raining. Fortunately I am carrying some food. Dinner tonight is peanuts, crackers, granola bar and lots of 'ocha' - tea. A hot shower, I don't feel like filling the tub. A session with my journal. Read Bashō with ocha, and then bed. It is still raining outside.
Wednesday, March 12th, 2025 Last night I searched the internet for a place in Kiso-Fukushimajuku with an early breakfast, but found none. So this morning I'll dine at a "konbinien". I think my land lady is lonely and looking for opportunities to talk to someone. So when I leave I call out "goodby, sayonara", and then fuss with my jacket and pack for a minute. She comes out and we chatter for a bit.
I need to find food so I backtrack into town to the konbinien / convenience store. 7-Eleven is a very successful chain in Japan, and with the cashier almost automated, my interactions and very limited Japanese should not be a problem. Still I am reluctant, but manage to buy a few things. I didn't see coffee and didn't ask. Back on trail (sidewalk), heading south I pass "Smile Treasure", a coffee shop that will not open for an hour. But a young woman is sweeping the steps and so I ask her if I can get coffee to go, as it is advertised, in English, on there sign. She invites me in and the entire staff, four young women, stop to watch me. Via google translate she offers me a "friend cup", which I accept. I don't know if that was the "to-go", or the Americano. A kilometer later I find a quiet spot to sit and enjoy the Americano, which is very good, and the curry filled pastry, the breaded chicken nugget and a classic doughnut. Breakfast only took an hour and 4.5 km. Today is almost all roads. Some of the guide books suggest skipping this section by hopping on the local train. But to me part of the experience is being dependent upon only my feet. So I walk. Sometimes along the highway, sometimes on side roads, and occasionally dirt or even grass lanes. I took a few wrong turns, which often were the most delightful parts of the day - lanes into tiny farms. I had a short conversation - via google translate - with a man at a pull over on the highway who was really curious about what I was doing. He was all smiles and friendly and wished me the best of luck. At one point, due to construction I was rerouted one or two kilometers onto the route of an old "forest railroad". It is now just a regular road, but had been build for logging. The Nakasendo took to the back streets of Nezame and so did I. Then past the Ono falls. As the day continues the clouds come and go and occasionally I can see the mountains. I am a bit surprised to see that Mt. Ontake, one of the sacred mountains of Japan, has ski slopes on it! Every once in a while I think, this is just a walk on a road, it might be New England. And then I realize that I am walking through a bamboo forest. At noon I measure on the map and find that I still have 18km/11miles to go. Where I am headed is actually a few miles beyond the town center. I really like the town of Suharajuku. I still have 8km/5miles to go, but I feel like the day is well in hand. Suharajuku is a post town and has a series of water troughs which are cut out of massive logs. I sat for a while on the steps leading from the street up to a Shinto shrine. The weather has been clear for a few hours, but I know there is rain in the forecast. Half of me says, 'tarry here a while, you came to Japan is see these villages'. The other half says, 'finish your walk before those clouds up there in the western mountains blow in and start dumping on you." I sat for a dozen more minutes, but then a few rain drops sent me on my way. At one point I am crossing the railroad and I pause and look at the tracks. I've now ridden hundreds of kilometers on Japanese rail, but this really is the first time I've looked at the tracks. They are a narrow gage! Someday I'll have to read up on this. By the last hour I'm ready to finish. Yesterday's blister seems to be behaving, but I am suspicious that I am developing another someplace else. Finally I cross the Kiso river and find the Atera-so Forest Spa. This is a big place, not really what I would pick, but it was the only place I could find on this part of the walk. And I am trying to have a range of experiences. It actually looks like a hotel and spa with tennis courts and facilities for outside activities, but this is March. Inside I leave my boots at the door and put on borrowed slippers. Borrowed slippers are always too small for me, which make walking a bit of a challenge. In my room I have some ocha/green tea, put on my yukata and go down to the onsen. This spa was build here because of the hot springs. This is a full onsen with other men, so I am careful to follow the instructions. First a changing room where I leave all my clothing in a locker. Then into the main room where there are half a dozen men. We are all naked and I'm the youngest by ten years. Here you first shower thoroughly. There are stools you sit on for the shower, lots of soap and shampoo, and then a basin that you fill and dump over yourself to rinse off. If there is a central tenet to Japanese life and religion, it involves bathing. You can wash when entering a temple and at the dinner table you are given a washcloth for your hands. And the whole onsen ceremony is part of that. And then into the pool. Usually there is a step where you can sit until you are a bit more acclimated to the truly hot water. And then after a few minutes you slip in and sit with the water up to your neck. You are given a small towel the size of a washcloth which I never quite used correctly. You do not use it to wash your face with, which is very tempting when you start to sweat in that hot place. Instead you put it on your head (wet or dry? I don't know) which is suppose to draw the heat away and help the experience. Silence is golden in Japan, but eventually one of the youngsters in the pool, I'm guessing about seventy, spoke with me for awhile asking where I was from and surprised that I had actually walked from Naraijuku. When leaving the onsen, "do not shower", the instructions of the wall of the changing room told me (in English and Japanese), "the minerals in the water are healthy and good for your skin". At dinner that night I am the only one in a yukata at first. But I reason that no body really wants to be near my hiking clothes. Dinner is laid out for me, but I know something is missing. The man serving has about eight guest and is running in and out so it takes a few attempts in my limited Japanese to get his attention. But finally I ask "Gohan?" (rice). He looks embarrassed as he realizes that he missed this and soon I'm supplied with a steaming bowl.
