Day 21 - From Okabe Juku Over The Utsunoya Mountain Pass To Mariko, Walking The Tokaido Road In Japan
Day 21 - From Okabe Juku Over The Utsunoya Mountain Pass To Mariko, Walking The Tokaido Road In Japan
Today was a very cold morning, with rain predicted all through the day.
We ate breakfast in our apartment, of avocado sandwiches with tomatoes and cucumbers, and met Joseph and Wendy at the Starbucks across from our apartments.
Together, we took the bus from Shizuoka City back to Okabe, where we had stopped walking yesterday.
Today, we will cross the Utsunoya Pass, which was once considered to be one of the most difficult walks on the old Tokaido Road.
The area is surrounded by rugged mountain ranges, and it was difficult to bypass the area, without passing right through it.
First we walked through Okabe juku post town.
We saw the Takafudasho Ruins, the place where they posted wooden notice boards that listed all the rules, regulations, and laws of the times.
These notice boards were posted in all the post towns, and they were usually placed where many people gathered.
The idea was that criminals could not pretend that they were not aware of the laws, because they were posted right in the middle of town.
We stopped at a small modern cafe, that sold homemade onigiri rice balls and tea.
We each tried their delicious onigiri and refreshing tea.
Then we visited the local museum, inside the restored Honjin Okabe Main Inn.
It used to be an inn for government officials and royals, and it was not open to the general public.
The Wakihonjin (side inn or secondary inn) was often used as an overflow when a large procession was traveling, but it was also used for hosting other events, when there was not enough room for everyone at the Honjin.
Unlike the honjin, the wakihonjin were sometimes made available to the general public when it was really necessary.
Although it changed depending on the times, there were a total of 111 Honjin inns and 68 Waki Honjin inns at all the post stations of the Fifty-three Stations along the Tokaido.
In the Meiji era, due to the abolition of the old feudal system and the development of railways and other transportation networks, many of the honjin and wakinorin were demolished, and only a few remain today.
In Okabe-shuku, there were two main inns, and two side inns.
The Uchino family hosted the main inn during the years 1688-1700 when the head of the family, Uchino Kyubei, was ordered to do so.
The families who served the honjin inn were influential people within the post towns, and it is said that many of them owned large mansions or served as wholesalers or village headmen.
The position of Honjin is basically hereditary, and the Uchino family handed it down for about 180 years, until the Meiji period.
The Uchino Honjin was rebuilt and is now a historic museum.
We toured the beautiful building and admired the period Hina dolls that displayed the clothing, the hairstyles and the costumes of the Edo period.
The entrance hall for the guests was often an elevated wooden platform that was installed at the top of the entrance hall, onto which the royals would ride in their palanquins, so it was easy to get on and off.
Luggage and palanquins accompanying the feudal lord processions were stored in the adjacent wooden-floored room.
The Upper room was generally eight tatami mats in size, with a tokonoma alcove.
It was decorated with a shelf, a Tsukeshoin, and with paintings or a seasonal plant, like a maple or the twig of a persimmon tree in autumn.
It was used as a living room for the feudal lords during the day, and a bedroom at night, with a bathhouse nearby.
The garden could be viewed from the upper room, and it also led to an emergency exit at the back, in case of an attack by an enemy.
The rest of the rooms were covered with tatami mats, and were used by guests.
An earthen floor covered the kitchen.
After our visit to the lovely museum house, we crossed a small bridge called The Mirror Bridge.
The mirror bridge, also know as “Ono no Komachi's Mirror Bridge”, got its name from a woman poet who walked the Tokaido.
Ono no Komachi was a beautiful woman and also a famous poet at that time. It is said that she stayed at this hotel in Okabe on her walk along the Tokaido.
Komachi stopped on the bridge, admiring the beauty of the area, and the beautiful sun that was reflected in the waters below the bridge.
Suddenly, she looked down at the water and saw her own reflection. She was exhausted from the long journey and the hardships of walking the mountain pass, yet she felt sad that she looked so old and worn, and nothing like her youthful self.
She lamented her old age, for she no longer had any traces of her youthful self.
