Skip to main content

Tokaido Day 12 – Monday, 20th November: Okabe to Kanaya (25 km)

 


Today’s walk was flat and somewhat featureless, although there were some charming moments along the way to make up for the lack of scenic beauty. Conditions were clear and cool, but with a blustery breeze that I was walking into for most of the day.

I checked out of the hotel in Shizuoka and organised to have my luggage sent on to Hamamatsu. For the first time, I had to fill out the courier docket myself, so I hope I did it correctly. It’s due to arrive tomorrow. The AirTag inside says it hasn’t yet left Shizuoka, so we’ll see. 

Breakfast was again a konbini-bought egg sandwich and vending machine coffee while waiting for the bus outside the train station. This bus was on time, and retraced last night’s journey back up the valley, through the long, modern tunnel and down into Okabe.

Up on a river wall, a tiny shrine housed a jizo. The offering box, which you can just make out behind the end of the bell rope, was proportionately miniature. Despite its diminutive scale, this shrine is obviously loved and well maintained by the local community.


At Suga shrine, a vast and obviously ancient tree dominated the street. A sign identified it as a 500-year-old camphor.



Just around the corner, in one of the largest and best-equipped public parks I’ve come across, a big group of seniors were playing a game that seemed to be a cross between croquet and golf.


I took advantage of the benches to have a rest, enjoy the game, and eat a couple of the mandarins bought at the roadside stall yesterday. It’s amazing how much better they tasted without a facefull of second-hand cigarette smoke.

Through Fujieda City, the footpath was dotted with these decorative tiles:


Apart from the flatness, one of the things that made today’s walk easier was the quality of footpath (and not just aesthetically). Most of the Old Tokaido is a narrow road, carved out before the days of vehicular traffic, with houses and other building crowding in on the other side. Now, of course, it carries cars as well, with the result that a lot of it looks like this:


That white line is all that separates you from the traffic. 

Today, however, much of the OT looked like this:


… or even like this!


Spotting an interesting-looking cafe and feeling in need of a rest and some caffeine, I opened the door to be warmly greeted by the woman behind the counter and two customers. As usual, conversation was limited by my lack of Japanese, but they were all so friendly it didn’t really seem to matter. The coffee was excellent, I was given a traditional sweet containing (I think) red bean paste, and they kindly agreed to let me take their photograph (one of the customers had left by this point). If you’re ever in Fujieda, drop into Dabuemu (apologies if I got the name wrong!) and say hi.


They even insisted on taking a photo with me in it, which (unusually) I managed not to ruin:


Thank you Risa and Kiyoka! That coffee and sweet kept me going all the way to Kanaya.

From here on, the Old Tokaido joined and left, crossed and re-crossed Route 1. I passed a marker indicating 205.7km – that’s as measured from Nihombashi, the start of my walk a week and a half ago. I’ve walked quite a bit further than that, as the OT takes a much less direct route than the highway, blessed as it is with all the advantages of modern engineering.


At Shimada, another of the old post towns on the Tokaido, a large, beautiful shrine was well worth a few minutes looking around.



Not far beyond that is the wide Oi River. Nowadays, there are several bridges across, carrying road and rail, but a model on the east bank gives an idea of how things used to be carried:


This is the start of the bridge. Note that the end isn’t actually visible.


Crossing it was hard work. Not only is it very long – over 1000m, according to a plaque on the other side – but that blustery, swirling breeze caught my backpack and kept trying to push me into the side railing. Not that I was in any danger, but it added considerably to the effort. Also on the far side is another representation of an old-style river crossing.



From there it was just a couple of kilometres up the hill to Kanaya Station and a train onward to my new hotel in Hamamatsu. Considering Shimada had been the original target for today’s walk, I was pretty pleased to make it that far, especially given the weight of the pack. Tomorrow, with a lighter load, I’m hoping I’ll be able to make a really good distance.
 
 

Comments

  1. Anonymous22 November 2023 at 07:47

    Beautiful photos John. I am so enjoying my armchair walk through Japan.

    ReplyDelete
  2. John22 November 2023 at 20:12

    Thank you! Do leave a name if you’d like to - it seems to default to anon.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Fiona28 November 2023 at 09:21

    Sorry John - just saw this. Still loving the blog!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...
1 comment
Read more

Tokaido Day 1 – Thursday, 9 November: Nihombashi to Kawasaki (22 km)

Link to GPS track Any sense of excitement at the dawn of the day that I would actually start this thing I’d been planning for so long was somewhat subsumed by the need to organise my gear and arrange for stuff I wouldn’t need for a couple of days to be sent on to the next hotel. The front desk staff at the Hotel Sunroute in Asakusa were, of course, extremely helpful and told me that the bag would arrive at the Terminal Hotel in Odawarra the next day. That still left me with a pack that was heavier than I’d been expecting – I guess about 15 kg – and it was with a slight sense of trepidation that I checked out and headed to the subway to catch the Ginza line to Nihombashi.  Nihombashi – which I think just means ‘Japan bridge’ – marks the start of the Tokaido and is traditionally the place from which all distances to Tokyo are measured. Today its historical significance is not immediately apparent, not least because of the dominating freeway overpass that crosses above. However, the c...
3 comments
Read more

Tokaido Day 13 – Tuesday, 21st November: Kanaya to Fukuroi (29km)

  A more overcast and humid day, but still good conditions for walking. My hotel offers a free buffet breakfast, which I couldn’t pass up, so by the time I caught the train from Hamamatsu back to Kanaya I was a little later than previous mornings. No matter.  From the station, the Old Tokaido climbed steeply, and it wasn’t long before I encountered another section of the dreaded ishidatami. Although just as steep as the section near Hakone, this was in better condition and nowhere near as long. Still, it’s not easy walking, and once again I was glad of the pole. I agree with the Temple Guy : this is much harder than Satta Pass, and I’m surprised it doesn’t have more of a reputation on the walk. Once the ishidatami ends, there’s still plenty of hill to climb, and the route rises through tea plantations. On those grey poles are electric fans: I’ve read that they’re used on still, humid mornings to blow away the mist that could otherwise damage the leaves. Where the bushes are in...
Post a Comment
Read more