Thursday, March 13th, 2025 The Atera-so Forest Spa feels to me like something out of the previous generation. Is it the old men in the onsen, or just a different type of leisure? Still, this is my earliest start and maybe a beautiful day will unfold. Right now it feels like it should be raining, but some benevolent spirit has decided to defer the shower. Clouds are wrapped around mountain peaks like . . . is this a haiku creating itself? Cotton clouds are wrapped
This morning the march continues. Sometimes on tiny lanes that I shared with a single car and a bicyclist who was carrying a camera and tripod. Occasionally on rt-19, but not for too long. There was one place where the valley narrows to a gorge filled with the Kiso river, and the highway - with the Nakasendo as a sidewalk - build on a shelf above the river. And the railroad is on a shelf above the highway. Is the next post town Nagiso or Wago? Wago is marked on my Nakasendo map, but the town office and train station are a bit down hill and are marked at Nagiso. Maybe, like in New Hampshire, towns shifted to the rail lines over time? I do a lot of speculating. What ever the town is, this is where the Nakasendo leave the Kiso river valley, and with it route 19, and starts to climb towards the Magome Pass. Out of town and onto country lanes and the sun is really making an appearance. I'm now in an area marked as a "local environmental conservation area". I walk through two such areas this morning and they seem to be a combination of culture and environment. Beautiful homes and gardens - true, gardens in March have mainly the promise of spring - and pleasant country lanes. Occasionally I'm on the old flagstoned Nakasendo. On one section of forest lane there is a sign pointing to a side trail, which goes to the Tsumago Castle. It claims that it is twenty minutes, but not a simple uphill, and I have time today. This was a hilltop fortification and you might not notice the moat if it wasn't labeled. These days it is a picnic ground, with one stone monument and a nice view up the Kiso valley from where I have come, or down south toward the Magome pass. In between here and the pass is the old post town of Tsumagojuku and lunch. Since I passed the Nagiso I have encounter a lot of tourist. The only tourist I've met so far were in the town of Naraijuku, my first night, and the Australians on the Torii Pass. But now I'm hearing English and German and watching people who walk slowly and look around a lot. I realize that the walk from Nagiso, through Tsumagojuku, over the Magome Pass and into Magomejuku is pretty idyllic. As I've mentioned before, some of the guide books for the Nakasendo encourage you to skip sections by hopping on the train. But not this section. Tsumagojuku is an Edo era picture postcard town. And it knows it. This is a tourist town and even in March half the shops are open. I had found a "tea shop" on my map but when I got there I was uncertain about which shop was which. I think I ended up next door in the snack bar. I order onigiri, rice balls on a stick, because it is a word I learned in my Japanese lessons. And I enjoyed them. A cup of ocha (green tea) and I am ready to hike up the pass. After lunch I sat outside for a while and talked with an Australian couple with a six month old baby. A very happy baby! The trail looks like it is not a road, but flagstones are not the way I think of most trails. Up and up through a cypress forest where I meet walkers every few minutes. There are waterfalls, forest paths, benches and tiny homes tucked into the hillside which remind me of Switzerland or Austria. And often there are bear bells which you can ring to warn bears to clear off. Or perhaps they are for good luck? I was amazed by the number of warnings about bears which I saw in Japan. I think the Japanese are a careful and cautious people. The actual pass is a narrow gap which is also filled with a local road. You are out of the woods, passing cars and a snack bar for two hundred meters, and then back on trail for the decent into Magome. From pass to town is about 2 kilometers where winding trail and winding road repeatedly cross each other. Across fields and streams and finally to the edge of town. I read a sign for the Magome 'Observatory' and was curious to see it. It turned out to be a scenic overlook, a place for cars, and walkers to pull over and look at the mountains. Mt Minamizawa and Mt. Misaka are encased in snow off to the east. Down into Magome. My feet are tired and I am ready to finish the day. Magomechaya is a guesthouse and not a ryonakan, a subtile difference. Actually the word "chaya" means teahouse, but today it acts more like a hostel, with dorm rooms and common rooms and optional dinner & breakfast. I opt in on the food. I had originally reserved a bed in the dorm room. But just after I arrived a swarm of French foreign exchange students arrived. They are a happy bunch, but I foresaw a lot of chatter in the dorm room. [5,500 yen dorm, 4840 yen board]. It is 38$ for a dorm room, or 50$ for a single room. And then $30 for dinner & breakfast. I had this idea that I was going to walk around the town in the hour before dinner, but instead I am perfectly happy to take a long shower, then sit in my room, on the floor at a low table, sip ocha and read and write. Dinner is much like my first and third night. Half a dozen pickled somethings with rice and fish. It also included oysters tempura and a local delicacy; horse meat. I wondered if that was one of the dishes from the first night. The big difference is that the dining room is filled with tourist, about twenty of us, and most every one is speaking English. The French students are eating elsewhere. Reading, journal writing, more ocha and bed.
Friday, March 14th, 2025
It doesn't seem fair that I will ride the train for an hour today and roll back a week's worth (5 days) of walking. Another good breakfast with lots of parts including "tamagoyaki", a type of omelet.
I've checked out by 8:15 and walk around the town a little. The Main Street is pedestrian only and it looks to me like very new, very flat and uniform flagstone. This is as trim a town as Tsumagojuku on the other side of the pass. I again met the Australian couple with the baby from yesterday and they recommended "Hillbilly Coffee", at the downhill/south end of town. And since that is where my trail leads, I followed their advice. After ordering my Americano Jules walked in. I had met Jules yesterday just before the side trip to Tsumago Castle. He was speaking in a mixture of German and English with another walker, and I had greeted them with "Hello - - Konnichiwa". He had started to reply to the "Hello", but then broke into a long Japanese reply which was beyond me. He now sat in a window seat next to me while we ate croissants and sipped coffee. Why is it easier to understand Jules' English than the Australian's, even though he is German? He is taking a three month break from his job and going to walk the eighty-eight Shikoku temple pilgrimage and was using two days on the Nakasendo as a warm-up. I had thought about walking some of the Shinkoku, but it is a long ways from Hachioji/Tokyo. The whole loop is 1,200 km and he was planning on walking it in about 50 days. Eventually I reach the bottom of my cup and head south out of town. I could pick up the train at either Ochiaigawa or Nakatsugawa. Nakatsugawa is a bigger place with more trains, but also about twice the distance. Still I have plenty of time and the Nakasendo passes within about 200 meters of that train station. It is a pleasant spring morning and this is a gentle walk through farm land and the occasional wooded path on a cobblestoned ancient road. Near the end of today's walk the trails drops into the outskirts of Nakatsugawa, a more urban region, and Jules catches up with me. We walk and talk for a while, but he has a train to catch and my feet are sore. So I urge him to go on ahead and I walk slowly into town. It seems odd that after following the Nakasendo for almost five days I left it with so little ceremony. I one point I could look to the right and see a large "JR" (Japanese Railroad) on the train stationed. I turn that way and left the trail. Before I got to the ticket window I wrote out where I wanted to go. First Shiojiri and then Hachioji. I ask the woman at the ticket booth about a train to Shiojiri and she tells me there is an 11:49 express and a 12:04 local. So I ask to buy a ticket, but she tells me it is now 11:49 - just jump on the train and buy it from the conductor. She points at the train a says "go!" So I ran across the platform and jumped on the train I think she was pointing to. As the door close I realize that she may have been pointing to the stairs which would have taken me up and over the tracks to the next platform where there was another train. When the train started moving I knew we were headed in the wrong direction. I pull up my map app (FetchMap) on my phone and confirm that this is not the plan. Ten minutes later we come to a small station and I get off. I expect that all I have to do is walk across the platform and catch the next train back north to Nakatsugawa. There is a high school girl also waiting and I go up to her to ask. I have my google translator ready when I realize that the pocket-wifi has died. Did I forget to plug it in last night. So I am pulling out my backup battery and looking for the right cable and the high schooler is looking on her phone for a translator so she can say "yes" to my query. And then, ten minutes later a train pulls up and takes me back to Nakatsugawa. Nakatsugawa is the end of the line for this train, and I've just missed the 12:04 local. This time I returned to the ticket booth and asked about a train to Shiojiri and then Hachioji. I now have half an hour to do this carefully and I end up with a ticket to Shiojiri on the 12:49 express and then a ticket on the 13:56 to Hachioji, with a reserved seat! She also warned me that at Shiojiri I would have only three minutes to get to my connection. Sometimes it doesn't seem fair that I can ride the train for an hour today and roll back a week's worth of walking. But at other moment I think that it is amazing that a train, with all of energy and machinery and noise and fuss, still takes awhile, maybe fifteen minutes, to travel the distance that I so casually sauntered across in a single day. The rail line and the Nakasendo follow a similar path so I recognize almost everything I see. In Shiojiri I prepare to jump, to try and get to the other platform, (which one?) as quickly as I can. But then I realize that there is a general tension among my fellow passengers. Because, of course, most of them are making the same transfer. The train to Hachioji then continues on to Tokyo. So when we arrive in the station, we all move, en masse, up the stairs, over the foot bridge and onto the other platform just as the Tokyo bound train arrives. And this time I have a seat! The world is flying by and my feet are not moving. Two hours later I am at the main station in Hachioji. Then two short commuter trains and twenty minutes later I am at Bill & Eucharia's home. Later, Bill and I walk over to a Nepalese restaurant. The waitress is just starting to ask, "Where is Euch.." when Eucharia walks in and joins us. Then home (via the bike shop) to a hot bath and bed.
