Roving Japan

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!