Hongudō revisited...revisited

 

I've mentioned before how my friend Daniel and I had missed a great deal of the Hongudō during our walk in 2019, due to most signage being oriented from Ise-ji, against our flow. I returned later that summer to follow a pass over the lower reaches, though this time in the direction of the signs.  But those upper reaches continued to haunt.     

Armed this time with better maps, I greet my unwashed taxi driver, who picks me up in the dark of pre-dawn, and drops me just above the Sanwanotsuri Bridge an hour later.  As I climb from the vehicle, the driver tells me to take care.  Even in the modern age, townspeople maintain their superstitions about the mountains.  Not to say they're wrong.  

I tip the driver a thousand yen, since the poor guy had to rise so early to get me, and on a Sunday no less. And the mind to begins to spin games of chance, for we never really know the outcome of intersections of one's life.  Perhaps he'll use the 1000 yen to buy a few bottles of rotgut sake, and beat the wife around later.  Or maybe, he'll use it to play pachinko, which leads to even greater riches to come.   

The light is just beginning to enter the forest as I do, so I am hyper-aware of animals commuting home from the night-shift.  But the only beasties I encounter are the olfactory delights of swine awaiting their slaughter at the abattoir atop the hill, filling every inch of lung with each labored breath.  Plum blossoms fill the eye, hoof prints of deer in the dew below.  

Most of the day is spent on forestry road, punctuated by brief sections of rip-rap, and fallen-down homes.  I am certain that Daniel and I had missed this, had stayed on the main road below.  I do remember the bouldering field of Yuhi-ga-oka, the immense stones as high as three story buildings.  What follows is probably the longest section of forest trail, which drops steeply down what in the rain must be murder. Just beyond at Otani, I realize that we had previously gone really wrong here in 2019, following the forest road straight down to the highway.  But a smaller road twists upward again, past what must be the home of a trainer of hunting dogs, who bark aggressively in an aural version of The Wave.  

 

 Around a few corners, the signage keeps me on the road, but maps show a steep descent down into a broad, clear-cut valley.  I descend around the stumps and corpses of trees, until I notice my GPS indicating the trail is slightly above me to the left.  I scramble up, and meet the remnants of old trail that escorts me down to Route 311.    

It's a long road walk until a brief respite of forest leads me to the turn-off of  Maruyama Senmaida. I climb as the road switchbacks up to the handful of small souvenir stalls, and farmhouses, and a massive boulder.  I cut between the houses along a wonky rock path toward the top of the hill.  This is my third visit here, but the first in perfect weather.  It's over a month until the rice will be planted, but even the brownish fields are a marvel of geometry.  The landscape almost looks shattered.   

 

As I had already twice crossed Tōri-tōge, I stick to the road, ignoring signs telling me it is closed up ahead.  All is well until I come around a bend to encounter a massive landslide, with rows of truck tires stacked up to prevent encroachment.  As they are only waist high,  I am up and over, passing a handful of large diggers at rest within the landslide scar, then over the tires on the far side.  Thank god it's Sunday, and no one around to turn me back.    

I note a narrow road that leads me diagonally back toward the one of Senmaida's two bus stops.  I'd noticed earlier that the opposite end was marked with a sign for the Hongudō, and it is along this quiet forested road that I take my final steps.  Then my thumb takes over, gaining me a ride toward Kumano city, and my train, and enough time to yet again grab a Mosburger, an act that is becoming almost ceremonial at journey's end.

 

On the turntable:  The Police, "Synchronicity"  

  

Filling the Gaps along the Ise-ji V

 

I've forgone breakfast since I want to catch the first train of the day.  I'm backtracking a few days to recross Hajikami-tōge, taking this time the Meiji Road which I hear is more picturesque.  I munch bread and coffee as I await my train, winter's bite still in the air on this day in early March.  

The Meiji trail over the pass lives up to its reputation, and it gently leads me down to a long valley of farms sparkling in the morning sun.  I meet the road at the far end, close to an hour before my intended bus.  I throw out my thumb lackadaisically, but am soon picked by a nice old couple (and in Japan, it seems that it is only nice old couples who do the picking up).   They drive me all the way to Owase where I can catch a train back down the coast to rejoin the Ise-ji.  I walk down to Family Mart to grab a quick lunch, which I eat on yet another train platform.

 

I leave the train at Arii, where I finished up my walk of the Hongudō back in 2019.   I am led immediately across the highway and into the trees.  From the heights of yesterday, I could see these pines extend all the way down the coast, planted in earlier times as a wall to slow the encroach of future tsunami.  Breaking through the other side, I see that I am meant to walk a concrete berm which, although it allows me great views of the sea, is all I will get for hours.  Looking at my map I note a parallel path through the trees themselves, which though equally monotonous, will at least give me a softer surface on which to tread.  I decide to split the difference, and pick up the beach trail further on.  

The uniformity of features on the landscape soon has my mind spilling out all over the place, unbound by geography or temporality.  It goes on like this for 10 km.  One stretch has me up on my old frenemy R42 as it passes through Mihama and beneath it's towering boondoggle of the town office.  Any time the town office is far nicer than any other structure in town, you've got some politicos who have little regard for the needs of their constituents.

Ironically I'd stayed here a couple of nights before, at the rather bland Fairfield Hotel, though I'd enjoyed dinners at izakaya Benkei at the michi-no-eki next door.  Sadly, they aren't doing lunch today.  So I wrap behind the massive behemoth shopping center and follow the smaller road out of town, forced to rejoin R42 more than once.  There is little to hold my interest, and even the two historical landmarks that my map shows seem to have been swallowed by suburb.  (At this point I am ready to suggest to non-OCD walkers of the Ise-ji to give this whole Hamakaido section a pass.  Better to ride the train from Kumano to Shingu.)