- And the Irish in Japan Saturday, March 15th, 2025 Today is a simple tourist and walk around day. Eucharia is off to meet some Irish friends, this being St. Patrick's Day weekend.
Bill and I caught the train into Tokyo and finally emerged from the rail network at Nippori Station. We walked through Yanaka Cemetery. As I mentioned before, bodies are not buried in cemeteries because bodies are cremated. Here, there are thousands of family plots, usually covered with a stone slab and a headstone. When someone dies the head stone is shifted and the ashes are interned in a chamber beneath it. Family plots are pretty compact, except if you happen to be a Shogun. Shogun's graves are much bigger. We then wandered over to the Yanaka Market. This is a street market, three or four blocks long lined with little booths. We ate a few "long cakes", cylinders 5cmx25cm/2"x10". They come in different flavors and we tried several. We are also looking for lunch, but it is a cold and gray day, so we opt for an indoor place and actually land on burgers. I know that is pretty non-Japanese, but it was exotic for Yanaka Market. A short train ride takes us to Ueno Park. I rate cities by their parks and Tokyo just went up two notches! It is still cold and gray but the park is full of people! The main pedestrian mall is lined with cherry trees and a few of the early bloomers are starting to blossom. I find it curious that down the middle of this pedestrian mall is a barrier which keeps the south bound walkers separate from the north bound, with arrows to tell you which way to go. We visited a few temples and shrines, but they are all upstaged by the cherry blossoms. Sentinels to the south entrance of the park are two cherry trees in full bloom. The tree is also full of birds eating, gorging themselves on blossoms. I don't know what types of birds they are. Something dark gray and bigger than a robin, but smaller than a crow. Then train back to Hachioji where we meet up with Eucharia and go to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. Sunday, March 16th, 2025 Happy St. Patrick's Day.
Have I mentioned that Eucharia is Irish? She was born and grew up in Cork, but now has lived over half her life in Japan. But she still has a strong connection to the Emerald Island. She is off early to meet her Irish friends, a group of women from across Japan who converge in Tokyo for St. Patricks's day. They are planning on marching in the St. Patrick's day parade in downtown. Bill and I follow at a more leisurely pace. We train into Tokyo and come out at Harajuka station. We have an hour before the parade, so go off into Yoyogi Park. It is raining, which we joke is of course the weather one should expect on a day which commemorates Ireland. In the middle of Yoyogi Park is the Meiji-Jingu shrine. There is a broad pedestrian mall leading up to it. It is not straight, and has a number of right angle turns and Torii gateways. Apparently demons can not navigate turns very well. This is a grand and elegant shrine dedicated to Emperor Meiji and his wife Empress Shōken. Meiji was the emperor during the Meiji Restoration, the time when the Shogun was overthrown and imperial rule was reestablished. This was all related to the opening of Japan to the west and the modernization and industrialization of Japan in the mid 19th century. A shrine may be elegant, but the more practical building here is the Great Hall which has recently been added and serves as a wedding venue. I find that parks in Tokyo were often created out of the grounds of old shrines and temples and so serve a mixed purpose of recreation, outdoor space for the urban population, yet still with a touch of the sacred. It is almost time for the parade so we wander back to Omote-sando, the avenue where the parade is going to take place. The light poles on the street sport both Irish and Japanese flags, so we think we are in the right place. We also see a little Japanese girl decked out in a very Irish peasant's costume. But no parade! Fortunately we bump into Eucharia and her posse of Irish girlfriends. Apparently the parade has been cancelled because of the continued rain, but the Irish festival is still on, a few blocks away at the edge of Yoyogi Park. We end up huddling under a tent at the festival and talk with a number of Irish who have come from across Japan for the day. One of Eucharia's friends is with the Ireland Japan Chamber of Commerce and very involved with the day's events. The Ambassador from Ireland and Irish head of the Department of Children & Families make speeches and a local Japanese youth group joins them on the stage. But it is too wet to stand around for long, so Bill and I eventually wander off. The Salsa-Caribbean Festival next door is also in full swing. We, however head to Takeshita-dori (Takeshita Street). This narrow street, almost an alley, is famous as the epicenter of teenage girl culture. One could write volumes on Japanese teenage girl culture, and I'm sure people have. I'll just say it involves over-the-top fashion. It is usually playful and I associate it with cosplay costumes, anime and manga. This is what Pokemon looks like thirty years later. We, however, escaped the rain for a while and went to a brewhouse for lunch. One more train ride and we were in the neighborhood of Tokyo Tower. I told Bill I was quite certain that this could not be the real Tokyo Tower because I am sure I have seen Godzilla topple Tokyo Tower - perhaps multiple times. Bill tells me that it is like a lizard's tail, it keeps growing back. We first head towards Atago Jinja. But before we get there we must climb the "Success Steps". Apparently some young samurai rode his horse up these steps to the delight of the Shogun. Climbing these very steep steps is therefore lucky. I think Atago Jinja has just moved to the top of my list of favorite shrines in Tokyo. It is small and ornate. It is tucked in a pocket size garden. The all-day rain is turning into a mist, the evening is falling on the city, and the lanterns at the shrine are starting to glow! We chose to descend by the ladies staircase. We wandered through the Zojoji buddhist temple which strikes me as large, powerful and intimidating after Atago Jinja. Then we crossed the hill upon which the Tokyo Tower stands. Now that it is night, it is illuminated with yellow and orange lights, and the whole things, wrapped in mist, glows. Back on the train to Hachioji. There we catch up with Euchria and go out for a pasta dinner. Michinoku Coastal TrailMonday, March 17th, 2025 I'm glad I did not try for a very early start. Today's agenda is to navigate the train system and get to the trailhead of the Michinoku. It was a leisurely morning and I had plenty of time in Miyako at the end of the day. Still, I was awake before 7:00. I didn't pack last night, but I have so few things that there is little decision making. The difference between last week's pack and this week's are:
