Roving Japan

Day 84 Photoset

Great day today. We woke up bright and early from our camp behind the rest station and started heading up the 19 towards the post town of Narai. I knew from reading the blog of another guy who walked this route that Narai is on the other side of the Torii Toge Pass. I guess that back in the day, this pass was one of the more difficult passes, but that it’s not too bad now. Just a couple of hours or so to walk over. So with that intelligence in hand, we started out our day knowing that around noon we would be going over a mountain, but then we could relax and camp in Narai.

On the way to the pass, we walked through more beautiful scenery. Kiso valley really is amazing. I really like it here.

We passed a place that is famous for a samurai who was raised there. We walked to the museum and took some photos, but we didn’t have time to go in if we wanted to get over the pass in a timely manner.

The entrance to the Torii Toge Pass begins in the town of Yabuhara. We were super hungry when we got there, so we wanted to grab some lunch before heading into the woods. Unfortunately there weren’t a lot of options. We ended up being sent to a little soba noodle restaurant at the edge of town. This place was FANCY. It was really nice inside, but it was also really expensive. The Soba was like $10, and while it might have been high quality, it wasn’t nearly enough to get us full. We also ordered some “fried miso” because we had never heard of such a thing. It was a little too artsy for us. We were HUNGRY and the “fried miso” was $3 for about 1 bites worth. I recommend this place if you’re sightseeing, but not if you’re trying to get energy for a mountain pass. The chef and staff were really nice to us though. They gave us some candies and maps as we left.

The Torii Toge Pass itself is really cool. This stretch of the nakasendo is preserved, so we got to hike on the old stones almost the entire way over.

I just wish the weather had cooperated with us. As we started up the road, the clouds started to move in and it began to rain. The higher we got, the harder it rained. We were lucky that this path was well maintained and wasn’t too steep or hazardous. Hiking while carrying an umbrella is kind of a pain, but its way too hot to put on rain gear.

At the top of the pass, I let out a little fan fare, “Da da-da da, da, DA!!!!!”, then *BOOM* the thunder hit.

We had made it to the top of the mountain right as the thunderstorm hit the mountain. Great!

With thunder and lighting happening in the clouds around us, we took shelter under the awning of the shrine that is at the summit of the pass. We tried to get inside the building, but all the doors were locked.

Cell service wasn’t good, but I managed to get a weak 3g signal that let me google some basic thunderstorm safety as a refresher. I guess you are ok if you’re in an area with lots of trees of uniform height, but it’s not good to be at the top of mountains. We decided that when we hadn’t heard the thunder for a few minutes, we should just head down quickly, so we did.

Once on our way down, the rain turned into a drizzle and the thunder stopped. We could finally enjoy the scenery a little more.

The nakasendo descends directly into the main street of Narai, and it was really cool. Narai is very well preserved, but unlike Tsumago or Magome, Narai is still a working city with quite a few residents and a train station.

While at the summit we ate almost all our snacks, so our first order of business was getting some food. We found a little place and ordered whatever had the most volume. We got an awesome clay pot filled with veggies, meat and rice. It was delicious and we were finally full! The nice owner also hooked us up with some coffee. We talked with him a bit about our trip and that we just went over the pass. He gave us some coupons for Narai that included free admission to one of the houses/museums and a free pass to the local Onsen! Woohoo! A bath!

He also told us that we could camp in the park next to the river. With our camping location nailed down, we took off to explore the town and to grab our free bath.

The Narai onsen is also a hotel, and today it was host to a girls junior highschool table tennis camp. So while I got to enjoy the mens bath in peace. Risa was thrown into the middle of a teenage soap opera.

In Japan, the “Sempai” system is incredibly important. If someone is older than you they are your sempai, you have to show them the proper respect. If you are someones sempai, you can generally assume a superior attitude. So imagine this system in the hands of girls between the ages of 13-15. Girls set up complicated social systems on their own, the sempai system just adds fuel to the fire.

When she first entered the bath, Risa was alone. But as she got dressed and prepared to leave, she got to witness a bizaar social drama that began when two 2nd year girls came in to quickly grab a hair drier and leave. Shortly after the 2nd years had left, three 1st years came in and started undressing for the bath. This, of course, set them off on how embarrassed they were to be getting undressed in front of eachother. They didn’t seem to care about Risa.

One of the 1st years remembered that she left something in her room, so she got dressed and left to grab it. As soon as she left, the two 2nd years, who are “sempai” to the 1st years, returned with the hair drier. The two 1st years were still getting undressed and were horrified that these two sempai had walked in to see them naked! When their friend returned, they told her all about the shocking experience of the sempai walking in on them. Meanwhile, Risa is still right there, getting dressed. I guess it’s only embarrassing if they know you.

The 3 1st years finally got in the bath, and were soon joined by another group of 3 1st years. This left Risa alone to dry her hair in peace. It wasn’t long, however, before group of 5 sempai showed up looking for a friends face wash. They searched in the dressing room at first, but then they made the decision to search the bathing area while fully clothed. The 1st years were HORRIFIED to have five sempai, fully clothed, walk in on them. These poor girls had to suffer the humiliation of having a pack of sempai roam around looking for the face wash while they sat naked in the bath, trying to keep their dignity. The five sempai eventually found the face wash and left, but as they left a new group of 1st years showed up and announced that it was time for the girls in the bath to get out. The shell shocked 1st years in the bath had barely enough time to clean themselves between the groups of sempai walking in on them. Risa felt bad, but also relieved that her hair was finally dry and she could escape.

After the onsen, we walked through Narai and enjoyed the sight of the city at night with the lights turned on. We had a lot of fun walking the empty streets before finally heading to the park to set up camp.