Finally the trail leads me inland, climbing diagonally toward the forests above.  I hadn't expected a climb today, and am surprisingly more fatigued that expected, so I take a break at Yokote Enmei Jizo.  The path that follows is a nice wooded traverse along the upper edge of civilization, but all too soon I descend through a confusing spaghetti plate of overlapping roads and highways.  The weather had been so pleasant through the day, but a light rain wants to accompany me the rest of the way into Shingu.  Not sure why, as this stretch is fairly uninspiring, up until that bouncy iron suspension bridge that I remembered from my Kawatake-kaidō walk.  As on that day, the sky is dark as I enter the grounds of Hayatama Taisha, and I realize that I've approached this shrine from four different approaches.  But today brings completion as I've now walk every bit of the Kodō (except the Okugake, which leads to Hongu anyway).  Thus, the pilgrimage ends not with footfalls but with a pair of claps.

 

My accommodation for the night was chosen for its proximity to one of my favorite izakaya in Japan.  It's a guest house, which I usually avoid, but luckily I won't see or hear any of the other guests during my stay, their presence betrayed only by neatly aligned shoes.  I make my way to the izakaya, which I had booked ahead, telling them how happy I'd been on my last visit five years ago, and how much I was looking forward to seeing them again. Naturally, they had no idea who I was. 

Upon entry, I am surprised to see the extant of their renovation, and upon sitting, I realize I've got the wrong place.   I figure the proper thing to do is to order a beer, which I pound after I find my correct destination around the corner.  That owner does seem to remember me once I mention my last visit. And as on that visit, I double makase, letting him choose four dishes for me, and four types sake to pair them with.  We talk over the array of bottles that separate him from my counter seat, about my walks, and the history of the area.  As I leave long past closing, he gifts me a hand written pamphlet he's written on  Shingu.  Once again, Kumano has worked her magic on me, has me missing the hospitality of the countryside, has me wondering why the hell I am still living in Kyoto...

 

On the turntable:  "Everyone's Getting Involved: A Tribute to Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense"

 

Filling the Gaps along the Ise-ji IV

 

I linger over breakfast, not enthused about my upcoming day of five passes.  Luckily I've already down the Hōbō-toge, so I wait on the train platform with a handful of school kids heading toward more populous towns.  I debark in Nigishima, where I had intended to spend the night during my aborted walk through here back in December.  I really wanted to pass a night in this town that had once been a film set, but there had been red flags when I'd made that booking, mainly that I'd nearly had to beg to convince the owner to do a simple dinner for me, as there wasn't a single restaurant or shop in the village.  This time around Owase Seaside Hotel seemed (and proved) to be a more cozy alternative. 

All was quiet on this morning but for some fisherman offloading the morning catch.  The large concrete shell of the fish market is far bigger than their needs, a hint of a population base so diminished that they can no longer host what had once been a famous and lively festival here.  I rejoin the Ise-ji as it climbs steeply out of the village, literally through a house that is disappearing into the hillside.  Tiles from the bath jut from the earth like a set of teeth spilled in a vicious bar fight.  

 

 The ascent peaks out surprisingly soon, the trail continuing as a pleasant undulation through cedar forest.  The beach town vibe of Atashika seems a pleasant place to stay a night, especially if doing the walk in weather warm enough to swim.  But jeers to whomever decided to pave the steep trail climbing out of town.   The brief stretch of forested trail at the top leads me through the front garden of a pleasant woman hanging her laundry on a pleasant day, and past the coop of some rather raucous chickens.     

After a brief pop-in to Hadasu Jinja and its vast views, I drop drop drop down to the town proper.  Midway along I hide my bag in the trees for a quick detour over to Jofuku-no-Miya, dedicated to Chinese alchemist Xu Fu, who crossed the waters in search of the elixir of life.  (He never returned from a 210 BC voyage, so I suppose it could have gone either way.)  An ancient woman gingerly makes her way uphill from the train station, a walk that could be her own version of the elixir of life.  A few others are out resuscitating the vegetable plots after the long winter.  

 A massive boulder field contains the former site of Otake-chaya, but I get no place to rest as I climb again out of town toward Obuke-tōge. I pull up short to at the trailhead as I intend to double climb this pass later in the day, so instead follow the road back down and around to the quaint little Hadasu station, where I have lunch on the sunny platform as I await my train. 

 

 It is a short five-minute ride to Odomari. I wrap myself up and out of town and soon enter the forested Kannon-no-michi, which is the more atmospheric, if not more challenging, of the two passes. I detour at the top to the old Tomari Kannon ruins, and am surprised to find that it is in the process of being rebuilt.  But there are no workmen here today, so I sit and recharge with some chocolate but pushing on.  It is a wonderful roller-coaster stretch that rises and falls beside more of those Shishigaki stone walls, with a rewarding view of the upcoming Matsumoto-toge and the crescent of shoreline beyond. 

I reach Obuke-tōge, where I stash my bag in the forest before racing unencumbered down to the trailhead that I'd tagged a couple of hours before, and back.  The descent off the pass is gradual and smooth, but near the bottom, as I ponder a large sinkhole in the forest floor, I hear the unmistakable sound of a bear lumbering through the thicker on the opposite bank of the stream.  I don't remain in the forest for long.   

 

 

The Ise-ji moves through a pair of small fishing villages and over a towering concrete breakwater to Odomari.  I'd crossed the upcoming Matsumoto-toge about ten years ago, but from the other direction. Ever the purist, I climb again, but regret it immediately, as the steep set of stone ishitatami steps taxes legs weary from a day of passes.  Once atop, I admire the tall Jizo marking the pass, this one complete with bullet hole from the 19th Century shinbutsu bunri version of MAGA lunacy.  

 

I hadn't time or daylight during my previous visit to follow the lateral trail heading through the forest toward the Onigajō ruins, and this too was another reason to repeat the climb . Rather than following a straight line, this path too rises and falls.  The views over sea in three directions proves the effort.  Then quickly back down the other side toward the outskirts of Kumano City.  As I sit with a cold drink from a vending machine, I startle the attractive middle-aged woman opening up the Okonomiyaki shop on whose bench I'm resting. 