Bill joins me for the morning, but Eucharia is off early. We have breakfast, I finish packing, and at 8:45 we head to the train station. Eucharia has bought me tickets from Takao to Miyako, via Tokyo. Takao is a neighborhood of Hachioji and is only ten minutes away on the local line. Takao to Tokyo is a limited express, fast and simple. I'm glad I have 30 minutes in Tokyo Station. The trip planner said we only needed 15 but I think I would have been nervous about showing up at the wrong platform. I said farewell to Bill at the barrier to the Shinkansen. Since he is in Tokyo he has plans to visit the English language bookstore. The name Shinkansen means "The New Trunk Line", or "The New Main Line". This is the train that in the west we call the "Bullet Train", which travels at 200 mph. I'll tell you more about it later. The train has a snout! That is the only word I can think of to describe the nose of this engine. It is something closer to an airplane than a train. But I don't have time to linger on the platform. I get to my seat with only a few minutes to spare. I'm in the window seat. The two seats next to me are occupied by a mother and her five year old daughter, as well as a one year old son in a belly bag. I think the mother maybe concerned that her squirmy daughter may disturb a distinguished looking gentleman like me. (Remember, this is before I start my hike when I am freshly bathed and laundered.). So I pull out my google-translate and say to her, "I am a grandfather. I like children." She seems much relieved, and replies to me in English. She is timid about her English, but it is the best I've heard from a Japanese on this trip. She tells me her daughter may try her English on me. Instead her daughter is shy, eats her bento (box lunch) and then falls asleep. The secret to operating a train at 330 km/hr / 200 mph is smooth rails. And these really work. If you close your eyes you can hardly tell you are moving. Tokyo to Morioka, with three stops in between, is 300 miles in 2hrs, 15min, and the train really didn't get up to full speed until we were out of the Tokyo urban region. Sunny this morning but then we meet a wall of clouds just north of Sendai. At first it was rain and then snow, often quite thick. I was surprised at the style inside the cars of the Shinkansen. They are kind of old fashion, very 1960's, which is when this service started. No power outlets. I think the train last Friday from Shiojiri to Hachiojiwas more modern. In Morioka I switch trains. I have eleven minutes and use ten of them. This is a train not to be missed, it would be an hour of standing in the snow. But I am stuck on the platform because I didn't figure out the open-button until the driver stepped out of his cab and showed it to me. This is a one-car train, essentially a bus on rails, with a driver, a conductor and six passengers. It is a beautiful ride up into the mountains with 8cm/3inchs of new snow! A romantic, winding rail line into the high hills. I am reminded of Thomas-the-tank-engine because of the story-book feel. It is slow, but pretty and I have time. Hills, forest, mountain streams and snow! I know when we have crossed the divide because the streams now flow to the coast. As we loose elevation we also loose the snow. And then we are in Miyako. I'm stiff from too much sitting, so hobble around the streets for a while. It is cold and my guesthouse doesn't open until 4:00, in about twenty minutes. And I can't even find it until it opens its front shutters. This guesthouse reminds me of the hostels I stayed in in Quebec. Downstairs is a cafe. Upstairs is a men's dorm and a women's dorm room, a single (where I am), a common room, a kitchen, bathroom and shower. The manager is a young man, very quiet, who shows me around and explains all the parts. If I come back later then when he leaves, I have a code to get in the back door. I asked him about restaurant recommendations and how do I make something hot to drink, like tea. He tells me the konbinien, the 7-Eleven is two blocks away where I can buy tea. I then ask him if I could get coffee or an Americano at his cafe. He seems surprised that I would ask, but also delighted to have a customer. Later I look in the guest book, March is clearly not the high season. No one else is here tonight, and I see about one entry each week, as opposed to two or three a night in August. The Guest house is called "Guesthouse 3710". I asked about the 3710, it's not the address or the latitude. He tells me that if I take the characters "3" "7" "10" they also spell "port". Eventually I got Eucharia to explain this to me. In addition to the number I had learned ( 1 = 一 = "ichi", 2 = 二 = "ni", 3 = 三 = "san", etc.), which is the Chinese pronunciation, there is the "Kun" reading. So 3 = 三 = "mi" = み, 7 = 七 = "na" = な, 10 = 十 = "to" = と, finally みなと = 港 which means port. And the town of Miyako is a port. So it is an inside joke. Back near the train station is a seafood restaurant recommended by the manager. There is a lot of sushi on the menu, but tonight I opt for the "Seafood Bowl". This ends up being three bowls. A fried fish, a bowl of miso soup, and a mixed seafood bowl; crab, shrimp, fish, octopus, roe, and more, over rice. The fish was a bit bony, and I think I made a mess of it with my chopsticks. On the way back to my room I stopped at the konbinien and bought tea and buns. Buns for lunch, and black tea for the evening. Green tea is fine, but I like black tea occasionally. It is going to be cold tonight (-2 C = 28 F), so I moved the space heater from the bath area to my room. And brew tea. In the middle of the night I am awaken by an earthquake, all the doors rattled. This is a town which was hit hard by the 2011 tsunami, so I checked the government website and read, 2025/03/17 21:57No Tsunemi warning. Locals probably slept through it. The Shinkansen The Shinkansen is what we know of in English as the Bullet Train. As mentioned before, the name Shinkansen means "The New Trunk Line", or "The New Main Line", because at the foundation of the whole system was a different way of building the rails themselves. Most of the rail roads in Japan, like the one along the Nakasendo, or my last leg today, are narrow gage. This is because so much of Japan is mountainous and therefore so many lines are very winding. A wide train on a tight turn does a lot of squealling. Back in the 1930's the they first started talking about a high-speed, wider rail gage system. In fact that plan was called, in Japanese, the bullet train. However a war and reconstruction derailed this plan. In the 1960's Shinkansen was finally built, originally between Tokyo and Osaka, and just in time for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Since then it has been wildly successful, greatly expanded and the speeds have been upgraded. The system carries about twice as many passengers as the busiest airport in the world. It is comfortable, smooth, affordable and very frequent. If the Shinkansen goes to your destination, I don't know why you would fly.
Tuesday, March 18th, 2025 When I woke at 5:00 it is really cold in my room, so I switched on the heater, despite the fact that it smells like kerosine. Japanese builders seem to be ignorant about insulation. My plan is to get to the Jodogahama visitor center when it opens at 9:00. It is about an hours walk, so I get up at 7:00 and leave at 8:00. Again I stop at the konbinien for a morning pastry. The most striking thing about the port of Miyako are the massive tsunami gates. In the last three hundred years this town has been leveled by an earthquake, and washed away - three times - by tsunamis. The new generation of tsunami gates seem massive to me. But I've never seen a tsunami.