In inns and Ryokans in Japan, there is an old habit of covering the standing mirror in a room by a fabric.
This is because the hardships of the road made people look so tired, old and dry, that it was best not to look at yourself and engrave that image of yourself into your memory and heart.
After you had time to clean up and take a bath, you would feel more refreshed and willing to look in the mirror at your reflection, to fix your hair and clothing.
As we walked through the small town, an old man showed us the old style fire alarm system that was used during the Edo period.
It was just a metal plate with a wooden mallet, strategically located at the entrance and at the end of the main street.
It was a very charming low tech alarm system.
In another local museum we saw a temporary exhibition of Hina dolls, dressed in beautiful kimonos.
Before the steep forest hike, we stopped at a rest area to eat grilled Dango mochi and a grilled sweet River fish on a stick, sprinkled with coarse salt.
The story about why those who walked the Tokaido through this mountain pass, ate Dango dumplings, is written below.
All I can say is that both the grilled fish and the Dango dumplings were delicious.
We started walking up the forest path.
I felt excited and energized by the feel of the forest.
Finally, we were off the busy urban streets and in the forests that I love so much.
The birds were singing and the forest smelled like fresh mushrooms.
It was a gradual hike up, pretty steep in some places.
Because of the necessity to pass through this mountainous range,
six roads were built from the Heian period to the Heisei period.
They were called:
The Ivy narrow path.
The Old Tokaido.
The Meiji tunnel.
The Taisho tunnel.
The Showa tunnel /National Route 1.
The Heisei tunnel.
The Ivy Narrow Road, and the old Tokaido road, run right over the mountains.
During the Edo period, it was a strategic place for feudal lords who traveled between Edo and Tokyo.
It was a necessary part of the transportation route, and even Emperor Meiji crossed the pass on horseback, during the Meiji Restoration.
The Meiji Tunnel was built in the year 1876 and it was only 230 meters in length, but it eliminated the need to climb to the very top of the mountain summit.
The sign by the tunnel said that it cost 35,000 yen to build at that time, using a labor force of 220,000 men.
But online articles say that it took 159,000 laborers and there is no mention of the original cost, except for the fact that due to the limitations of construction technology, the opening of the tunnel at this rough mountain spot on the pass was truly ground-breaking.
Another feature of the tunnel is that it was the first "paid tunnel,” where a toll was collected in order to repay the construction costs.
The Utsunoya-toge pass was once thickly covered in ivy and maple trees.
It used to be a dangerous and difficult pass for travelers, with bandits and highwaymen lurking in the woods.
Because of the steep terrain and the lonely, empty atmosphere, people started to worship the Enmei Jizo, an incarnation of a Bodhisattva, to pray for safety and protection.
The mountain pass is also the birthplace of various stories, legends and poetry.
One of the legends is “The Ten Dumplings Legend".
The Legend tells that once the chief priest of Keiryuji Temple, near Utsunoya Pass, was suffering from an incurable disease.
The only relief he had was when the pus in his blood was sucked out of his body.
He had the temple's apprentice monk suck his blood.
Over time, the young monk developed a taste for human blood.
He ended up turning into a demon who attacked travelers going through the pass.
Distressed villagers prayed to Jizo Bosatsu.
Responding to their prayers, Jizo headed for the mountain pass disguised as a wandering monk.
Upon arriving at the pass, a six meter long, huge man-eating demon appeared and attacked the monk, trying to eat him.
After a heated argument, the monk said, “If your special powers can turn you into a huge demon, can it turn you into something so small that it can fit in the palm of my hand?”
The arrogant man-eating demon responded by turning himself into a small, round dumpling on the monk’s palm.
Quickly, the monk struck it with his staff, and the dumpling crumbled into ten small grains, which the monk swallowed quickly.
It is said that since then, the man-eating demon has disappeared and the road has become safer.
A monument with a Haiku poem commemorating this legend is posted by the road:
"Ten dumplings become small pieces in the autumn sky".
Based on this legend, at the Utsonoya Pass, people started making a series of ten small dumplings.
