Down the Fushimi, Up the Takeda

 

 

On the surface it looked to be just a nondescript grassy hill, though a bit incongruous standing as it was in a quiet neighborhood.  As ever, the truth lay beneath the surface, in the form of 38,000 ears noses taken in the late 16th century Korean invasion, by Japanese troops who had ultimately fought to a stalemate.  War trophies were important in those days, and noses proved much easier to bring home than entire heads, as was the practice of the time.  

Kyoto's Mimizuka was quiet this morning, as the Korean tour buses that were often parked in front had been missing since the early days of the pandemic.  I passed the mound heading south, following the Fushimi Kaidō, a medieval post road built by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, whose same aforementioned troops had attempted to invade the Asian mainland.  I wondered if the mound had been a point of pride for people during the time of that war.  (And the one after.  And the one after that, ad nauseum.)  But the only nose I was interested in was my own, hoping to protect it from burning under the early summer sun.     

For most of its length, the Fushimi Kaidō is also known as the Nara Kaidō, as it ultimately led to that grand old city.  I doubted that the woman walking ahead of me would make it that far, wearing a leather skirt and black tights, on a day that would hit 30° C.  

I detoured over to Yōgen-in temple to have a look at its famous wooden doors, designed by Tawaraya Sōtatsu, one of the co-founders of the 16th Century Rinpa School of painting     Most impressive was a pair of white elephants, though there was no mention of their cost.  The temple had been built from the remains of Hideyoshi's Fushimi Castle, right down to the blood-stained hand prints clearly visible on the ceiling above.

Returning to the old road, I moved through a quasi-urban neighborhood broken by the odd temple or antiquated hotel.  It was too early for the Sloth hookah cafe, but a few baseball cap-wearing old timers were moving slowly to destinations all their own.  Perhaps one of these was an old porn theater, whose type you don't see much anymore.    

The rail line called for an up and over, and from here I was in the Tofuku-ji area.  I caught the scent of sawdust from a now-flattened house.  Besides the famed eponymous temple, there weren't many traces of history, and the neighborhood looked pretty poor.  More than preserving a historical aesthetic, the emphasis here was no doubt more on survival.     

A cluster of restaurants grew around the temple itself, to form a village of sorts.  The first sign that this was a post road was the marker for an old bridge, now buried beneath a concrete overpass.  Google Maps let me down in directing me up a few dead end alleys, and it took a fair amount of backtracking and circling around to get to Reiun-in.  And found it arbitrarily closed, as seems to happen in Kyoto and nowhere else. Impermanence as expressed by indifference.

I attempted to drown my sorrows in lunch at Dragon Burger, but they've discontinued their wonderful sliders, which was my main impetus in the first place.  Then further along around Inari station, I found that a favorite coffee shop, run by Pico Iyer's 'daughter' had temporarily closed to ride out the pandemic.  I had chosen this particular day around the fact that all my waypoints should have been open, so was by now beginning to slide into one of those dark moods all too familiar to the long term expat.  Yet in front of that Christian church south of Fushimi was the famous photo of a preteen survivor of the Hiroshima bombing, carrying his infant brother dead on his back.  Things rapidly swung back into perspective.

I'd often walked or driven this section from Tofuku-ji down to Fushimi town, and had always liked its blend of old homes and Showa arcades.  The problem with that familiarity was that my mind was frequently straying, and I wasn't completely keyed into the details.  A few things did jump into eye. Like the Maison Noir painted a lovely shade of grey.  Or the odd stones marking the former red light district near Tambabashi, some of the 'tea houses' hanging on until the 1990s.

Most noticeable was the interesting mix of the masked and unmasked, now that those particular health measures had been lifted. The people who weren't wearing masks were those who looked like they needed them most: unhealthy, damaged-looking characters.  And everyone stuck to the shade.  There is no such thing as social distancing on a hot sunny day.  

The real action was happening in Fushimi proper.  And yet again, I found myself skirting it.  I traced the canals, but determined to return someday to walk the elaborate riverside trails themselves.  I left the water and walked over the unpaved back alleys of Chushojima, arriving finally at Fushimi Port Park which I'd chosen as my southern terminus, though the Kaidō had ended a kilometer or so before.

 

 

I rested in the shade beside what is apparently one of the graves of Oda Nobunaga. Little surprise I suppose since fanboy Hideyoshi had moved his own retirement residence here.  Then I began the return journey north along the Takeda Kaidō, which would lead me back to Kyoto Station.  A great deal of fighting had occurred along this route, as the light of the Tokugawa Shogunate began to dim.  I had an easier time of leaving town than these others had, barring one last detour that took me over to Yamarido to cool myself with a flight of their craft beer. 

The Takeda proved a long slog.  Not much was really happening until I crossed the Kamogawa, and came to a massive sake distillery.  Besides that all else was cheap tile and concrete.  I was beginning to hate this Route 24, and thought that there really was no reason for anyone to walk this.  And traditionally they hadn't, for this road was built for the passage of goods loaded onto ox carts, while walkers took the Fushimi.  As I often do, when the environs grow dull I turn to music.  But Hal Willner's spoken word collection, Closed on Account of Rabies, based on the works of Edgar Allen Poe, was a poor choice for the bright sunny summer weather.

The sight of a side entrance to Jonangu reminded me that beside being a mere kilometer west of the Fushimi Kaidō, I was about the same distance east from the Kyo Kaidō of the previous week.  Besides mulling that over, I tuned out completely.  These are the worst kind of roads.  

Finally I arrived at Kyoto Station, and crossed the rail tracks to the end of the Takeda.  Steps away was the Honke Daiichi Asahi ramen shop, which was free of the massive queues that inevitably extend away from the place. Taxi drivers always marvel why, saying the noodles are terrible, and I assume some popular FoodTuber is too blame.  Curious, I entered, and while it was a bit busy, I nabbed a seat.  And found the noodles to be perfectly fine.  But the cold beer was far better. 

 

On the turntable:  Lou Reed, "New York"