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 tto 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 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 correct 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"