They bundled them together to make "Todango" (Ten Dumplings) to use as a protection against the demon.
In the Edo period, the dumplings were sold at teahouses along the pass as a talisman, to protect travelers, and soon these dumplings became a well-known specialty of Utsunoya Pass.
These are the Todango we ate before climbing into the forest.
Even today, in the village of Utsunoya, there is a custom of hanging a string of ten dumplings at the entrance of the houses to ward off evil spirits.
As I walked up the forest path, I looked back to see that Wendy was huffing and puffing from the steep forest path.
Jules and I are used to mountains, because we live in Colorado, but Wendy and Joseph live near Taipei, at sea level and they are not used to climbing mountains.
We got to a fork in the woods where I had to make a decision.
Should we take the steep mountain pass road, or go through the Meiji tunnel?
Wendy was pushing me to take the tunnel, while Jules was pushing me to take the mountain pass.
I chose the Meiji tunnel because Wendy and Joseph looked sweaty and short of breath.
For me, the number one priority was to get to the end of this pilgrimage, with everyone happy, in one piece and not injured.
I explained to Jules that if we were walking alone, we would make different choices, but we were not alone and the safety and well-being of Wendy and Joseph should be a priority.
We walked through the brick Meiji era tunnel, which was a lovely, easy and scenic walk.
Wendy was elated at how easy it was.
Jules was sulking quietly.
He loves challenges and adores the beauty of nature, and the Tokaido has so little opportunities to be surrounded by nature, that he didn’t want to be finished so quickly with one of the loveliest parts.
Beyond the Utsunoya Pass, we saw the vistas of the lovely Juku old town below.
It still looked beautiful, with tile roofs and narrow streets that cannot accommodate any cars, surrounded by mountains on all sides.
The village of Utsunoya has retained its old-fashioned atmosphere, despite the passage of time.
It was an impressively beautiful spot along the Tokaido road.
I felt a little sad to leave, as we walked the steep downhill into the plains.
Along the road, we saw a group of runners running up the steep road.
None of the men were young, yet they were training to develop greater strength and endurance.
I told Jules that this should be our goal in walking pilgrimages.
We should not look to make it easy all the time, like Wendy does, but instead we should aim to become so strong, that everything feels easy to us.
Can we get there?
Is it even a realistic goal to have?
Or am I just having delusional expectations of our physical bodies?
I don’t have the answer, but I know that by doing less and less and by choosing the “easy path”, we are lowering the bar of what is “easy”, and that our expectations of what we can do will inevitably get less and less with every passing year.
But the higher Truth is that we walk pilgrimages in order to transcend the body.
We are NOT our bodies, and only by moving beyond what we believe to be the limits of the body can we discover the Divine energy that we truly are.
We stopped at a rest area at the bottom of the mountain, to use the toilet, rest and so Wendy and Joseph could eat oden.
Jules and I were not hungry yet.
When the Tokaido Road was developed during the Edo Period, Mariko-shuku was a small town located in the vicinity of Utsunoya Pass.
It was a place where people could rest and get provisions before climbing the mountain pass.
We walked down to Mariko and saw the Ichirizuka Tokaido Distance Marker, and the remains of the old tea house.
We stopped at a tiny tea house that served only matcha tea and grilled mochi dumplings, along with a delicious salted caramel ice cream.
Then we continued walking.
It started to rain, just as we crossed the river and entered Shizuoka city.
We were lucky to enjoy the day with mostly lovely weather.
We said goodbye to Wendy and Joseph when we reached our apartments, and we went to Isetan to buy breakfast items for tomorrow, like fresh bread, avocados, cheese, cucumbers and tomatoes.
Wendy and Joseph went to the Onsen that our hotel recommended and gave us free entry tickets to.
Jules and I went to do our laundry and afterwards we ate a Neapolitan pizza and sipped a rich red wine.
With love, and light,
Tali
Today’s Stats:
Steps - 31,716
km walked - 21 km
Total walked: 411 km
Old Post Towns Visited:
Okabe Juku #21
Utsunoya Juku (not numbered on the Tokaido because it already existed).
Mariko Juku #20