Beyond the harbor I finally reach park land. I think this looks picturesque and rugged, but I am only just starting. The coastline reminds me of Cape Brenton or the Gaspe in Canada. I little after 9:00, and after my first set of "up-to-the-headland/down-to-the-cove" I reach the Jodogahama visitors center and had a pleasant conversation with one of the staff. But I am excited to actually be on trail and next to the ocean, so I am soon out the door. Jodogahama beach is very park-like in the sense that it is nature which has been well groomed. Beaches are where beaches should be - not far from snack bars. Walking paths are essentially sidewalks. And here I encounter something I've never seen before: a tunnel build for the walker only. It even has motion activated lights! Whereas this park describes itself interns of its beaches, what catches the eye are the sea stacks and small island which dot the near bay waters. These rocky spires rise up 20 to 50 meters and are often crowned with a few lonely trees. I feel like I recognize the rocks, but not quite. So after finishing my hike I wrote to the visitor's center asking them about the geology. They told me the rocks are rhyolite, which means they are like the granite I am use to, so think volcanic magma. Except rhyolite cooled on the surface, whereas granite cools deep underground, which means it cooled faster and the crystal structure is much much smaller. Eventually I leave the park and the trail looks more like a trail, a tread way winding through the woods on top of a bluff overlooking the ocean. The Pacific Ocean, from the other side! Often I feel like I am walking on the coast of Maine, and then I think about the fact that I am walking through a cypress or bamboo forest. This is a trail I could learn to love, but I think I would need to plan more time for it. This is a very irregular coast with plenty of undulations. Which I guess implies smooth up and down - and these aren't. Every headland is a zig to the east, every cove a zag to the west. Every stream crossing is one or two hundred steps down and a similar number of steps back up. And somebody has hauled a lot of timber in here for all those steps. I'm starting to realize that I cannot follow this trail all the way to my lodging tonight and get there before sunset. I've underestimated the distance and effort because I've underestimated how winding the trail really is. Also I had measured the distance to the village of Taro, whereas Greenpia is at least 5km/3miles beyond there. At some point I will have to leave the coast and the trail and cut inland to follow the straighter and simpler road. But not yet. Every so often I come into a cove where one would expect a fishing village. But the villages has moved inland beyond the reach of a tsunami and a tidal wave. The coves, however, still have the docks and the boats, but almost no people. I met one couple walking today (Australian) who told me it was worth waiting for a particularly big wave to spout at the blow-hole. So I sat for ten minutes, which also gave me time to eat a few buns, and enjoyed the spectacle. In the early afternoon I finally leave the coast and the trail and head inland. I am walking up a road in a valley devoid of humans where I pass under a tsunami gate. Just at the moment when that 100 ton iron behemoth is overhead a voice comes on over a hidden public address system. It makes and announcement in Japanese and I wonder if I should be running? Is this gate going to crash down at any moment? Later Bill suggested that it most likely was telling me that an elderly Japanese has wandered off and been reported missing. Now I start a march up rout-45. Running parallel to my road is E-45, which I take it to mean "Expressway". I think it carries a lot of the traffic, for which I am thankful, but there is still more than enough on my road. With this rugged landscape dissected by deep ravine, and the Japanese passion for tunnels, I am spending a lot of time underground. Every tunnel has a sidewalk, like what I saw on the Nakasendo, but tunnels are not my favorite places to walk. The traffic is too close, they are very cold and there are very, very loud. No car or truck ever sneaks up on you -- they thunder. However tunnels are dry and out of the rain. It has been raining off and on all day. I walked the first 16km/10miles of the day on the trail in almost six hours, and the next 16km/10miles on the highway in just over three hours. After passing the village of Taro the road starts to climb and as I move further from the coast and higher up the snow gets deeper. Maybe 8cm/3inches of new wet white stuff. A signs tells me the temperature has dropped to +1C (34F) and I think it warns me about ice. By kilometer 30 / mile 18 I'm ready to end the day and so happy when I see the sign to Greenpia pointing off the highway. Greenpia is the fanciest place I stayed on this trip. It is surrounded by a golf course, now under a blanket of snow. Inside it looks like a western style hotel, except it is still futons on the floor and the central feature of the place is an onsen. My room is on the sixth floor, so after changing into my yukata I take the elevator down to the onsen, the hot springs spa. After disrobing, and when wearing a yukata that feels like the right term, I go into the shower area where I sit on a stool and throughly wash myself. And then I lower myself into the pool. I relax as best I can and try to let life go, but after fifteen minutes I'm ready to be on my way. Everyone else in the onsen, there are half a dozen of us, arrived before me and were then after I left. One man spent the entire time in the shower area, on a stool, vigorously lathering up his body and rinsing off. Dinner is very formal and I am glad to see that most of the other guest are in yukatas, most of them of the same pattern as mine, so I assume supplied by Greenpia. But a few of the women are wearing very fancy outfits made of silk instead of cotton. Are these kimonos? I get the impression that I am surround by semi-retired successful business men and their wives. Dinner itself is beautiful and delicious, although I don't know what many of the dishes are. And then they keep bringing more and more dishes. I'm glad I walked a long ways today so I can justify eating everything. It has been a long day - so now to bed.
Michinoku Coastal Trail - みちのく潮風トレイル
Where are the Nakasendu is a truly ancient road, the Michinoku is a truly new trail. After the 2011 tsunami, which devastated this region, the Japanese government wanted to pump money into the area to rebuild the communities. It also wanted to move people out of harms way. So they aggressively built up the national park system on this coast. The word "Fukkō" in Sanriku Fukkō Park means "reconstruction" and sometimes it is even called "The Reconstruction Park". The park itself is a patchwork of lands, a headland here, a cove there, some of which were park land before the tsunami. But in 2012, to try and give cohesion to the whole system, they started building a 1,000 kilometer trail. It looks to me as if the trail is still evolving and being built. In some places I see multiple routes on the maps and I suspect that as time goes on new land is acquired, new sections added, and legs of the trail which are along the roads are retired. One other thing which I find interesting is the way they have named it, and spelt that name. Michinoku is the ancient name of this region which stretches across three prefectures. But look at the way it is spelt; みちのく潮風トレイル. The first part "みちのく" is written in Hiragana, and I can just sound that out. み=mi ち=chi の=no く=ku. The next part is Kanji, the Chinese characters, 潮風, which means coastal (or sea breeze). The last part, トレイル is in Katakana and means trail. Katakana is usually used for "loan words", words adopted from another language. So maybe it is not too surprising that トレイル is pronounced a lot like trail - "to re i ru". Wednesday, March 19th, 2025
A buffet breakfast and I can actually read "コーヒー" (coffee) I think I surprised the front desk when, after checking out, I simply put on my boots and walked off into the snow without a car. Snow, rain, sleet and a few clear spells. After passing the "Bear Warning" sign I'm on trail for quite a bit. There are no other footprints except for deer and small animals. No signs of bears either. With the number of bear warnings I've seen one should expect to see them around every corner, but never a paw print in the snow was sighted! Down into a little valley and then up again. While I am climbing out of that valley I meet two goats. A nanny tethered to the handrail of the trail and kid who stays close to its mother. I have to step over the tethering to continue my hike. Then up into the backside of a small farming hamlet. A bit of empty road and then on to a logging road through a cypress forest. The snow is 10-15cm/4-6inches and the woods are silent. I've decided I don't want to repeat yesterday's walk along the highway, yet today will be well other 35km/21miles if I walk the whole way. So I'm planning on getting on the local train for a few kilometers. Should I get on at Settai (10km/6miles into today's walk) or Iwaizumi-Omoto (16km/10miles)? Should I ride to Shimanokashi or Tanohata? I'm carrying a train schedule with me and calculating distances and speeds in my head as I walk. When I get to Settai, the first station I decide to push on and catch the 14:29 at Iwaizumi-Omoto. This will give me a bit more walking but also a lot less standing in the rain/sleet waiting for a train. 3km/2miles through the woods and then out onto the coast and some hail. One place I missed a trail markers, and my GPS showed I was almost on the trail. But I was at water level at a dead end and the trail was 40meters above me on top of the cliff face. It would be a long back track, so I only went back to where the cliff turned into a steep scramble and I think saved myself a half hour of walking. There is an amazing view from Cape Kumanohana! The mist and the crashing surf below makes me think about my trip to the Gaspe two years ago. I finally make it to Iwaizumi-Omoto. I have time and so I stop at a konbinien for coffee and cream buns, which I carry with me to the train station. I'm confused by the station. I had expected a bare platform, maybe with a small shelter for waiting in. Instead there is a big, formidable building here. To get to the platform you actually go through the town office building - which offers a warm waiting room and rest rooms. I choose to wait on the platform. It is cold on the platform, but I don't want to miss my train. There is a little shelter where I can get out of the rain and drink my coffee and eat my buns. It is a one car train covered with happy cartoon/anime. I manage to say "Shimanokoshi" (I practiced while waiting on the platform) and the conductor/driver understood me - I think. And we are off! Ninety percent of the next 8km/5miles is in tunnels! Occasionally we emerge to cross a gorge on a bridge, and then we are back into a tunnel. At Shimanokoshi the driver helps me with change and everything just worked. And it has stopped raining! I make a little side trip and stop on a cobble beach for ten minutes, but in an hour I'm in Tanohata. Tanohata is a fishing village, but my ryokan is north of it by one more headland, so just another ten minutes - and I'm there. The innkeeper is very friendly and she tells me I'm their only guest tonight. She also tells me dinner is at 6:00, which is the earliest I've had. I've wondered if this is so she can go to the back of the building where her family's area is. Her six year old daughter came and spied on our conversation. The innkeeper carries a device which acts like google-translater, but is not a smart phone, just a standalone handheld device. Hers is decorated with rhinestones and bangles. My room has a beautiful view of a small sandy beach, dramatic cliff faces and the Pacific Ocean. A fifteen minute soak in the onsen and I'm ready for dinner. Dinner is great! The innkeeper normally writes the menu on a little whiteboard in the dining room. Since I'm her only guest, she took the opportunity to translate everything into English. There is also a wood burning stove in the dining room. So I sit there, in my yukata, with my ocha (green tea) long after I finish eating. Soaking in the heat after a long day in the rain. In truth I was never cold all day and I credit that to a good under layers and almost always being in motion. Despite the rain and the sleet, it was a very happy day!