 

One last section to go, following the path that winds around the base of Onigajō, up and down steps cut into the soft sandstone cliffs and terraces.  Being a Friday night, a group of rather rough looking youths are drinking chu-hi and staring out toward the sun now beginning to set.  I pass more of them as I move along the narrow paths, like I'm a spectator at a chimpira parade. One of them looks old enough to be someone's mother, yet she too had affected their funky look.  Now I know who bought the booze. 

This truly is a magnificent place, and my delight with it would be further enhanced if I weren't so damn worn out from the day.  After passing through a pair of tall arches, I finally reach the carpark on the far side, then pick up pace in the falling light, reaching baths and beer and food at the oasis of Hotel Nami.

 

On the turntable: The The, "Infected"

 

Filling the Gaps along the Ise-ji III

 

On the Ise-ji, Yakiyama terrifies most.  The height and length of the pass are well out of scale from that of anything else on the entire walk.  Getting an early start out of Owase is a good idea, and the road out of town is narrow and straight but for a long detour around the quiet neighborhoods that now squat atop the former masagata curves.  I almost miss this, except for a passing bus driver whose gestures I take for a simple greeting.  A moment later I realize that he was gesturing that I had passed my turn-off a few dozen meters back. 

As I trudge along, I come to realize that walks and hiking have come to serve as a Vipassana of sorts.  It is a practice of dealing with sensations in the body, and then letting them go.  As regards walking and hiking, more than letting them go, I simply ignore them. Which rarely leads to desired consequences, as with my aborted attempt at this route last December.

But today, so far all was well.  Until a sign at the trailhead warns me that a large section of the route is off limits.  And in true Vipassana fashion, I choose to let this information go.  I don't mind detours on regular hikes, but on historical courses I want to get in every step. In the majority of cases, the damage is minor, and easily skirted.  (Though due to the more ferocious weather patterns of recently years, some warnings are better heeded.). As I move through a section of high grass a few hundred meters further on, I try to ignore the workman running up behind me.  Luckily I am able to do my usual blag -- "reporter on assignment to write about blah blah blah" -- and surprisingly he lets me continue, after giving some advice about how to navigate the damaged section.     

 

 Luckily I'm allowed to go on.  The trail is a beautiful passage though a forest that gradually grows more natural the higher it gets.  There are ample historical markers and plentiful jizo statuary.  Then suddenly the trail stops, where a crucial bridge has been washed out.  The workman had suggested I cross the steam higher up, but the forest is too thick and the going looks tough.  Instead, I lower myself into the stream bed, using the new metal rails that would support the new bridge.  They serve as monkey bars of sorts, as I go arm over arm, my feet resting lightly across the rocks midstream.  Then I heave myself back onto trail again.  

It had been a gentle ascent up to that point, but then the path begins to switchback sharply up until the peak itself.  The old rock-laid trail has grown uneven with centuries of erosion, and the irregularity of footfalls are an unwelcome challenge.  Near the top is a new-ish shrine that would make for a great place to overnight.  There is another smaller shrine out back, each anointed with dozens of identical bottle of sake, complete with white plastic caps for partaking.  They spread across the hillside like the kodama forest sprites of Mononoke-hime.    

But the peak comes up sooner than I'd expected, and the climb is done.  I take a long lunch break in a large open area of grass nearby, enjoying the view of the fishing towns stretching along the peninsula below. I note that there was an adjacent Meiji trail that hadn't been on any of my maps, but the path looks pretty hairy, so I stick with the Edo route.  At its lowest reaches the tree graffiti begins.  They are complaints from local woodsmen that granting World Heritage status to the Kodō would deny them the livelihood their families had had for centuries or more.  

 

 The final stage of the trail is a bisection of low stone walls meant to keep the fields below beast-free, and reminds me of the stone walls of the lower Ryukyu Islands.  A beautiful house with an lush and ample grass yard stands just where the forest ends, overlooking the broad bay and got me playing the what-if game.  It would be lovely to live here.  

I had met a young couple on my previous visit to Mikisato, with shared interests in kayaking and yoga and taiko, but sadly they aren't at home when I drop by their guest house.  So I instead take a chocolate break at the water's edge, before climbing up and through the village and around the other side of the bay.  

Entering forest again, I'm not prepared for how the rest of the day will go.  The trail hugs the forest walls above the road below, and climbs and drops before returning to tarmac for short stretches. These roller-coaster routes are always the most tiring for me, and I had already had a pretty full morning with Yakiyama.  Like some kind of punishment, the trail drops all the way down from Miki-tōge before climbing all the way to the heights again.  But the trail along the Hago-tōge that follows was an ample reward, running smoothly beside more beautiful stone walls, before eventually depositing me on the edge of Kata.  I pass schoolkids on their way home, as I move through the village toward my accommodation on the other side of the bay. 

 

 Owase Seaside View is my splurge this trip, with luxuriant dinner and baths overlooking the quiet waters of the bay.  My room proves massive, and I am happy for my early arrival, soaking myself post-soak with the view and some quiet reading and the generous yet dangerous complimentary samples of plum wine.

 

On the turntable:  Avatars of Dub, "One Drop Theory"

 

Filling the Gaps along the Ise-ji II

 

Early the following March.  I arrive at Kii-Nagashima in a gradually diminishing rain, and am out of town within minutes. Uomachi is much quieter than it had been in summer 2022.  The number of beauty salons is out of proportion somehow, but I suppose it is something to do is this quiet town. Plus I love the huge sign for "Liza and Bambi (since 1957)." The village shrine looks smaller on this grey day, the plum tree on its grounds a contrast of pink petals on dark black boughs.  The waters of the inlets are haunted by the ghosts of karaoke boxes, and in front of one I am finally forced to pull on my rainwear.  The scent here of hot metal and dead crab is nearly overwhelming.  

I meet a trio of older hikers atop Ikkoku-tōge, the only walkers I'll meet over the entire five days.  The views open over the sea, then I'm on the far side. Into Furusato Onsen, where I overnighted on my previous trip. The village greets me with plums, yet it hosts a mikan stand, closed this late in the season.  I suppose the same can be said for the overgrown temple nearby.  

