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 been 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 a 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"

 

The City that Almost Wasn't

 

 

A second piece in this weekend's print edition of The Japan Times, on Kokura, the city that almost wasn't.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2025/08/09/lifestyle/kokura-walking-tour-atomic-bomb-nagasaki/

 

 On the turntable:  Traffic, "On the Road"

 

Kyoto and the War

 

My latest for The Japan Times, on Kyoto's WWII legacy. 

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2025/08/07/travel/kyoto-wwii-aerial-bombing-history/ 

 

On the turntable: Bruce Springsteen, "The River tour 1980"