Thursday, March 20th, 2025
When I was planning this hike I joined the Michinoku Trail Facebook group and posed to them the question, `If I only have a few days, which section should I hike'. Originally I was planning on hiking a southern section so that I wouldn't have to spend too much time getting there, but all the advice I received said go north. Finally I watched some videos of people hiking and it was a video of this next section which convinced me to come here. At breakfast I was talking with the innkeeper and she asked me where I was heading to for tonight. I told her a ryokan named "Minshuku Michiai", and she said she expected that would be quite nice. The innkeepers at Minshuku Michiai have called Eucharia, who texted me. They said that the trail might not be passable because of the snow and the lack of handrails, and if I needed to cancel, they understood. The Japanese are very cautious people. Breakfast at 7:00 which was good, including a lot of fish and sausages! I've not seen sausage before. The problem with leaving your shoes by the door, which tend to be a colder part of the inn, is that they do not properly dry over night. At least the insides are dry, so I'm out the door at 7:45. It is about a mile to Cape Bentenzaki and the start of the Sanriku Fukkō (Reconstruction) Park. Cape Bentenzaki turns out to be the least of the capes I cross today, but it is my first and I find it thrilling. A high winding path on a narrow ridge and then a mile later a drop into a fishing boat access area. There are a lot of steps on this trail! And then up again to a knife edge ridge between two coves. I think about the trail guide from Switzerland, "not recommended for those given to giddiness". The cliff face below me is over 100 meters high, but because I'm surrounded by trees and bushes I don't feel particularly exposed. And then a long drop, hundreds of steps to the next cove. As I am descending I am looking across the cove trying to figure out how the trail climbs out, but I don't see and exit. When I get to the water level, a sandy beach, the solution is clear. There is a tunnel, just for hikers, through the headland to the next beach. I had read about this tunnel and so had come prepared with my headlamp, I had even put a new battery in it before leaving New Hampshire. But at some point it must have been switched on. It is now very, very dim. So I proceed with the light from my iPhone. The tunnel is about 200meters long and curves, so you can not see end to end. It is very dark, but also very simple and so easy compared to the hundreds of steps it replaced. Eventually I emerged onto a little cobbled beach and then almost immediately go into another 200m tunnel. This time when I'm back in daylight there is a cobbled beach and then a rope ladder stapled to the cliff, maybe 10meters high, and then a long cobbled beach with a pier. Or can I call these a "shingled beach"? The pier means fishing boats and so the next headland is pierced with a road size tunnel, and then it is time to climb to the top of the bluff again, about 180meters/600feet vertical. While climbing, after a switchback and just at the top of a short flight of steps, I encounter a "Serow". This is a wild mountain goat! It was standing in the middle of the trail, blocking my way. It was watching me, so I approached it slowly. It let me get to within 6-8 meters before it casually walked off the trail, down a 60-degree incline. Once on top of the bluff the next few miles are an easy walk in the woods. To my left, inland, the wood continue for 20-100 meters and then there are farm fields, some of which have been recently plowed. To my right, seaward, the cliffs drop for nearly 200 meters to crashing surf. After a hour I meet another hiker, the only one I've seen in two days. In fact the only long distance Japanese hiker I'll meet in Japan. He is from Hachinohe, the city at the north end of the trail, and is doing the whole trail in one week sections. He has lived in Austin, Texas and hosted a family from Vermont and is happy to talk about hiking in America. He also has a bear bell attached to his pack. Since the trail is covered with snow, I know he started today near Cape Kitayamazaki. He forewarns me, there are a lot of steps before that cape. On the headland before Cape Kitayamazaki is a picnic area, which right now, encrusted with snow, looks cold. But there is also sunshine and so I can imagine the picnic basket. And then down. There is one last, very deep ravine between the picnic area and the cape. The trail on this side of the ravine is far less used then the other side, and many of the handrails and post need replacing. And I want to use the handrails down these steps because it really is that steep! Like an old fashion staircase into an attic. Down, down and then some more down. At the bottom the trail picks its way along a stream for a hundred meters and then the ocean. At this point there is a terrace and the trail up to Cape Kitayamazaki takes off to the left. Ahead I could drop another 30 meters to the rocky water level, but I have a lot of up, so I stop here. Looking up the coast, it is serrated with headlands, and off of most headlands are sea stacks, many of them, including the one in front of me, have holes in them. A window on the Pacific! The geology here is a lot more complicated than back at Jodogahama beach. It is still volcanic, but I'm told it consists of a lot of different layers with different hardness -- which lead to complex erosion patterns and dramatic cliff faces. But now it is time to go up. The stairs on this side are used a lot more than what I came down, and have also very recently been rebuild. When I cannot see the top of a staircase I pace myself. Twenty-five steps and then a ten-second pause, then twenty-five more. I lost count but I think the total climb was someplace near 500 steps. It the top of Cape Kitayamazaki is a visitor's center where I strip off my under layers. They were necessary at the beginning of the day, but the day has warmed, and after those steps I am more then toasty. I talked with the woman running the center. I told her I had come from the south and was heading north and asked if the trail was harder or easier. She started to look very worried and pulled out a map which was marked with how far can you walk from the visitor's center in one hour, two hours, etc. I then realized that where I am going and where I came from got swapped in translation and actually I've done by far the hardest part. The next section is a gentle road which drops down into a valley, winds around a while, and then follows a stream up back to the top of the bluffs. I think that if a Japanese trail is accessible to a small bulldozer with a 2 meter wide blade, the trail is as perfect as it could be. But when it is on rough ground and doesn't involve stairs, like this section by the stream, the trail crews of the White Mountains could offer a few hints. After an hour I find a sunny spot for lunch. Rolls from Miyako and peanuts from last week. It is about two more hours of wooded path with the occasional spectacular view of the ocean Unstoppable waves Two hours and many pauses later I come to Cape Kurosaki. It is not quite the towering cliff of Kitayamazaki, a bit more gentle, with softer parklands, a luxury hotel and a monument to the 40-deg north latitude (by my calculation, we are 800m/half a mile north of that line). I see this point is being the end of my hike. I now walk inland for fifteen minutes, and then tomorrow I'll walk for an hour to the train station. But none of that will be as dramatic as today's ramble. There is also a bell here, on Cape Kurosaki. The heart-shaped plaque above the bells says, Carillon So of course I rang it. Even though I was already feeling pretty happy. When I found my ryokan I had to make a bunch of noise before the innkeepers heard me and came out of there section of the building. A husband and wife run this 15 room hotel. There are also three guys staying here, but at the far end of the place and I only see them briefly at dinner. The innkeepers show me around including the hot tub. I say a "onsen", and they pause and tell, not an onsen. I decide I need to get clear on what a not-an-onsen is. I had visions of strolling out of the changing room, naked, only to discover that not-an-onsen was coed. Apparently what they ment was that the water did not come from a natural hot springs. I'm glad I clarified that. After a soak I had dinner and the wife came and talked with me for a while. She kept asking me if I wanted to watch baseball and was fiddling with the TV remote. I think she really wanted to watch the game, but it would be a bit later. She was full of all sorts of information like,
And then back to my room, this journal and bed.
