Roving Japan

Day 83 Photoset

So if you didn’t know already, Risa hates bugs. HATES bugs. This is especially true if said bug comes towards her, or worse yet, lands on her. It doesn’t matter if the bug is a black widow spider or a butterfly. She will scream and dodge/run/jump whatever. She does this with some kind of super strength that lets her move 2x faster than normal even though she has a 30lb backpack on.

Today, while walking along a particularly narrow stretch of sidewalk along the highway, we ran into Risa’s worst nightmare. For about 300 meters, the sidewalk was covered in grasshoppers. Jumping, flying, land on your leg and jump off grasshoppers.

Risa FREAKED. OUT.

I tried to calm her down, telling her that grasshoppers are harmless, but the fact that these guys were jumping on her was like something out of a horror movie.

Keep in mind that this episode is happening while just a few feet from oncoming semi-trucks going 55mph.

I started getting a little angry because I thought her jumping and screaming was going to land her in front of a truck and then I’d have to explain to her father that she died while under attack from grasshoppers.

I tried walking ahead and clearing the path, but Risa chose to RUN the entire 300 meters in the road, while jumping back on the sidewalk to avoid the trucks. Crazy.

Once clear of the Grasshoppers of DOOM™, we got a nice break at a waterfall. It was a little underwhelming because there was a big ugly steel bridge kind of blocking the view, but it was alright because we were bug free… for a moment.

As we got up to leave, somehow a little white Worm of TERROR™ appeared on Risas hiking stick, causing her to scream and drop the poll. Sheesh.

The final episode of bug attack happened at the worst possible moment. I spotted a monkey in the bushes ahead of us. I wanted to snap a picture so I asked risa to grab the camera from my bag. As she was taking off the lens cap, a Butterfly of DEATH™ flew in front of her face. She screamed, turned away… and scared off the monkey. Siiiigh…….

Other than our problems with the terrifying wild creatures of the Kiso Valley, the walk was really nice. This is really a beautiful place, and the periodic Nakasendo post towns that we come to every couple of hours make the walk even more fun. We especially liked walking through Kiso-Fukushima which is famous for it’s Nakasendo checkpoint for tax collection and its large gate.

We stopped at one Onsen today. It was a little place along the river, but it was a nice break from the walk and it was raining a bit so we got to duck out of the bad weather. The onsen was… dirty. The water was an orange color from the natural spring, but the problem for me was the .25in of orange grime on the bottom of the pool that covered anything that touched it. Good thing they had showers to go with the bath. If Risa had to deal with all those scary bugs, I had to deal with the Onsen of FILTH™. The guy who ran the place was really nice and gave us some ice cream on the house as we were heading out.

Tonight we almost camped at an awesome sumo stadium, but we couldn’t find any bathrooms so we decided to press on to another roadside rest area and camp behind the building. These rest areas are great. The 24hr bathrooms and vending machines give us almost all the comforts of home!

Our rest area has a big stone marker identifying this spot as the half way point between Kyoto and Tokyo on the Nakasendo. Woohoo!

Day 82 Photoset

We had a nice breakfast at the Ryokan this morning. The best part was the heart shaped egg, and umeboshi that was made by the grandma of the family who runs the Ryokan. It was the best umeboshi we’ve had since arriving in Japan.

Umeboshi is a pickled plum known for its extreme sourness. If you want to impress a Japanese person, just tell them that you like umeboshi, it will blow them away.

These particular umeboshi were crisp like pickles, which is somewhat rare. Usually it’s soft, but these were nice and crunchy. As we were leaving the Ryokan, we told the grandma that we really liked her umeboshi and she disappeared into the kitchen for a moment before returning with a bag full of them! We’re set on umeboshi for the rest of the trip now.

From the Ryokan we went back to Tsumago to see anything we might have missed last night, and to take a bunch more pictures now that the weather is sunny.

At the edge of town, Tsumago has the old bulletin board preserved and on display. This old display was where the government posted new laws and other announcements. The wooden boards are hung quite high above and angled down to give the impression of the government looking down on you. Nice not-so-subtle messaging.

From Tsumago, we followed the Nakasendo down the mountain into the Kiso valley. The road wasn’t preserved like it was between Magome and Tsumago, but there were sections that looked like the old stones had just been paved over. We also found the remains of a couple of those old grassy hills that marked every 4km.

When we got to the valley floor, the view was amazing. Kiso valley is a narrow river valley with beautiful green mountains with rocky tops on both sides. The highway that runs along the river has a nice big sidewalk so the walking is extremely easy.

Our target for today was a roadside rest area in Okuwa. We got there around 5:00, so we made it in time to eat dinner at the restaurant. We also talked to some of the ladies who worked at the store and they told us we could set up camp inside the covered eating area.

We got our tent set up, but we didn’t last long. The traffic on the highway was super loud, so we had to move our tent to behind the main building. We need to get out of here early before people show up to work. Excited about tomorrow, should be an entire day following the river and enjoying the valley!

Day 81 Photoset

Rained quite a bit last night, but the tent remained undefeated in battles against the weather. It was a bit dodgey this morning though, when we realized that the space between the footprint and the main tent was full of water. We both slept well, maybe because of the extra cushion?