Miura-tōge comes and goes, with its beautifully simple wooden bridge and old Toyota Crown rusting into forest.  It's not long to the next pass of Hajikami. There is a choice of two routes here, but I take the shorter one, with the intention of returning to the newer Meiji Road later. This afternoon of small passes reminds me of the Kumano Kodō's Kii-ji and Ohechi sections, days spent traipsing through the long waterfronts of villages, ultimately broken by a quick up and over to the next one.  The warmth of the day brings about thoughts of bear, but the date on the calendar helps allay those fears.

 

Funatsu hosts the Miyama history museum in a lovely old Meiji building, but it has closed just a few minutes before.  I am rapidly losing light when I hitch a ride down to Owase, and my digs for the night.  I'd already climbed Magose-toge, so I'd begin the following day's walk from here.  

I've written before (and critically) of the city, dubbed by the tourist fathers as the belly button of the Ise-ji, yet one filled with lint.  I have friends who are enamored with the place, but I find it far too gone in its decay.  There is a revitalization of sorts going on, but it feels lackluster to me, and undertaken far too late.  Still it is an indisputably important resupply stop for the long distance walker.  

I still have a bit of time to kill before the restaurants would open fro dinner, so I wander over to the grand Owase Shine, then ramble around the town's lanes, amazed at the vast number of long-shuttered buildings.  I spy light coming from an izakaya, and upon entering, I quickly rattle off a few lines in polished Japanese so as to set the owner at ease with a foreign face popping through the door.  He tells me that they are booked for the night (which I inevitably wonder whether is true, or simply a ploy to ward off the foreigner and his uncertain behavior), and directs me to a shop a few streets over.  The granny running the place looks friendly enough, but the shop is really run down and allows smoking.  So I wander yet again, finally settling on a small joint run by a young guy and his mother. As I am the only customer, I sit at the counter and chat with them awhile, until a few other people straggle in.  I quietly head back to my hotel, whose name of Viola  always reminds me of the Dead, as in Grateful, rather than civic.

 

On the turntable: Abbey Lincoln, "It's Me"      

 

Filling the Gaps along the Ise-ji

 

Despite a very early start, I didn't arrive at Kawazoe Station until around 10 a.m.  Not any ideal situation, as I had a good deal of ground to cover, and the December day allowed me only six hours of daylight to do so.   A steady pace would get me there, though I'd have little in reserve to explore more deeply things found along the way.  I also wasn't looking forward to the fact that much of the walk would along the busy Route 42, but at least its steady buzz of traffic would keep me moving rapidly forward.  

I recalled well the little station at Kawazoe, where I'd finished the last leg in the summer of 2022.  The village (and all the other villages) must have been a charming place to live, before being denigrated to a place to blow past along R42.   My map mentions some statuary beside the path, but despite my walking a few back-and-forths, they never reveal themselves.  Perhaps they'd been moved during renovations for the brand new shrine on the hillock just above.  I am further puzzled by an exercise bench set-up where the barbell is weighted by circular stones of concrete, Flintstones-style. 

Route 42 comes up all too soon, and the wind whips me up and over the pass. A new religion has built a temple-cum-castle at the top, beside a large rock where a legendary princess of old had taken a break. A mysterious cluster of Jizo just off trail has me wondering if the route was dumbed down to have us follow the new highway rather than squiggle across a mountain route that I see on my map.  That also matches the description in some of the older books for some other statuary that I never actually saw.  There are plenty of historic information signs, but little trace of what they indicate.  

At any rate, I am finally led off R42, down a gentle road that leads to the picturesque Yahashira Shrine on the outskirts of Misedani.  There a junction here of sorts, with a small trail that wraps around the back of some houses and down to the banks of the Miyagawa.  In old times, a ferry service led pilgrims across, but today it would need to be prearranged.  I decide to go to the landing anyway, in the off chance I can blag a ride.  But all is quiet along this jagged, rocky stretch of river, but for the flags whipping on the landing across the water.  

A backtrack, then back along the new Ise-ji route.  Apparently, no one under 60 lives in Misedani.  The town hall shares a carpark with the michi-no-eki, which feels Reiwa appropriate somehow. I take a quick lunch, then head over Funaki bridge, a 125 year old concrete beauty, with waist-high, vertigo-inducing railings.  Safe across, I have a long monotonous slog above the river, and paralleling for the second time the mountain pass that I'll be crossing posthaste. The eyes drawn repeatedly upward to the heights to follow, this approach takes a toll on the walker's psychology and spirit.    

 

I finally reach the opposite boat landing that I'd seen earlier, just below another Yahashira Shrine, this one elegant and quiet and shaded by bamboo forest.  The climb toward Misesaka-toge begins sharply and in earnest from here, but despite being the first day, the going is easy, and I suddenly find myself on the other side.   

Takihara-no-miya appears like an oasis.  I walk a long while under towering forest that shades her. It appears that the shrine is modeled on the grand Ise Shrines, and squares empty of all but stone suggest that these structures too are rebuilt every 20 years. I'd love to take a longer break here, even doze out of sight behind one of the grand trees, but the sands continue to fall through the hourglass.

Adjacent Taki has some very nice schools, old timey and made of wood, which always catches the citified eye more used to concrete prisons filled with shouting kids.  The town also has a penchant for VW Beetles.  A beautiful campsite of tall A-frame cottages stands at the bend of the Ouchiyama River, which brings giggles to my Anglophilic brain.  

 

The jōyato of Aso are telling me to hurry up and get the hell to my inn.  My knees and my feet and my rapidly dropping body temperature agree.  Dusk is rising up too quickly.  I take a long rest at a shuttered takoyaki stand, phoning my inn to mention that I am running late, and to check on the time for dinner.  Six.  Shit, I'm going to have to push it if I want a bath first.  And that would be a need, rather than a want.   

