Roving Japan

[Editors note: 7 days left! I will hopefully finish soon!]

Day 85 Photoset

Mr. Itoh told us that we should look for chopsticks in this part of Japan. The wood from this valley is some of the best in Japan, so one of the local specialties is Chopsticks and wooden hair combs. His advice was to look for the pairs in the $10 - $20 range. Anything cheaper than $10 wouldn’t be nice enough, and anything more than $20 was too expensive.

So this morning we spent a good amount of time wandering around Narai, poking our heads into the houses-turned-museums, and browsing the many fancy chopsticks and combs.

These goods have been sold here for hundreds of years, since most travelers passing through couldn’t carry much more than small trinkets like combs and chopsticks. Everything is hand made and really nice.

We probably spent an hour or so looking for the perfect set, but we just couldn’t settle on one that we were willing to pay that kind of money for. $10 is a lot for 1 pair of chopsticks. We decided to move on and see if we could find chopsticks along the way.

Outside of Narai, we found a lacquer ware shop selling top quality Japanese dishes, boxes, and anything else you might make out of wood and lacquer. We are in Nagano prefecture now, so you might remember the Nagano Olympic medals were black on one side. That was a tip of the cap to the local lacquer industry.

Everything in the store was super expensive, so we didn’t stay long. We looked at the bowls that seemed identical to our bowls we bought for $1 each, only these are the real deal and therefore cost like $100 each. They also had chopsticks, but nothing caught our eye, so we moved on.

For lunch we stopped at a big roadside rest area that had a big shop/museum filled with more chopsticks and lacquer ware, and a restaurant owned by a woman from Finland. We thought it might be a nice change of pace to eat some western food, so we ordered the closest thing we could find which was a spaghetti / salad thing. It was pretty good, but the highlight of the place was a funny little book talking about the great things you can do in Finland. The one that stood out to me was the wife carrying competition! Maybe Risa and I should compete!

Again, none of the chopsticks seemed right for us. We didn’t want to pay $10 on just anything, so we needed THE PERFECT PAIR. But we couldn’t find one. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. From the rest area, we continued down the highway until we reached the small town of Niekawa.

Niekawa is home to the second major checkpoint on the Nakasendo trail. We figured that since we didn’t tour the checkpoint in Kisofukushima, we should tour this one.

The checkpoint building was pretty cool, with lots of old artifacts from the Nakasendo days.

We learned about how everyone passing through here had to be inspected to make sure they weren’t carrying any wood from kiso valley. They also checked every woman, and every man who looked like he might be a woman to make sure they weren’t royalty. Apparently, back in the old days, the shogun had kidnapped the wives of many of the local feudal lords and held them captive in Edo. The checkpoints had to make sure none of them were trying to escape by checking everyone who passed through.

We also got a good look at some of the old passports and documents used back then. It was a lot of fun.

After the checkpoint it was about 4:30pm so we made the executive decision to take a train from Niekawa to the city of Matsumoto. Originally I had wanted to walk to Shiojiri, but we spent a lot of time shopping for chopsticks, so we didn’t have the time. We also wanted to see Matsumoto since it is famous for one of the most beautiful castles in Japan. So on the train we went!

It was a little sad, because the train spends a lot of time in a tunnel, so we missed the final few kilometers of beautiful Kiso valley scenery before popping out in the main valley near Shiojiri.

Matsumoto is an interesting place. As soon as we got to the train station, we knew we were in a unique location. It seemed like everyone had big hiking backpacks like us. This is the main hub for people who go hiking in the Japanese Alps, so risa and I didn’t stand out at all.

We went straight for the information center and grabbed a bunch of maps, then walked to the hotel we reserved last night.

As we walked through the city, the vibe we got was totally different from most places. Matsumoto is definitely NOT “Any City In Japan”. It’s got a lot of character. Modern architecture, nice big sidewalks and lots of foreign food!

In our room I brought up google earth and found a Thai curry place with good ratings, so we checked out a couple free bicycles from the hotel and rode down there to experience an AMAZING dinner. $12 got you all you can eat curry, and you could choose between 10 different flavors! The common strategy seemed to involve making an X with the rice, and pouring 4 flavors into the divided areas. It was delicious.

After dinner we rode to the famous Matsumoto castle and took some really cool photos. This castle is awesome. One of the best looking we’ve seen. We can’t wait to come back tomorrow. I guess the bicycles at the hotel are free to use, and you can also pick up free bikes at museums and the train station. I think we’re going to get some good use out of those bikes tomorrow.

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!