Day 12 - Fujikawa, Akasaka And Goyu, Post Towns To Odabuchi, Walking The Tokaido Road In Japan
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Day 12 - Fujikawa, Akasaka And Goyu, Post Towns To Odabuchi, Walking The Tokaido Road In Japan
Our hotel in Nagoya offers a Western style breakfast and a fresh juice smoothie, with a salad buffet that features fresh avocados.
It almost makes up for their lack of a public bath and a coin laundry.
The rooms are very spacious with a modern design, but the lack of a laundry room and a hot springs bath to soak our tired legs at the end of the day makes it less of a good place to stay while walking a pilgrimage.
We took a morning train back to Fujikawa Station and started our walk from there.
There is still the feel of a rural country road as we walked on the road lined with old pine trees.
These tunnels of pine trees were planted along many parts of the Tokaido Road, and some have survived hundreds of years, despite harsh weather, storms, tsunamis and urban expansion and construction of new roads.
The first station post town that we passed was Fujikawa.
Fujikawa was the 37th post town on the Tokaido road.
There were several attractive and well kept wooden buildings befitting the town’s status as a market and trade hub.
We saw the square where an open air market once existed.
There was an outdoor wooden display sign listing all the rules that everyone had to follow in order to stay and do business in town. Because of the high level of commerce, this post town had banks, rice shops, sweets shops, tea houses, a post office, restaurants, and accommodations, among many other businesses like fabric sellers of hemp (moe), to supply and support the needs of merchants and travellers.
Below is a loose translation of the sign listing the regulations that was posted at the middle of most post towns during the Edo period:
“Poison is not a drug, and it is banned from buying or selling.
You must present your permit for travel at all times.
All trading in gold and silver must stop!
Su, which is similar to silver, cannot be traded!
All silver collected from the Koremata Kanaza silver is not allowed.
Things that can't be done in business: not a good match for various jobs, charging a cooking fee, labour and wages that are too high.”
The next post town was about 7 kilometres away, through a valley between mountains, Station #36, called Akasaka, a well kept town with shops to welcome travelers.
At noontime, we stopped at a small cafe called Ajico, in Akasaka.
We had a big toast with cheese and an Earl Grey tea, both of which were surprisingly good!
The lady preparing and serving the food and drinks was very welcoming, and did a careful job with our order, even though her cafe was tiny, and couldn’t have been very profitable even in the best of times.
We often saw these kinds of businesses in many rural parts of Japan.
People operated cafes and restaurants from their homes, and their profitability cannot be much, but their love and pride for what they are doing really shines through.
As is the custom in these small cafes, the lady said please excuse me, Gomenasai a few times, as she collected the money for the meal.
This kind gesture of apologizing for charging you or taking from you your hard earned money, was common in old Japan.
Down the road, we stopped at an old renovated Hatago inn, that was open to visitors.
“Hatago”is an Edo period term to describe an inn for common people, not official government people or royals.
It was a beautifully restored wooden building, with three volunteer men in period uniforms welcoming visitors and explaining the displays and the old building.
We toured the old inn with its eight meter tall ceilings and huge wooden support beams.
They showed us the plants in the Hatago’s garden that Hiroshige used as models for his paintings, which they’ve continuously replanted over the years.
When we left, the men gave us a free goshuin.
A goshuin is a collectible stamp that each one of the old post towns on the Tokaido sells.
People who walk the Tokaido aim to collect all 53 stamps along the road, and place them in a purposefully made book.
We decided not to buy and carry the book on this pilgrimage, thinking that we didn’t really need to add weight to our backpacks and also to worry about where to buy each stamp, because they are mostly sold in local information centres that have limited opening hours, and some are not on the Tokaido road.
After walking some more, we stopped at a pilgrim’s rest area in an old house, to drink the hot tea that we bring with us every day, and to relax for a few minutes.
We walked through a colonnade of huge pine trees and entered the next juku post town, Station #35, Goyu.
In the late hours of each day of walking, I noticed that everyone is more tired and pulling themselves through using the last bits of energy they have.
I have tried to add more break times, to allow them to revive their energy.
We walked through town, and I found a small tea house and bakery called “Rosemary’s Cafe”, that had a delicious apple tart and big pots of hot Earl Grey tea.
We walked at a fast pace for about an hour and a half, to get to the Odabucchi train station, where we took the train back to Nagoya.
We arrived in Nagoya at about 7pm. Still we had lots to do, including packing up our backpacks to walk to a new destination tomorrow, get our laundry done, and eat dinner at the local Okonomiyaki joint, where we enjoyed the warm atmosphere as we grilled our own cabbage pancakes.
Sending you love and hugs,
Tali
Today’s Stats:
35,309 steps
24 km
Total walked: 246 km
Old Post Towns Visited:
Fujikawa-Juku Station #37
Akasaka- Juku Station #36
Goyu-Juku Station #35