The stretch that follows is a mind-numbing trudge along R42, then finally onto a quiet road leading gently into rice paddies, still dormant for the season.  Sadly, dark has fallen fully, one of the very few times that I've been caught out on my walks.  Nothing to do but march toward the lights in the distance.  The lack of visual stimulation brings my awareness to fall heavily on the condition of my feet, which are basically hamburger.  Large blisters have colonized the balls of both feet, and each push forward is agony.  I eventually arrive at Dairen-ji, and I plonk myself on the stone steps for a rest.  I curse the dark, as the temple looks inviting, as does the Kiseiso inn next door.  It is only after I return home to my notes that I realize that that was where I should have booked for the night, as recommended by other walkers I follow online. I watch a train disgorge its passengers at the station below me, then trudge the last 15 minutes to my own inn, which in my current condition takes twice that time.       

My innkeeper winces when she sees my feet and mercifully lets my have a quick shower, despite it being well past six.  I too wince when I notice there is no bath here, something my feet desperately need.  Dinner brings respite, though I can almost feel my blisters bubbling under the kotatsu, and sitting on the floor is an agony for overworked hips.  I never have walked myself into such a pathetic condition, yet somehow I covered 34 km, far beyond my predicted 24.  That distance is simply masochistic for a first day.  Sleep comes quickly, but often broken due to pain.

 

I depart at daybreak, the light just coming into the sky.  The foot pain has receded to a dull throb, but with the promise of a steady increase.  It is a beautiful morning, the river almost yellow in the rays of the new rising sun.  I hug the twisting curves, along high berms bordering rice fields.  I can smell the pig farm a good half and hour before I got to it.  No matter what type of animal they process, these kinds of places always share the same scents: of shit and blood and death.  

 Luckily the trail keeps me off R42.  The highlight is the shaded section of wood of Ashitani, though my mincing little steps between tree roots quickly returns the pain to my feet.  By the time I hit tarmac again, all is agony.  I also realize that it is 8 a.m. and I hadn't yet had any coffee, the walk thus far devoid of vending machines.  I find my first at Ouchiyama Station and have a long sit to rest my feet.  Satisfactorily caffeinated, my final stretch up to Umegadani Station is mainly along R42, though it is quieter here and the beauty of the morning brings out the best of the landscape.   

The pre-trip intention was that I'd catch a train down to Kii-Nagashima, as I'd already walked the twin passes that split off from here.  But for my feet.  I can go no further today, or any other day to come.  As I await my train, I mentally recalculate what I need to finish the rest of the walking route, and find a window next March to where I could shift my accommodation dates.  As my train arrives, I hobble aboard, disappointed when the doors close on what promises to be a week of perfect walking weather.

 

On the turntable:   Jani Kovačič, "Thomas Alan Waits: A Tom Waits Homage"

 

Leap-frogging along the Iseji IV

 

 

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"

 

Leap-frogging along the Iseji III

 

 

Kii-no-Matsushima had been our quiet base for the night.  Dinner proved particularly entertaining, as our hostess regaled us with charming stories.  Good manners dictate that one doesn't eat while being addressed like this, but you could drink.  With each sip of my beer I was laughing inside, thinking that perhaps this is a ploy.  The longer she talked, the longer you'd drink, and ultimately would need another in order to wash down the immensity of courses that was dinner.  A clever strategy I thought.  And it paid off in our ordering not one more sake, but two. 

I woke early and well rested, so decided to have a look at the town, still asleep at the dawn hour. The beach was quiet and had the day been hotter, I'd have started it with a dip.  I regretted missing the town's onsen, which sat in a quiet grove of pines at the other end of town.  But I'd be back, perhaps as early as winter, a time when the warmth of its waters would be far more welcome. 

After a lavish breakfast, we leap-frogged ahead to the trailhead for Magose-toge.  The stone stairs began right at the base, and didn't cease until the pass itself.  I've seen a lot of these ishi-tatami paths throughout Japan, but never one the went from head to toe.  We rested a few minutes at the pass, then pushed up an even steeper set of steps to the summit of Tenkurayama, the path wild and rough like many of those I'd climbed in China.  The summit was rocky, with one incredible boulder that was as big as a three-story apartment building.  A long iron ladder led to its smooth surface, and from here we gazed awhile at the sea off to one side, and on the other, the towering Omine peaks running down toward us.  Amongst these, the smooth grassy head of Ogai-ga-hara stood mysterious and proud.     

It was the usual long descent that brought us to Owase. We had a noon-time meet with a couple of people from the tourist board, but had done our traverse in ridiculous time.  Keiji stayed in the A/C of the Tourist Info building, but I set off in search of a coffee, not wanting to put on the mask (both literal and figurative) and make small talk.   But this proved elusive.  I wandered a number of streets, past dozens of shuttered businesses, finally giving up and grabbing an iced joe at a convenience store.  A line of preschool kids stood across the street from me, gawping.

I returned at the appointed hour to meet the folks from town, who led us around on a food walk, where we would pop into a business to be given a small bite, the cumulative half dozen building to the equation of lunch.  We sat later in a restored old home and discussed what the town was doing to regenerate itself.  I asked question after question, aiming the usual things that communities were doing to attract young people, but to each of these they answered in the negative.  The work-from-home ethic had been a boon to many parts of Japan, but these people had done nothing to capitalize on it. 

As such, I'd never seen a town so dead.  Naturally I pass though hundreds of such communities on my walks, but while many look to be teetering, these is still some semblance of life.  But Owase was as bad as I'd ever seen, and even a well thought out gimmick like a food walk would change that.  Who know that the large cemetery I'd passed though on my way out of the hills would be a foreshadowing of the town to come. The company that I was consulting for this week operates in the spirit of trying to revitalize rural communities, to bring them new life.  But this one had just gone to far, as if the citizens themselves had declared a DNR.  I just couldn't see bringing clients here.  The food walk was a fun and innovative idea, but in walking around, tour clients would get too good a look at the town, and how dire the situation was.  It was written in the patterns of rust upon all those shuttered shops. 