Our target for today was a traditional Ryokan (think traditional Japanese B&B) in the town of Tsumago. Tsumago was about 15km from our camp, so we planned a nice and easy walk through what is probably the most famous stretch of the Nakasendo.

After packing up, we started hiking up route 7 towards Magome, one of the most popular and well known post town on the Nakasendo.

We arrived at Magome around 8:30, which was perfect because we beat the crowds and could enjoy the peaceful streets alone. It was really beautiful, and we both could really sense the Edo era. The only knock against Magome is that it’s a tourist destination and is therefore a little TOO perfect. However, since we were basically alone, we could admire it all without fighting through the crowds.

From Magome, we followed the old preserved Nakasendo through the woods and along the highway to Tsumago. This section was really great, as we got to hike on the old road just like we saw a couple of days ago with Mr. Itoh.

The hike between the two towns takes a couple of hours, but is downhill for most of the way so it wasn’t that bad. We also past by 2 awesome waterfalls and found a rest house run by a nice man who gave us free food and even sang a song!

When we arrived at Tsumago, our first priority was to find the Ryokan. Risa had booked it last night while we were at the Onsen, so we weren’t 100% sure where it was. Turns out, this Ryokan was actually pretty far away from the main town, so we are glad we asked someone for directions.

The folks who run the Ryokan are really nice. When we got there, they let us check in a bit early, then the main lady took our laundry and started cleaning our dirty clothes for us! I couldn’t believe it. They also let us hang our soaking wet tent so it could be dry by tomorrow.

After checking in, we decided to go explore the main town for a couple of hours.

Tsumago is really cool. It’s not quite as perfect looking as Magome, so it manages to feel a little more authentic. The shops lining the street are part trinket store, part museum. Almost everything looks like it did 200 years ago. It’s pretty amazing.

We went to see the old luxury hotel which was built to house any VIP that might pass through. We also got a tour of an old house that also served as the backup hotel to the main fancy one.

The tour was cool, and we learned some things like the fact that in an old household, the family would have specific seats around the stove. The man would sit on the tatami mats with his legs closest to the fire, while the women would sit on wood floor.

The tour guide also showed us an area that was built specifically for the Meiji emperor who stopped here for 30minutes and never returned. They had to make his own room and bathroom which he never used.

We had fun looking around, but around 5pm everything closed, so we headed back to the Ryokan for a home cooked dinner!

Tonight we will get some rest, and tomorrow morning we will head back to Tsumago and then on to Okuwa.

Day 80 Photoset

Yesterday was so boring because we apparently walked down the wrong road while going through the town of Ena. If we had walked a few blocks north, we would have been able to see the old Nakasendo road, and a couple of neat little museums. Usually, this would have been filed under, “Oh well”, but today was a bit different.

Risa called her uncle Kazuhiko to tell him about our potential article in the Chunnichi newspaper today (It wasn’t in the paper when we checked, maybe tomorrow). When he found out that we were still close to Mizunami, he offered to take us to a few points of interest in the area, then drop us off somewhere on our route.

So this morning at 8:30, Kazuhiko picked us up at the Family Mart near the turn off to the park we were camping in. Just out of curiosity, I asked how long it took to drive from Mizunami to here (which would have taken Risa and I all day). He said “About 30min.”

Kazuhiko drove us back to Ena and we got to see all the stuff we missed yesterday. First we went to the Ena Gorge, then a cool old house museum, a Ukioe art museum where we got to make our own prints, and finally he treated us to lunch. I love Risa’s family!

At this point it was about 12:30, and he offered to take us all the way to our end point for the day. He could have dropped us off sooner so we could walk, but it was raining hard and Risa gave me “the look”. So we accepted his offer and got dropped off at the Onsen I had marked as our target.

Right now I am in the resting room, utilizing an outlet to recharge the phone. It’s raining outside, but I think I see a couple of potential camps across the river from the Onsen. We will spend the rest of the day here, eat dinner, then go set up the tent when it starts to get a little darker.

Tomorrow we are going to hike up highway 7 to the historic towns of Magome and Tsumago. This next section of the Nakasendo is the most famous, and the entire original trail is preserved between the old towns. We are looking forward to it!

Day 79 Photoset

This morning we said goodbye to the Itoh family, then Mr. Itoh took us to Kamado station, one station away from Mizunami, where we began the next leg of the Nakasendo.

We spent the day walking towards Ena, while rain cloud after rain cloud passed overhead. I guess it was good that the clouds moved faster than we did. It allowed us to get a few breaks between storms.

Other than the rain, there isn’t much to talk about. I think the highlight of the day was the rainbow we saw near our target end point.

It’s been a while since we walked, so we planned out a short day for today. I think we only went about 15km. Originally we were going to go to an area north of Ena, but Risa didn’t want to take a 2km detour, so instead we stayed on the 19 and walked to a big sports park. Since it is raining, there is basically no one here. We are tucked away in the back corner, so we should be able to have a good nights rest without anyone bothering us.

It’s probably going to rain tonight and tomorrow, but I hope the rain lets up on Wednesday when we head into the mountains.