Tokaido Day 10 – Friday, 18th November: Rest day

Although a rest day, I was keen to make up the missing kilometres from yesterday, so after doing the laundry and catching up on admin, I took the train back to Okitsu and headed for Shimizu. Part of my reason for doing this was to give myself enough time to have a proper look around Okitsu, the setting for Oliver Statler’s Japanese Inn. This story of a Tokaido roadside inn through the centuries was written by a member of the US occupation force after the Second World War, and has become a classic. I read it a couple of months before coming to Japan.

Unfortunately, the inn itself is no more, but on the site and borrowing the name is the Minaguchi-ya gallery, offering free admission and guided tours. It houses objects related to the former inn, including calligraphy scrolls created by distinguished visitors and tableware used by the Emperor and Empress on a visit in (I think) the 1950s.

The woman who greeted me at the front door (above) and asked me to sign the visitors’ book also acted as my guide. Some of the items on display had English labels. I couldn’t understand much of what Jindo-san was saying, but kept saying “kirei” (beautiful) and “omoshiroi” (interesting), and she kept saying “arigato”, so it all went pretty well.

The other site I wanted to visit in Okitsu is the Seiken-ji Temple, which also features prominently in Japanese Inn. Set on the hillside above the road and rail tracks, this beautiful old Buddhist temple is famous in Japanese history as the place where Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first Shogun, was educated.

Then it was back onto the road, and a fairly nondescript few kilometres to the next railway station at Shimizu. Easy walking, but into the teeth of a strong and chilly westerly breeze, which added to the effort.

Back to the hotel, and getting organised for the first day of the next section of the trek.

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Tokaido prologue

Hiroshige, Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido . No. 26: Kakegawa I visited Japan in 2017 and 2019, on the second occasion with Fred, as well as my partner (with whom I’d travelled in 2017) and her son. Like most people who come for the first (or second) time, we took the Shinkansen – bullet train – from Tokyo to Kyoto on the line called the Tokaido. Volumes have been written about the wonders of Japan’s Shinkansen system. It is, I think, something that should be experienced at least once in everyone’s life if possible. ‘Tokaido’ means ‘eastern sea road’, and the line bears that name because it follows – more or less – the route of the centuries-old road that linked the Imperial capital of Kyoto with the Shogunate’s headquarters in Edo (now Tokyo), respectively the seats of ceremonial and administrative power. For hundreds of years, thousands of travellers made the 500-kilometre trip between the two cities (and usually back again), the vast majority of them on foot: horses were rare, t...

Tokaido Day 14 – Wednesday, 22nd November: Fukuroi to Takatsuka (32 km)

The clouds had disappeared overnight, and the day was bright and clear. Maybe a couple of degrees warmer than recent days, but still great conditions for walking. After buffet breakfast at the hotel, I took the train back to Fukuroi. From the station it was another kilometre or so just to get back onto the Tokaido – or so I thought. When I checked the map in the guidebook it turned out I’d walked further than I needed. Never mind. Outside a temple, a group of jizo looked particularly handsome in the early-morning light: So much care has gone into this little tableau, from the hats and bibs to the fresh flowers. A fine example of an ichirizuka (a reconstruction, as it turned out) was accompanied by a plaque that carried an English summary: Opposite the ichirizuka, a shrine seemed like a good place to pay my respects for the day. As I was leaving, I was greeted by a gentleman I’d noticed at Fukuroi station and noted as a possible fellow walker. Yamada-san had, in turn, spotte...

Tokaido Day 15 – Thursday, 23 November: Takatsuka to Futagawa (30km)

Slightly warmer again today, although with a haze that obscured the more distant views. I again took advantage of the hotel’s free breakfast before jumping on a Tokaido local train one stop down the line to Takatsuka. Not far down the road, a large shrine provided an opportunity to pay my respects and hope for a successful day’s walking. There was little of interest between Takatsuka and Lake Hamana, although it was good – as always – to come across an avenue of typical Old Tokaido pines: I stopped for a takeaway coffee from a konbini and spotted a park opposite that offered shade and benches. It turned out to be the grounds of a shrine, hidden amongst the trees, but as a group of seniors was setting up for a game of that golf-croquet hybrid I’d seen a few days earlier, I figured recreation was just as valid as devotion in this particular spot. A woman parked her bicycle near my bench and spoke to me; I adopted the default position of smiling and nodding, and gesturing to indicat...

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