 

On the turntable:  Husker Du, "Zen"

 

Leap-frogging along the Iseji II

 

 

I started the day far away beside the sea.  Being summer, I missed sunrise by about half an hour, but it was still early as I watched the light come up behind Meoto-iwa, the rope between cutting through the orange sphere as if slicing fruit.  The wind was up, and every fifth or sixth wave would throw spray onto the concrete trail.  This Futamiokitama Shrine had an Ama-no-Iwato, somewhat fakily man-made, and facing the wrong direction.  The Ama-no-Iwato cave in the hills not far from here was smaller but had more authenticity in being a bit of work to hike up to.  But the Ama-no-Iwato in Kyushu's Takachiho was most impressive of all.   

My pick-up was early, and for much of the morning we'd followed the trail I'd left a couple of days before. I showed my colleagues the Bakamagari, and was surprised when they wanted to go through.  After the previous visit I'd thought it a miracle I hadn't picked up a leech.  And sure enough, back in the car I noticed one wriggling off my ankle.  I hollered for the driver to stop, thinking the leech hadn't yet locked its jaws on me, but I was too late.  Oddly enough I'd received some sacred salt at my inn the night before, but not wanting to kill the little bastard, I asked the driver for his ETC credit card.  When he asked me why, I joked that I wanted to bribe him into letting go.  But I found that I could use the card to laterally scrape away the leech's mouth without breaking his head off under the skin, which tends to get infected and itchy later.  Incredibly, the leech then fastened itself to the card,  making it quite a chore to flick him away as he maintained a strong grip into the plastic.  

We continued our drive south.   Gone were the days of the beautifully photographic image of the mini rice stalks beneath glass, as the water had by now mainly drained away.  It was up to the rains now.  But those seemed far away today.  The weather was pleasant with a cooling breeze that ruffled the tips of the stalks, like the tousling of hair.  

The shops we passed were the usual chain stores found only in the countryside, places familiar to me from my years up in the 'Nog, places I had 'grown up with' and assumed were everywhere.  Now living in urban Kansai, I recognized them as country cousins, as old friends.     

We finally pulled up at Umegadani Station, where I'd begun my ascent of Nisaka-toge three years before.  Today, we'd go up the parallel Tsuzurato-toge that crossed over a ridge to the north.  This had been the older pass, until replaced by the Nisaka 300 years ago.  Before walking away from the car, I was kitted out in pilgrimage gear:  red vest, wooden staff, conical hat.  The later proved a bit of a nuisance since it would get jostled by my pack, so after an mere hour I simply hung it from the bag, where it would stay for the rest of the week.

I was kitted out this way so as to be the model for a video being shot to promote the tour.  We'd filmed at the Ise shrines the day before, much to the amusement of other visitors.  One old granny asked to take a photo together.  I wondered what others thought when I was walking alone, far from the camera.  But after awhile I forgot about it, much in the way that I tend to forget that how much my height and features make me stand out, how I don't look like everyone else in this country.

Thus attired, I moved out along the rice-laden villages strung along the valley floor.  It was a warm day and the clothing didn't breathe well, so it was a relief when we eventually returned to forest.  The locals had used the pass until the 1930s, when the road was built.  It was a good well-marked trail, with stone steps rising steadily upward like toward Machu Picchu.  Now and then I'd have to act out a scene, and I was surprised how much I've missed film acting. There's an awareness that's not self-conscious per se, but more a hyper-consciousness, a focus on every movement and gesture that bespeaks the zen of tea ceremony, or martial arts. Not an action is wasted. 

After a brief rest and some off-the-cuff narration at the pass, we began the long walk down.  I remembered Nisaka as being similarly long, but this one went on and on.  It would be the character of all the passes we'd eventually go on to cross, and pity the poor walker doing this pilgrimage from the other direction.   The villages in this next valley were a bit more built up but had a pleasant feel, and its primary canal led us into Kii-Nagashima.

Lunch was fried sunfish eaten outside the michi-no-eki, just as it had been in 2019.  We jumped forward then to meet Ueda-san, who would lead us around on a tour of Uomachi.  A hipster surfer of sorts, he had a light touch about the whole thing, shooting the bull with fishermen repairing their nets, or flirting with the aunties serving us fish-related bites in the local shops.  It was all a reminder of how I've missed spending time with people in rural Japan. There was not the slightest hint of chill in their demeanor, unlike my stone-faced neighbors in Kyoto.  

There was a quick climb to the village shrine shadowed over by an immense camphor tree, followed by a long sit in an old house filled with funky Showa-retro delights.  Here they screened for us a shadow-puppet version of the village's local legend, cleverly rear-projected onto the shoji screens at the end of the room.   When it was finished, we turned in surprise to find standing behind us the thirteenth generation descendant of the film's heroic and long dead samurai.  He didn't have much to say, and I felt a little sorry for him, assuming that he is often trotted out to meet and greet passing tourists. 

In the temple grounds nearby stood two stones marking the victims of a pair of tsunami.  Surprisingly, one of these waves had been caused in the Hōei eruption of far-off Fuji, an event that birthed the eponymously named Hōei pimple that is now a prominent feature on Fuji' eastern flank.  

Next to the temple was the house of a woman who had spent most of her young adulthood in New York City, where her husband had been sent for work.  Now a widow, she seemed the town celebrity of sorts, leading us on a rapid-fire tour of her home, moving with the grace of true hostess,  There was an ease in her being, along with a definitive flirtation.  I wondered how she feels now living with her elderly mother in this small village, far from Manhattan and all that the metropolis contains.  But she had certainly created her own reality here, teaching English to the local children, and charming foreign visitors who pass along the Kumano Kodō running past her front door. 

 

On the turntable:  The Beat, "I Just Can't Stop It"

 

Leap-frogging along the Iseji

 

I'd made three attempts at this particular walk.  The first had been in 2009, when I walked all the major sections of the Kumano trails.  By the time I got to Shingu, I'd had enough of concrete and cars, and decided to begin the Shikoku pilgrimage a little earlier, assuming it would have more natural bits. (Spoiler alert: It didn't.)   I'd twice gone so far as to develop an itinerary and book accommodations, in May and December 2020, but the pandemic had different ideas.  

