Day 4 - Walking Through A Beautiful Rural Landscape - Hot Springs Walking Tour Of Northern Japan
Day 4 - Walking Through A Beautiful Rural Landscape - Hot Springs Walking Tour Of Northern Japan
We had a very early breakfast at our hotel, in order to take the first bus (at 7:30 am) to return to the last station that we had walked to yesterday on our walk north.
I told Jules that I feel fatigued, even after a night’s rest, and that it is taking me longer to adjust to being outside all day in the sun, and to the difficulty of walking on such hot days.
Jules suggested that maybe it is my diet, and I thought that maybe he is right.
In the two months that we were in Bali, my diet was mostly fruit.
I ate a small plate of fruit for breakfast, not wanting to go diving on a full stomach.
Then my lunch was the water from a fresh whole coconut and a fruit smoothie bowl topped with a little granola and nuts.
For dinner I usually ate a vegetable curry or a nasi goreng (fried rice Indonesian style).
Here in Japan I have not eaten any fruit and my diet consists of mostly fish and vegetables with beans and rice.
I decided to make an effort to eat more fruits and see if it helps.
To start with, I bought some dried lemons and apples from a convenience store, and almost immediately after eating them I started to feel better.
But before taking the train to the last stop we reached yesterday, to continue our walk, we had to return to Akita to reset our IC transportation cash cards, since we had used them yesterday to pay for a train to a station that did not accept IC cards.
Fortunately we had started early, so by 9:00 am we were already back in Akita with our cards fixed, and ready to take the train back north to continue our walk.
We could have delayed unfreezing our cards until we reached Aomori, but the cards are useful to have as cash cards to buy things in convenience stores, and we are still not far from Akita by train, so we went back to unfreeze them.
The walk today was through very pretty rural landscape, the prettiest we had seen this far.
There were a great variety of blooming flowers, as well as walnut and chestnut trees, with ripe fruits that fell on the ground in great abundance.
There were apple trees loaded with red apples, and I wished there were fruit stands selling these delicious looking apples, but there were none.
In peoples’ gardens, we saw some vegetables in varying degrees of growth, including beautiful seedless eggplants, leeks, cucumbers and carrots.
Beyond the houses, the fields were bright golden yellow, full of rice plants ready to be harvested.
It was a very warm day again today, which made the walking feel more tiring than it actually was.
We were originally concerned about taking enough warm clothes for the cool autumn weather we expected in the north of Japan, but it’s been more like summer here this first week.
We took a small detour to have a lunch break at an outstanding family pizza and pasta restaurant in a rural village.
The couple who owns the restaurant built a real wood-fired pizza oven, and they clearly understood how to make Neapolitan style pizza.
The thin crust made from homemade dough was perfect, the sauce was light and tasty and the cheese was yummy.
We felt lucky to get a table, so we could rest and enjoy a relaxing lunch, instead of just walking without having any place to sit.
Most of the days when we walk pilgrimages, we stop for lunch not because we are hungry, but to take a break from our walking every few hours.
Today there were no outdoor benches so far, so we were happy to find this small rural eatery to rest at.
But we limited our rest stop to about a half hour, because we needed to complete our walk in time to take the only late afternoon train, to catch the 4:00 PM bus back to our Onsen hotel.
Overall, it wasn’t a long day of walking, because we started walking late, after our unexpected trip back to Akita and our need to be done for the train by 3:00PM.
The hotel has two separate Onsens (hot springs baths).
Yesterday we used the bigger one that is open to the public.
As always in Japan, Onsens are separated by gender.
The ladies area was full of women, hard working women with bodies that are not treated as precious adornments, but as strong tools for hard work in the rice fields.
Ogata is still a big area full of rice growing fields.
I like observing these women.
They stand in such contrast to other Japanese women I have seen in more famous and touristy parts of Japan.
There, the women have skin as white as snow, unblemished and unscarred, and shimmering bodies without a ripple of fat.
The Onsen on the top floor of the hotel had no other guests while I was there.
It had nice views of the sea and a large hot Moor bath, with its yellow amber mineral waters.
The organic humus that bubbles up from the earth had no smell and didn’t feel thick.
It was very relaxing and soothing to my tired muscles.
We had another multi course Kaiseki dinner, featuring a fish and vegetable Nabé, a bubbling hot broth with vegetables and a local fish, that is cooked for each guest at the table.
There was also a casserole of mushrooms and white fish baked in a mustard sauce, and many other morsels of creative bites of food.
The chef here is really excellent!
With love and affection,
Tali
Today’s walk - 15 km
Total walked to date - 73 km