We’re now in the corner of the park, camping under a tree. Risa took a nice photo of the bridge that crosses the river next to the park.

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 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 78 Photoset

Mr. Itoh scheduled the interview for this afternoon at a Nakasendo post town called Okute-juku.

We arrived with all our gear packed up and ready to go. I didn’t want the reporter to look at our bags and see empty water bottles or something. We were fully loaded.

The town was pretty small, and I don’t think there was a single shop open. But it was still neat looking, and we managed to get a couple decent photos. One interesting thing was the old fire hydrant (basically a wooden bucket with water inside).

The reporter showed up about 10minutes after we did, and the three of us sat down and talked about our trip. She asked us questions about what we thought of Japan, and where our favorite places are. She also wanted to know what we thought about Gifu prefecture. We talked for about 20minutes, then we took a photo by the old bulletin boards as you enter the town.

While we were doing this, Hiro was taking photos with his camera. We haven’t gotten his copies yet, so I’ll post them when we get them.

The reporter told us that the story would run in the paper in 2 days at the earliest. In 2 days we should still be in Gifu, so hopefully we can see the article. If not, I bet Kazuhiko or someone in the family can save us a copy.

After the reporter left, Mr. Itoh took us on a drive around the town. Tomorrow we will start walking again, but we going to start from the next post town. Since we will miss this area, Mr. Itoh wanted us to see what we would be missing!

We are really glad he did, because this stretch of the Nakasendo is actually one of the best preserved. At one point we got out of the car and followed the old road up into the mountain. It was really cool since this stretch had the original stone pavement.

We almost missed it, but Mr. Itoh also wanted to show us the “Ichiri-zuka”. These two large grassy hills built next to the road were actually original markers on the Nakesendo. Back when the highway was still in use, these mounds were found every 4km.

Since this was our last night, we stopped at a grocery store on the way home and stocked up on supplies. We bought a new umbrella to replace the one I forgot at Kazuhiko’s house - I decided to get a bright orange umbrella so cars can see us easier. We also got new water bottles and some snacks. Woohoo!

Today was the last day of the sumo tournament, Kotooshu had a good showing, but lost the title to the Yokozuna Hakuho. Oh well, it was still an exciting tournament!

This evening we all went to the Onsen and had a nice good-bye dinner. Mr. Itoh’s dad had some friends from Taiwan visiting, so they joined us as well.

I lasted about 14minutes in the sauna this time. It was torture. I still can’t believe these guys do it every night.

Tomorrow morning we are going to get a ride to Kamado where we will start walking again!

Day 76 Photoset

Our first stop today was at the “Worlds Largest” kiln fired pot. The pot is HUGE. They made the pot on the site, then built the kiln around it. When it was finished, they tore down the kiln and hoped the tourists would follow. I don’t think they really have… Especially since it doesn’t face the road and no one bothers to advertise it.

A little bit up the road, we found the “Worlds Largest” shi-shi dogs. Again, they were built on-site with their kilns built up around them. These dogs DO get some attention since they are facing a well trafficked intersection.

After the giant pot and shi-shi dogs, Hirofumi took us to his favorite pottery place. It’s a small family business that still makes everything by hand. The nice people let us explore and take a ton of pictures. I especially liked watching one old man who was cutting little groves into the sides of some cups. I had previously thought that the groves were made by potters fingers, but I guess I was wrong. The cups are made in a mould and come out totally smooth. Then this guy cuts the groves to make them look more interesting.

The cups the guy was working on were hand-made tea cups for use while eating sushi. These particular cups have a slightly different shape than a normal tea cup, and they are a little thicker. Hiro told us that this factory is one of only 5 remaining in Japan that still makes hand-made sushi tea cups.

At another station, a man was painting plates and cups with ink. The style of glaze they are using comes out looking cracked. The ink then seeps into the cracks making them easier to see. The effect is like a spiderweb of dark lines all over the cup. It looks like its old, but that’s actually how they are intended, and the cracks are just an aesthetic, its not actually cracked or damaged.

In the back of the building, a fresh batch of cups was just being pulled out of the oven. As we got closer, we started hearing *ting-ting-ting*, like tiny little chimes. The guy showing us around said that the sound comes from the cups as the glaze cracks. It’s really neat sounding.

While looking at the cups, I noticed that some of the glaze had dripped down the side. The guy shook his head and said, “Ya, this batch is mostly garbage now. They cooked for too long and the glaze ran, so they are worthless.”

Risa and I couldn’t believe it. These cups are perfectly fine, just a minor blemish! No big deal! He liked that we seemed to care, so he let us take three of the “garbage” cups home! Woohoo! We were really excited, and the cups continued to make their ting-ting-ting noises for the next hour or so. Risa especially enjoyed putting one cup on each ear and listening to the music.

The day at the factory wasn’t without a little drama. During our visit, it started to rain. As soon as the drops started falling, everyone ran outside and starting bringing in the drying dishes. It was amazing to see them work so fast. Even the old lady grabbed a huge plank of cups! We wanted to help, but we didn’t have their uber skills.

One of the coolest things that this business makes is a custom tea cup. Hiro has worked with them and gotten them to produce custom cups with your name written on the side. Hiro was here to pick up some cups for his friends, and also put in a new order for us! Risa and I will be getting a couple of tea cups with our names written on the side. Mine will say “Su-Ko-To” in hiragana, and Risa will get her kanji written on the side. Pretty cool! We’re getting so much free stuff here, it’s amazing. We will probably have to ship it all back to Tokyo.

For dinner tonight, all the girls made gyoza. I think that they made about 150 of the little pot stickers. It was really good!

At the onsen, I lasted 9min in the Sauna. I’m almost over 10minutes!