Day 3 - Kusatsu To Mikumo, Walking The Tokaido Road In Japan

 

Day 3 - Kusatsu To Mikumo, Walking The Tokaido Road In Japan

The buffet breakfast at our Biwako hotel, located right on the shores of Lake Biwa, was a very busy affair.
Almost all of the guests were Japanese people, and the food choices were the staple Japanese breakfast items, all fresh and good.

After breakfast we took the train and returned to yesterday’s stopping point at the Kusatsu Station.
We began walking at about 9:30 am, and the morning air was cooler than yesterday, but still mild and partly sunny, another day of perfect weather for walking.

We passed by some school kids in baseball uniforms.
They all knew that we must be walking the Tokaido road and said hello to us.

Because Joseph and Wendy are so good natured and sociable, they chatted with all the walkers we passed, and we learned a little bit about each traveler.
It’s not surprising that there were so many walkers, because this section of the Tokaido has many attractive temples and renovated larger houses that are still in very good condition.

The Old Tokaido Road seems to be very popular with Japanese walkers, and we met a few on the road today.
Most generally do the walk from Nihonbashi in Tokyo to Kyoto, perhaps because if you walk from Tokyo to Kyoto, you can get a certificate of honor from the last information center.

We are walking the Tokaido in the opposite direction.
Most of the other walkers we met today said that they walked the path in small sections, walking a few weekends and holidays whenever they have the free time.

We did meet some walkers like us, who were doing it in one go.
Most walkers do not spend as much time as we would on their walk.
A large group of walkers passed us by and some stopped to chat.
They seemed to be a hiking group because they were at different levels of fitness.
Some looked tired and sweaty, while others looked very fit and walked as if it were an effortless breeze through the countryside.

We met one individual, a very fit walker who said that he planned to finish his walk by tomorrow, and that he would need to walk around 60 kilometres in order to get to Kyoto by tomorrow.
He said that he will finish walking the Tokaido in twenty days, which is about half the time we’ve allotted for our walk.

But to be honest, it was never an idea that I entertained, to try and finish the walk quickly.
We planned to be more leisurely, with extra time for sightseeing along the way and no more than twenty kilometres walked per day.

The way I see it, some of these old post towns that we pass through on our walk are very charming with lovely old houses and lots of history, but they are not really worthy travel destinations by themselves.
I wouldn’t fly to Japan and take a train and stay nearby, just to see them.
This is our one and only chance to savour these scenic places, while we walk slowly through them.

Our first stop of the day came after several hours of walking, at a fresh vegetable farmers market that also had an udon noodle restaurant and a drive-through onigiri-ya that sold rice balls wrapped in nori.
We needed to use the toilets and to rest for a while, so we bought Onigiris to eat later, and sat down to eat a simple lunch of hot udon noodle soup.

After we left the farmers market, we saw an older couple who were cutting huge cabbages from their greenhouse, taking them to sell at the Farmers’ Market.
They were riding an old tricycle that had a big basket on the back, where they had placed the cabbages.

I asked Jules to guess their age , because both were bent at their spines, but were still fit farmers, doing most of their farm work themselves, by hand.
Jules guessed that they were in their seventies, but I laughed at his guess.
Joseph walked over to them and asked them their age, and was told that she is 92 and the gentleman is 96, and that they still work daily on their farm and sell their produce at the farmers market.

The entire walk today was full of reminders of the old Tokaido Road.
We passed by monuments, plaques, old photos of Hiroshige paintings of the Tokaido Road, and mile markers every four kilometers.
These mile markers are called “Ri” which is an old Japanese measure that is equivalent to 4 kilometers.
The “Ichi Ri Zuka” mile markers were used by travelers to mark their progress on the path, and often there was a large tree by the stone markers, to provide shade for the travelers to rest under.

In the late afternoon, we sat at a pilgrim’s rest area, drank hot tea from our thermos and ate the Onigiri rice balls that we had bought earlier in the day.

On the bank of the Taisha River that crosses the old Tokaido road, there is an ancient cedar tree.
We climbed up a hill to hug this very old Cedar tree that is 750 years old, with a massive trunk that is more than 6 meters in circumference and 26 meters tall.
Five or six people with arms outstretched could possibly reach around the whole tree.

It is called “Kobosugi” which means Kobo’s Cedar.
It was designated an important cultural property in 1977.
It is said that the original Cedar trees rotted with the years, so the villagers replanted them, but one of them was knocked down by a typhoon in the year 1773.

Since ancient times, people have called this large cedar Kobo’s Cedar.
There were originally two trees, one next to the other, and they grew together to become one.
Another story says that one of the trees fell down when the levee collapsed during a flood.

It is said that children in this region have traditionally eaten with chopsticks in their left hand, but if they were given chopsticks made from the branches of this tree, they would naturally start eating with their right hands.
For this reason, the lower branches were usually cut off to make chopsticks.

According to one theory, the two trees were planted when Kobo Daishi (Kukai) passed through this area, and another theory says that Kobo Daishi placed cedar chopsticks in the ground after eating his lunch, which caused it to sprout into a mighty Cedar tree.

We walked 22 km today, finishing at Mikumo Station, where we returned back to Otsu by train. We soaked in the hot springs in the hotel and then ate dinner in the hotel’s restaurant.

At night, I was too tired to write for our blog about our walking days, so Jules helps me by writing a summary of our days, so later I could recall what happened with the aid of our photos and write it down.

Sending you love and light,
Tali

Today’s Stats:
33,339 steps
22 km
Total walked: 59.5 km
Old Post Station Towns Visited:
Kusatsu, Station #52
Ishibe, Station #51