Good things come to those who wait, I suppose.  An adventure tour company approached me to help them revamp some of their tours, and so it was that they sent me to explore the forested parts of the Iseji.  As they paid for my transport down and back, I decided to leave a day early, for a bit of extra credit.  

A very early train took me to Tamaru, and a very short walk brought me to the true start of the Iseji,  While the trail technically continues another 13 km to the Ise shrines proper, I'd done that walk already as the final stretch of the Ise Hon-kaidō, which I walked back in 2015.   Yet despite the familiarity, it took me all of a minute to follow the wrong road, but I quickly figured it out and backtracked to the true path.  

Tamaru was one of those in-between places characteristic of Japanese towns connected by rail line.  With a character neither rural nor urban, history and charm seem to have hopped a train toward other places.  I longed to do the same, after a looping masugata detoured me through a quiet neighborhood, then dumped me onto the unpleasant and busy Route 13.  This stayed unpleasant and busy for far too long.  

Over the hour I walked the highway it grew narrower, and only slightly less busy.  These are exactly the moments that I put on the headphones, to drown out the roars as they roll by.  Today was a Leonard Cohen kind of day, and when "Sisters of Mercy" came on, in this part of the world it reminded me of the bikuni nuns, those sisters of mercy who walked the pilgrimage route in order to raise money by selling subscriptions for the upkeep of their home temples.   Legend dictates that some also raised money from prostitution, but this could be hyperbole, in the way the same misunderstanding is associated with geisha.    

Despite the road, it was great to be out.  This was my first multi-day long walk since Covid, the first time in the deep countryside for a month or so.  It was great the way the hydrangeas were coming in, and how the fading beauty of the azaleas still commanded equal attention.  

Big concrete Fudō-ji temple failed to move me.  But it was development's last hurrah, and I moved deeper away from the symmetry of structures to follow the curves of a more natural landscape.  I finally left tarmac and began the climb over Meki-tōge, whose name bears the curious characters of Female demon.  Recent legends state that there was a demon who ate travellers along this stretch, but all I saw were traces of ox-cart wagon tracks, which led to the deep cutaway of rock that marked the pass. I had my lunch at a small Kannon altar, then descended to pop out of the forest beside a dam that looked more like an alpine lake.  After the labor of the albeit brief climb, a swim would be in order, but on a day hotter than this one.   

There is something wonderful about walking low passes in Japan.  You follow a long valley out to its farthest reaches, and after the up and over, you enter a new landscape, with another broad valley opening before you.   This next section was through a quiet village, stretched high above the river which wended slowly below me.  

I passed plenty of ruins: a temple founded by Shotoku Taishi; an old feudal school; an old tea house which sold famous steamed buns.  There was also the open grounds of a modest temple complex, a sake brewer, then a long walk down an arrow-straight road lined with cozy looking homes.  At the far end was Tochihara, known to walkers for its Edō period inn that marked the first overnight for those who'd started at Ise proper. 

Not far beyond was the unusual Bakamagari, where the trail left the main road and passed beneath it through a long drainage pipe, over a set of raised rails so that people could keep their shoes dry.  At the far end however, you were forced to wet your feet crossing the riverbed itself until reaching the trail again on the far side.  I thought this all a tad bizarre.  Why would pilgrims bend at the waist and walk through a pipe?  But it hit me that historically they never had, at least until the road and railway were built.  

I was led off-road twice more before the day was done.  Saruki was similarly brief, the trail clear but beginning to be overgrown as rainy season bore down.  I wondered if these brief sections had been open when I did my big Kumano walk in 2009.  I imagine that many sections that I'd unwittingly strolled right past during that walk had since been discovered and cleared and were now open for traversing.  What motivation a little world heritage status can bring!

My enthusiasm for, and expectation of, finishing 28 km today was beginning to wane as the humidity rose.  It came back to that psychological game where, if I see the distance of what I've already covered, in the subtraction lies the fatigue.  The markers, helpful as they were, handicapped in reminding me of how far I'd already come, and what still remained.  

I missed one train by about half an hour, and it would be over two hours until the next one.   I was tempted to catch that train at the next station up, but it was just out of the realm of possibility. I could possibly make it, but would need to race to get there, diminishing the enjoyment of the journey along the way.  So rather than at Misedani, I would call it quits at Kawazoe. 

With such minimal train service on the line, how odd that during the final rail crossing of the day, I was stopped by a passing train, forcing me to wait.  From there, it was a pleasant walk amongst tea fields, then along the quiet lanes into town.   Kawazoe was again one of those in-between places, rural, but with a railway stop.  The former meant there was little in the way of amenities, or things to engage the traveller.  The latter meant that it was too built up to have any rural appeal.  But it did have a lovely old school where middle school students were getting the pool ready for summer swim classes.  And there was a bizarre little toy shop showing Showa era memorabilia, which multi-tasked as a temple of the Tenri sect.  Kawazoe also had the cleanest, shiniest, honey wagon I've ever seen.   

I confirmed the train schedule, then walked over to the bus stop to see if there was anything leaving sooner.  And how like Japan, in having this similarly infrequent service leave just a few minutes before the train did.  For every train.  All day.  The verb "to stagger' must not exist in the local dialect.   I was in no hurry to get up to Matsuzaka as my dinner meeting was not until 7, so I toyed with the idea of sitting somewhere to await the train.  But there was no place to do so.  There was no coffee shop, but there were dozens of vending machines, all in the shadow of the massive Dydo distributor that had colonized the town.  So I stayed at the bus stop, thumb out, in a half-hearted effort to control my destiny.  Traffic was steady, but no one seemed interested in stopping. I was considering giving up when I got a lift from a man commuting to his job as night shift in a car factory.   His act of generosity ensured me an early bath, and even better, a nap. 

