It felt earlier than it was, with the cool of dawn, due to a light breeze blowing off the bay, and the shade of the canopy spreading massively above us.
A couple of the camphors of Asuka Jinja would have been saplings around the time that the nobility began passing by in their finery. It was shirtsleeves for us as we listened to one of the local old-timers run down some statistics about the area's depopulation. The most startling fact was that this village of Kata had gone nineteen years without a single birth. It explains in some way why the beautiful old school that once stood nearby here had recently been razed, replaced by a bland new structure now serving as a community center for the elderly. A similar fate could befall more of this pleasant little place, as one in six houses stand empty.
But there was still a vitality here. The old shrine gave a feeling of being somewhere in mainland Asia rather than Japan. A timelessness, a placelessness. It was pan-Asian somehow, a feeling that you get anywhere across the continent, in a pristine environment far older than man.
The sea was part of it. Fishing communities anywhere have a universal rhythm, one dictated by the fickleties and moods of nature. This one had a number of fishing charters, including one couple who lived on their floating dock, behind a long dead coffee shop. Their linked flotillas were crawling with mewing cats, and a cluster of tinnies on the table betrayed what was probably a usual part of life out here. No doubt we'll eventually empty a few tinnies ourselves, for it is here that future tour groups will shower and have lunch, after kayaking across the bay itself.
The kayak guides were with us, and we found that we shared many commonalities, including yoga and taiko. It was like members of my community 15 years ago, when my life more revolved around those things. They led us through the village to the start of our climb, up Hobo-tōge, and I smiled at the homonymic pun.
My smile left me soon enough. The climb was steep and yet again, rocky. I could never picture the royals doing some of these tougher trails, but the evidence is surely there. The local man earlier had mentioned that they've found traces of a path older than this one. And closer to the next village, one older still. But we, as had they, took a long rest at the site of the old teahouses situated at what I took to be the top. But the path continued to rise, then fall, and rise again, a trick repeated a number of times. I've mentioned that in coming from this direction, the descents are longer than the ascents. But this one deceived in continuing to rise, and one could never let down one's guard.
Finally, on the true descent, the sharply dropping trail took us past a number of chest-high stone walls that had been built in older times in order to keep out foraging deer and marauding colonies of boar. These served the same function as today's electric fences, yet had a look and feel that were very ancient. The name Kosrae came often to mind, a place I've not yet been.
After an unceremonious passage across a concrete bypass road, our feet again met sea-level, down a quiet back alley on the edge of town. This was Nigishima, the shooting location (no pun intended) for one of my favorite Japanese films. Himatsuri (Fire Festival) is the study of local people living in harmony, and sometimes at odds, with their natural environment. It is beautiful and lyrical at times, though I hate the ending, which ironically, is the reason the film was made in the first place.
I wanted to linger, but the train we needed was leaving literally in minutes. No matter, I'll take a closer look when I return to finish the road sections of the Ise-ji. (I'd stay a night here but there are no inns.) Then the train swept us up and immediately entered a tunnel that bore us through the very mountain on which we'd so laboriously passed our morning.
On the turntable: Julee Cruise, "The Voice of Love"
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