Friday, March 21th, 2025
Michinoku - Day 4
I'm up at 6:00, Breakfast at 7:00 and out the door at about 7:50. It is a simple walk, mainly downhill, towards the train station. I past a fishing port filled with boats and wonder why there are here and not out on the ocean, then past a big sandy beach and park, which looks cold in March, and then past the tsunami gates and into Fudai Village. These tsunami gates are what Kotoku Wamura had build. Wamura was the mayor fifty years ago and had witnessed the devastation of the 1933 tsunami. So in the 1970s he persuaded the local and national government to build tsunami gates 15.5 meters/ 51 feet high. At the time this was seen as excessive. In the 2011 tsunami Fudia had one casualty, a fisherman who had crossed the gate to check on his boat. So now Kotoku Wamura, who died in 1997, is considered the savor of his village and a local hero. I eventually find the station. At the entrance is a konbinien / convenience store where I can buy a ticket and coffee. It is a cold morning to stand on an open platform. About five minutes before the train is to arrive a woman comes up the steps to the platform holding a small flag on a pole. She is followed by swarm of about twenty tourist. They are from some place in southern Japan, I think Osaka, who are on a three day tour of the wild lands to the north. One couple is very chatty and ask where I come from and where am I going. A question which has all sorts of potential answers. They also tell me that everyone is looking forward to seeing the train. It is famous! It is the same one I rode on two days ago, all covered with cartoon, animi, especially with drawings of happy school age kids who really seem to like trains. As it approaches everyone pulls out their camera and I hear the crowd mummer, "かわいい" - kawaii - cute. With this cloud of tourist the train is nearly filled. It is a happy crowd of people on holiday. The train line runs north along the coast, sometimes within sight of the Pacific, sometimes in tunnels. At one point the train stops on a bridge over a river, the ocean to our right, a highway bridge to the left. A recorded voice comes over the announcement system and tells us, first in Japanese and then English, that this is a beautiful view of the ocean and we are next to a famous bridge which has been photographed for many videos and commercials. I find that the Japanese like to point out many "famous" things. Eventually we arrive at Kuji. I know the transfer time is very short, about five minutes, so I go straight to the platform marked Hachinohe and ask the driver if I can get a ticket from him. He tells me to just hop on and I can get a ticket at the end. It is a good thing I did this, the next train is in two hours, and this one left as soon as we finished our conversation. Again it starts as a pretty ride in and out of little fishing villages. But this is a two car train, so not quite as "kawaii". As we get closer to Hachinohe the landscape flattens out, the villages turn into towns and small cities, the train feels more like a commuter rail, and I have left behind the chatty tourist from Osaka. Hachinohe is a big port and industrial city and when leaving the platform I am able to pay for my ride from Kuji. The next leg of my trip is on a Shinkansen, a bullet train, and you need reservations and a ticket before you get to the platform. At the ticket office they tell me I can get on the next train, in four minutes, or the one after that in half an hour. I decide not to sprint. A half hour pause is fine. Once on the Shinkansen we almost immediately go into a tunnel and come to the surface only twice in the next 80km/50 miles! But on a bullet train that means fifteen minutes. We stop briefly at Morioka, the place I got off the Shinkansen four days ago. I find it interesting that the announcement system at every stop, except the terminus, say "We will be making a brief stop at . . .", which I take to mean, "Do not dawdle in the doorway, we have a schedule to keep." Across the aisle from me is a family; father, mother and in the seat in between them a four year old daughter. The parents soon fall asleep but the daughter, very much awake, waves to me. She then takes her socks off and plays with them. Later, she puts them back on, with the heels in the front, and seems to think this is a very good solution and very funny! Last night's innkeeper had given me a snack for the train ride which I now opened. It is a bean ball wrapped in dough, a Manjů, which is very sweet. Thank you! We pass through Hanover's sister city, Nihonmatsu, at 318km/h / 198mph. At Tokyo Station I expected to exit the station and then reenter as a commuter. But somehow my ticket let me just transfer to the commuter line. I then noticed that my ticket was to "Tokyo Ward", and not "Tokyo Station". I tried to get on a limited express to Hachioji, but I think it must have been the local, we stopped at every station. Eventually we get to Hachioji and the turnstile won't accept my ticket because I am beyond the Tokyo Ward. But the ticket taker acts as if this happens all the time, so he just calculate the different and charge me 580 ¥, about 4$. A local train across Hachioji and I am at my home in Japan! Bill has bean stew ready. Which is very nice!