 

On the turntable:  Husker Du, "Flip your Wig"

 

After the Kohechi II: Shirahama & Yuasa

I step out of the taxi and enter my hotel.  Their webpage said they serve dinner until 9 pm, but upon check-in I'm told it's actually at 8:30, forty-five minutes from now.  I rush to my room, gather a few things and head down to the baths.  I enter the dining room just after 8 and attack the buffet, trying not to think about surface-based contagions.  I order my usually on-the-road dinner drinks, a draft beer and a bottle of local sake, and have them brought at the same time.  A few minutes later one of the cooking crew brings me a glass of the local beer, also on draft.  I'm grateful, for I'd wanted to check out their brewery which is a few minutes up the street, but of course there wasn't time.  So I tear into the four plates before me, piled with one of each item from the expansive buffet.  Within half an hour, I've finished, plus the three drinks.  I drift with bloated belly up to my room, where sleep doesn't come too easily. 

The morning too is a similar dash.  I get to the outdoor baths just before they open at six, but at this hotel they actually lock the doors.  A guy comes a few minutes later with the key, and I have a soak, overlooking the surf crashing into the cliffs just below me.  I pay my bill on the way to breakfast (amazed that the young guy at the front shrugs off the fact that they'd forgotten to charge for any of my drinks last night, a rarity in Japan), gulp down a few plates from the buffet, then am out the door within fifteen minutes.  

I have a taxi pickup arranged for me in 90 minutes at Minakata Kumagusu Museum and I predict I'll need every minute to cover the 5 km to get there.  It's a quiet morning, no one about.  I find a small temple hall and small pilgrimage course above Sandanbeki cliff, a series of tall rock spires that fall away into the sea.  The top of these cliffs are composed of overlapping plates that suggest a former seabed.  A trail follows them, with occasional openings that allows one to get closer to the edge.  Near one entrance a local church has erected a sign pleading with possible suicides to reconsider.  One section of trail is closed until 9 am, but I skirt through a small traditional rock garden to continue on my way.  I do eventually leave the shore-hugging trail to move onto the narrow streets above, most lined with hotels, some closed, others abandoned.  I love beach towns out of season.  For me, this pathos is the most profound expression on mono no aware.

An array of washing machines stands covered near the entrance to the wonderfully named Grampus Inn. (And I continued to think of it as just a name, until it popped up again in the book Nan'yo: The Rise and Fall of the Japanese in Micronesia, 1885-1945, revealing the true meaning.)  I'm stuck on the main road for a while, detouring briefly to Senjojiki cliffs that lie closer to the sea, offering fisherman a perfect perch.  I climb a small rise to examine a historical marker, and see the crescent of Shirahama beach arcing away before me, which I arrive at not long after.  A long couple plays a game of rambunctious tag near the shore, away from a bulldozer that pushes the snow-like sand into some kind of unseen order.  

Beyond the beach I cut through Kumano-sansho Jinja, a shrine not old but spread across a set of lovely shaded grounds.  A pair of temples further on aren't quite as charming.  I'm really picking up my pace now as I tread the last kilometer under high rocky cliffs, and past fisherman casting lines from concrete embankments.  I can see my driver in the distance, staring off to sea, channeling the occupation of his ancestors.

The train ride takes only an hour, but I wash my hands twice.  The mess of construction at Yuasa Station makes it tough to get my bearings at first, but before long I cross beneath the train line into a quiet rural landscape.  I'd passed through in 2009, but today the town is better known to me as one of the first cluster outbreaks of the virus.  I find myself backtracking on my footsteps of a decade ago, moving along for about ten minutes before arriving at Shoraku-ji temple dwarfed by a pair of ancient trees at whose base stands a huddle of Jizo statues.  Then I turn and retrace my steps once again into town proper. 

This walk seems themed around a mid-19th century tsunami. In 1854, a local man named Hamaguchi Goryo had lit fires to guide people to high ground and thus safety from the wave.  In its aftermath, he called for the erection of a high berm that proved effective against another tsunami in 1946.  The town holds an annual festival in his honor on the anniversary of that later date, as a way to give thanks.  

I walk along the wall, beneath the array of tall pine trees that stand shoulder to shoulder.  Where roads break the berm stand massive steel gates intended to close in times of disaster.  Beyond these I cross a tall bridge, looking eastward to the hillsides shorn for their mikan and yuzu orchards.  A few of these have been encroached upon by the shiny black plantations of solar panels.  

Going up the town's main street, I pass an ancient woman easily 100 years old, old enough to remember both the 1946 wave and tales from those who'd ran toward Goryo's signal fires nearly a century before.  I turn down a lane not long afterward, where a handful of soy sauce factories still stand, an array of lovely Meiji period wooden structures.  Yuasa claims that it was here that Japan's first soy sauce was produced, 750 years before.  It is a pleasant stroll through time, where I pop my head in to a museum packed with artifacts of traditional production.  A young boy accompanies me for part of it as he goes to mail a letter, surprising me in his use of English to answer my questions in Japanese.  

My map takes me along a zigzag course along some temples, and back to the town's older high street.  This is part of the Kumano Kodo, so again I've met myself of a decade ago.  I've allowed myself an easy stroll as my train isn't until much later in the day.  But around this point I realize that I can catch an earlier one, so pick up my pace.  The walk is nearly finished anyway and I like the idea of getting home by mid-afternoon.  I walk briskly out of town again, up to the shadow of a castle that multitasks as an onsen.  As I'm not planning to bathe here today, so turn and move back toward town, intending to return here for a soak in the summer, having already decided to take my daughter down to Shirahama for a beach holiday.  

I pass through some fields and reservoirs, and arrive back at the train station.  The old structure is a nice presentation of historic wood, in the process of being replaced by a concrete beast.  Contrarily a very attractive junior high school is being put up next door.  Upon entering, I beeline immediately to wash my hands.  No soap.  A station employee has the misfortune to be standing just outside, and though I preface things with an understanding that it isn't necessarily his fault, I berate his superiors for not stocking soap this late in the health crisis, when the national government seems days away from calling a state of emergency, especially here in the town that had the first outbreak.  He doesn't reply, doesn't look at me.  Oh well, I guess sticking your head in the sand is more effective than face masks anyway.  

My train pulls in, and I move off to self-isolate awhile.


On the turntable:  Blood, Sweat & Tears, "Child is Father to the Man"