Roving Japan

Day 60 Photoset

As we went north from our hotel in southern Hikone, we passed through the wonderfully restored old style shopping district. It was great to see such a good replica of an old shopping street with modern technology mixed in without being obtrusive.

From the shopping street, we went to Hikone castle. I read that the castle here was nice, but I’m going to go ahead and say that this is my second favorite castle we’ve seen. Just under Himeji castle because, well, its Himeji castle, and nothing is going to beat that.

Hikone castle is an original, so all the old wood is intact. You can really sense the history there, so I quite enjoyed it.

The view from the top was nice, we finally got a good look at lake Biwa, but unfortunately the castle windows were covered with chicken wire to keep out the birds. This pretty much killed any photo opportunities.

The castle also has a nice garden, and it’s the only place in Japan with an original castle horse stable.

While we were there, a few little rain storms blew over, but as we left it was clear and sunny. However a few km north, it started raining. A lot.

We were lucky because it really started to come down hard right as we approached an overpass. The area under the overpass had a little intersection. During one of the red lights, some high school drop out douchebag ricer started revving his engine. We were a little worried that this worthless waste of youth would try to splash us or something. Then this wonderful upstanding young gentlemen with an appreciation of fine automobiles pulled over and offered us a ride. We would have taken him up on his offer, but he was heading the other direction. It sure was a nice surprise though!

Since we spent so much time at the castle and then taking shelter to avoid the heavy rain, we fell a couple kilometers short of our target in Semegai. We are camping in some trees behind a big shrine we found off of highway 21. The Kannushi was kind enough to give us permission to camp for the night.

We are really happy we found this shrine, otherwise we might be out by the river somewhere. It’s also really nice to camp in a spot where we know we have permission and we won’t be bothered by anyone… Except the mosquitoes, which have us surrounded.

Date: 08-12-09
Location: Back in Tokyo! I’ll be getting the blog caught up in the next several days.

Day 59 Photoset

It rained pretty hard last night. So hard that it actually woke us up several times. We were both pretty tired this morning, so we were lucky that the rest area we were camping in had a vending machine with coffee for 80yen.

We walked pretty far today, making it all the way to Hikone. It was a nice walk, and we were very fortunate with the weather. The report called for rain all day, but we somehow managed to walk between storms and were lucky enough to miss almost all the rain. I even got a little more sun burned to add to my already potent farmers tan.

We did our best to walk off the highway as much as possible, as the constant traffic gives us both headaches. It was nice to take a mental break and walk through the rice patties, watching the crows hunting for bugs and the frogs hopping around everywhere.

There was a sad/interesting shrine along the way. At some point in history, it was a shrine in the middle of the countryside. Now it has a Shinkansen track going right through the middle of the main path.

A couple of the towns we walked through still have the Nakasendo marked. It was a nice assurance to see signs marking the old path. It reminded me of the signs in Oregon for the Oregon trail, and how Oregonians barely notice them. I am sure that the locals don’t even notice the Nakasendo markers, but they were sure a welcome sight for us!

After three days of walking in high humidity, we grabbed a hotel for the night. Tomorrow we are going to check out Hikone castle before starting through the mountains towards Gifu. I set two targets, either camp by the river in Semegai or at a shrine in Kashiwabara.

Day 58 Photoset

Long, tedious walk today. We took a long break at a bath house where we also grabbed lunch. Besides that, we pretty much just followed the highway north.

I am constantly amazed by how many pachinko parlors there are in Japan. It doesn’t matter how big the town is, you are guaranteed at least one pachinko parlor and chances are it will be busy! I tried pachinko once. I lost $10 in about 1 minute without ever figuring out what was going on. But apparently some of those players can make a living off the game.

Towards the end of the day we left the city and came into some countryside. I like walking by the rice patties much more than the urban sprawl. It’s also cool to see how much the rice has grown since we started back in May.

We stumbled upon a sweet shrine at one point. We asked if we could camp there, but this shrine is a designated national treasure, so no vagabonds allowed.

A few kilometers before getting to our current camp, we snapped this shot. How cool is that? A Gundam made of granite!

We are now in a roadside rest area, camped off to the side of the parking lot. It’s supposed to rain tonight and all day tomorrow. Our target for tomorrow is Hikone, which apparently has a cool castle and old style shopping street.

My foot is back to 100%, and we are ready to start walking again. It’s been a long time. The sightseeing was fun, but we’re ready to move on.

Today was rather uneventful, which was actually kind of nice. We began the first leg of the Nakasendo, but there wasn’t a whole lot to see. We crossed the first “checkpoint”, Sanjo-ohashi bridge, then headed east on route 1.

As we walk, I am trying to imagine what it might have been like for someone back in the Edo period. Their first encounter once leaving the city is to climb a small mountain range. Welcome to the trail! I wonder if anyone gave up right away.

I can totally see how people would hire body guards. Walking 550km is a daunting task. In those first few miles, you think to yourself, “Wow, we are going to walk through the wilderness for a month?!” Heading into the woods for a month would be scary especially knowing that bandits might lurk in the darkness. Good thing for us, modern Japan is safe!

Wikipedia has a nice entry on the Nakasendo, with a list of all the post towns and the modern equivalent. It also lists what highways follow the old trail. So it looks like we will be on route 1, then route 8, before turning east to head into Gifu.

Tonight we set up camp in a wooded park. I’m not sure what town we are in, but we are between the Otsu and Kusatsu checkpoints.

Happy 4th of July! Celebrate the birth of our nation by blowing up a small piece of it!