Saturday, March 22th, 2025
Bill has told me we will see something amazing today. We are off to Nokogiri-Yama (Mt. Nokogiri), which is on the other side of Tokyo Bay. We take three or four trains (I think, I lost count), and although I may not know exactly where I am, I recognize the names of the places; Kamizaki and Yokohama. But we are heading to Kurihama. We switch to a bus and eventually get to the ferry terminal. This is near where Commodore Perry and his "Black Fleet" forced the opening of Japan in the early 1850's. For those of you who have forgotten that piece of history, in the 1840's the US China trade was growing, Yankees were all over the Pacific, but Japan was closed to outsiders. Commodore Perry was sent but President Fillmore to open Japan. Perry arrived with a fleet of powerful sail and steam ships; sailing ships with great steam driven side paddles and lots of cannons. Perry also carried a lot of the marvels of Western society, including a small steam powered railroad engine. To the US, Japan was one more port and trading post. To Japan it ment the fall of the feudal system and rise of modernization. Which led to the rise of the merchant class, the fall of the Shogun, and the restoration of the Emperor. This probably led to Japanese expansion a half century later and even World War II. Locally a great deal is made of Perry and the Black Fleet. The ferry boat company has really embraced him, his image is everywhere and one ferry is even painted black, with a big red side wheel painted on the side. The boat we are on is white and could easily be mistaken for a Port Jefferson Ferry. It is about a half hour crossing. Today is windy and when on deck I have to hold onto my hat. The ferry, although big, is pitching and rolling and we all walk across the deck like drunken sailors. In Kanaya, on the peninsular which forms the east side of Tokyo Bay, we walk to the cable car to go up Nokogiri-Yama, but it is closed because of high winds. So we find the trailhead and hike up. The mountain is 329 meters tall, and the second half is steep. The north side of this mountain is know for its quarries. Because of the way the stone was removed the cliff faces are now perfectly flat. In many place it appears as if great blocks of stone (cut out as many many smaller blocks) have been cut from the mountain. Because the gray of the stone is a cement-like color, and the line so rectilinear, it make me think of Brutalist architecture. We eventually cross over the ridge line, leaving the quarry, and descend into the grounds of ailarge Buddhist temple, Nihon-ji Temple. First we encounter some of the 1,500 Arhats. An Arhats is a disciple of Buddha who has reached a certain level of enlightenment. So these 1,500 Arhats are carvings of buddhist monks. They measure 30-40 cm tall, and are tucked into natural shelves in the cliff face. They are all different, many quite comical and expressive. And then we come to what Bill had promised, the Daibutsu, the Great or Giant Buddha. This stone Buddha was carved out of the mountain, and is pretty impressive. It is 31meters/100 feet tall and looks like the definition of serene. It one of the largest Buddhas in Japan. In front of the Buddha is a stone basin for burning incense which I can smell 50 meters upwind, and a gong you can strike after your prayer. The place is filled with people, some devote with their prayers, but most people out enjoying a sunny Saturday in March. And lots of children running around making happy noises. Eventually we continue down the mountain. This is the opposite side from the ferry harbor, so we continue on back roads and lanes until we get to Hota Station. It looks to me as if this section of coast line is dominated by weekend Tokyo visitors; snack shacks, cottages, hotels, beach merchandise. We hop on a train back to Kanaya and the ferry. We then retrace our steps back to Hachioji.
Sunday, March 23nd, 2025 This is my last full day in Japan, and there is not a lot on the agenda. Bill needs to be on campus in the early afternoon, and he would also like to show me his university. So the morning is leisurely with too much coffee and just enough conversation.
Two trains and a bus, Bill's usual commute brings us to Soka University. Eucharia often bikes it in similar time. Bill and Eucharia both teach at Soka, but Bill also teaches occasional classes at various institutes strewn across greater metro Tokyo. When I look at his schedule I get dizzy. Today is commencement at one of the other institutions and there is an online/zoom session where professors talk about students, and vice-versa. So while Bill is in his office and online, I am in Eucharia's office reading and writing. Afterwards Bill and I walked around campus for a while. He kept apologizing for the cherry blossoms being late this year. There will be amazing avenues of blossoms in this area - in about ten days. Back home we walk around the neighborhood for a while, sit in parks and watch kids do what kids do all over the world - run around and play and make happy children noises. I've told Bill and Eucharia that I want to take them out for the last dinner - but I need to rely upon them to pick a place. After a bit of telepathy they both suggest that I need to go to a "sushi and conveyor belt" restaurant, a ten minute walk away. How to describe this? Every seat in the restaurant is in a booth, with a conveyor belt running past it. In the restaurant's original design, little plates of food are on the conveyor belt and you take the plates you want. After eating the sushi you slide the plates down a chute, which counts your plates. Since all plates cost the same, they can easily calculate your bill at the end. More recently a second belt has been added, as well as a tablet you can order off of. Place your order on the tablet and a few minutes later a voice announces, "your dinner will arrive momentarily", so be ready to snatch your plate off that second conveyor belt. It was an interesting dinner with lots of little dishes of all sorts of sushi. This is my last evening and it is a pleasant night, so we walked around the neighborhood before heading home and to bed. . . . and back againMonday, March 24nd, 2025 This is a very long day (37 hours) but with few events. My flight leaves Tokyo at 5:10pm today (Monday) and arrives in New York City at 5:25pm also today (Monday)! There is nothing on the agenda except to get me to the airport. So Eucharia made us massive mushroom omelettes and piles of toast with olive or sweet pepper paste. And of course liters of coffee and tea. I packed, which is easy because there are no decisions, just put it all in the bag. Then, a little after noon I said farewell and thank you to Eurcharia, and Bill and I headed to the train towards the airport. I think I could now navigate the Tokyo system, but I am delighted that Bill came with me. After passing through the last train turnstile I handed Bill the "Suica" card, the transit card he handed me that first day. Checked in, dropped my baggage off and then, just before security said farewell to Bill. It may not be so exotic, but now Bill and Eucharia need to visit me in New Hampshire. I have never left the gate fifteen minutes early, but everyone was on board, and there was no reason to wait. The flight to New York feels backwards. It is a thirteen hour flight. The 5pm hour will go west across Asia, then Europe, then the Atlantic and 13 hours from now arrive in New York. We will fly in the opposite direction, only crossing 11 time zones and meet the 5pm hour in New York. So we arrive at almost the same time we leave, but we pass through a night in between! They brought dinner two hours later and it included a fork! Fortunately it also included chopsticks so I could postpone my Japanese cultural departure for a few more hours. An eventless arrival in New York City. The Air-train, the A-train, the C-train and finally the S-train and I'm at Robin and Jane's apartment. I offered to take them to dinner, but Jane has already crated a really good vegetable bean soup. We talk for a few hours, but the day has been long and I am ready to sleep. Tuesday, March 25th, 2025 I'm awake early because my body has no idea what time zone I'm in. I know that Jane usually is up at six, and will tip-toe around the apartment trying not to disturb me. So I try to make enough noise to signal her my consciousness. We have coffee together, and then she is off to school, to shape the brains of New York's future at about 7:00 - just as Robin is getting up. Robin makes me breakfast; eggs, avocado and toast, and then we both leave the apartment together. Subway to Wall Street station where an underground passage leads straight to Robin's building. It is a fancy old building, and centenarian I'm sure. Robin goes to work and I have the morning to kick up my heels while waiting for my bus. I hop the subway to Union Square and head to Irving Farm Cafe a few blocks away. When we lived in Manhattan a decade ago, this was one of my regular stops. It is down a few steps from street level and usually has a full pastry display. It's not change too much. I then walked over to the Strand Bookstore. I am looking for something by Bashō, my companion during all those evenings in the ryokans. They - of course - have "A Narrow Road to a Far Province", but not only have I read this book, I think I have now also lived it. Or walked it. So instead I buy a collection of his haikus entitles "Love and Barley". Up to Bryant Park to sit in the sun. And then, with a bagel and croissant, I boarded the bus to Hanover at 1:30. An eventless ride to Hanover, arriving at 6:00. Kristina drove me home - my first time in a car since . . . before this trip started. Dinner by the fire and then . . . Road goes ever on Walk a narrow road |
