Arriving In Japan And Walking Around Kyoto, The Tokaido Walk In Japan
Arriving In Japan And Walking Around Kyoto, The Tokaido Walk In Japan
We arrived in Kyoto on a chilly night, by way of a Shinkansen (bullet train) from Tokyo.
After spending a few months in Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia and the Philippines, my first thought was that everything looked so clean and that the sidewalks were absolutely perfect.
I saw no broken asphalt, no loose tiles and no potholes to navigate my way around.
The weather was cool but pleasant and invigorating. With my fleece and down jacket, I was very comfortable.
I like walking in cooler weather.
You can always wear another layer, and it is so nice not to finish a day of walking all sweaty and in need of an immediate shower.
I also enjoy having only two backpacks with us to carry.
We left our heavy diving gear, with the underwater cameras and lights, in the hotel in Manila, and we are excited to be moving lightly.
I am always amazed by how little we actually need.
Everything else is just for emotional security and peace of mind.
It is not really needed at all.
We have spent the past two days walking around Kyoto, dining in our favorite restaurants and getting used to being in Japan again.
We also got a few little things that we needed for our long walk.
On one of our walks around the city, we came upon a street market in front of a famous temple.
A vendor that looked like an old hippy was selling used kimonos.
One of his kimonos had a painting on its back of the Tokaido road.
It had an old painting of the Nihonbashi bridge in Tokyo, and the Hakone Toge mountain pass, one of the tallest peaks on the Tokaido.
I couldn’t resist buying the kimono.
I knew the two layers of silk material would be heavy, but it seemed like a good omen that I had found it during our stroll.
I intend to paint on the kimono as a memory of our Tokaido walk.
I usually take a book to collect stamps in temples and shrines along the way, in order to have some tangible memory of our long walks and pilgrimages, but I hadn’t done it when we walked the Nakasendo.
This time I am trying to figure out how to have a visual memory of the walk.
Maybe this kimono of the Tokaido, along with my paintings on it, will make a cool visual memory.
I also knew that our friends Wendy and Joseph, who will be walking with us, plan to bring a soft bag that they intended to send ahead to some of our hotels along the way, to reduce the load in their backpacks.
I assumed that I could always send the kimono ahead in their bag.
On the evening Joseph and Wendy arrived, we went to eat dinner in a tofu and Oden restaurant on Pontocho street in Kyoto.
Pontocho is a narrow street lined with traditional teahouses and restaurants.
It is now a historic special preservation area with elegant, understated traditional wooden buildings, dating back to the year 1670.
Red lanterns still hang outside the buildings, most of them bearing the district's emblem of a little white bird called a Plover.
In Japan, a Plover is called "Chidori" and it symbolizes perseverance, family safety, and the ability to overcome challenges.
The Plover, despite being tiny, is known to be able to fly through strong winds and high waves during its migration.
Because of that, it is often depicted in traditional Japanese art and patterns on kimono, representing the strength to face difficulties head-on.
The tofu and Oden restaurant served us really yummy food.
Different kinds of tofu were prepared in different ways, and the Oden, which is a traditional Japanese One Pot Dish consisting of several ingredients such as boiled eggs, Daikon, Konyaku, tofu skin and sometimes fishcakes, are stewed in a light, soy flavored dashi broth.
Tomorrow will be the first day of our walk.
The Sanjo Ohashi bridge, marking the beginning of the journey, (or the end, if you start your walk from Tokyo,) is just around the corner from our hotel.
We are all excited to start the journey…
With love,
