Thanks to many lovely and very generous people, the Tokaido trek has helped raise over $1500 for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation and their great work providing books and other literacy-related services for some of the most disadvantaged children in Australia. To everyone who has contributed, heartfelt gratitude. Sadly, however, I’m still $425 short of my target – which means, as things stand, I’ll be spared a night in one of Japan’s legendary capsule hotels. Back when I set the target, I hoped that the promise of consigning me to a night of discomfort in a box little bigger than a coffin would encourage people to contribute to not only a very worthwhile cause (Indigenous literacy) but also a slightly sadistic one (me: capsule). The good news is that the fundraiser is still open, and I have nine more nights in Japan! Currently I plan to spend all of them in the comfort of a conventional hotel room (bed, floor, standing room … that sort of thing), but I can change the schedule to acco...
As I mentioned in the previous update, I’d finished Saturday’s walk feeling tired and not entirely confident of getting all the way to Kyoto today. As it turned out, I reached Sanjo-Ohashi – the bridge in Kyoto that marks the western end of the Tokaido – with energy to spare, but I didn’t know that as I set off early to walk the kilometre or so from the hotel to Zeze station to catch a train to Kusatsu. Once back on the Tokaido, not far from Kusatsu station I passed Tachiki shrine, looking gorgeous in the morning light, and I stopped to pay my respects and hope for a successful final day. Note the deer either side of the steps leading up to the main building. A little further on, at Inari shrine, was another example of a row of torii gates, of which I’d seen many on the road from Tokyo. Getting closer to Kyoto as I was, I couldn’t help but think of the much more famous (and, to be fair, much larger and more beautiful) rows of torii at the namesake shrine in the south of the city, which...