Day 20 - Shimada To Fujieda To Okabe Juku, Walking The Tokaido Road In Japan
Day 20 - Shimada To Fujieda To Okabe Juku, Walking The Tokaido Road In Japan
Today we walked the distance between Shimada Juku post town to Okabe Juku, passing through Fujieda Juku in the middle.
Yesterday night, we stayed at a hotel located in Fujieda, so this morning after we checked out of the hotel, we left them our backpacks and took a bus to continue our walk along the Tokaido.
For the next few days, we will be staying in an urban apartment hotel in Shizuoka City, and from there, we will continue our walk by returning to our apartment in Shizuoka every evening.
We returned to Shimada station, and since we had already visited the old Juku yesterday, today we just walked through town.
In 1608 the Shogun Tokugawa leyasu developed the Tokaido and built a mile marker earthen mound for every Ri (4 km) along the Tokaido road. These mile markers are called Ichi Ri Zuka.
The earthen mounds were about 5 Ken square (about 9 meters in diameter) and each one had a big tree, usually a Zelkova tree planted on top, as a landmark and to provide shade for travelers.
The Japanese zelkova tree is hardy and a good street tree, because it grows tall (60-80 feet) and it is a good shade tree, that has an appealing vase-shaped form with a rounded crown.
Its green leaves turn yellow, copper, orange, or deep red in the fall, putting on a beautiful display.
The peeling bark of the older trees exposes orange patches, which can be quite impressive.
Some Ichi Ri Zuka were built in pairs on both sides of the road, like the ones in Shimada.
In the oldest records of the Tokaido, a map was drawn in 1681-1684, showing the Ichi Ri Zuka in Shimada as located 50 Ri from Edo, (200 km) and only the mound on the north side of the road was drawn.
In later documents from the end of the Edo period, it was written that the mound was a large 5 ken 2 shaku wide, and that a Japanese Zelkova tree was planted on the north side only.
Joseph is our model for taking pictures of the Ichi Ri Zuka along our pilgrimage.
He is a willing participant, and an excellent model.
He often takes different poses, depending on his mood and inspiration.
Sometimes he makes us laugh and always he is cheerful and happy to pose, even when the Ichi Ri Zuka is just a small sign along the road, and nothing is left of the original earthen mound or the shade tree.
Between Shimada and Fujieda, there is a vast valley known as Seto.
Here, the medieval Old Tokaido road used to cross Mount Seto, and the later old Tokaido road ran along the foot of the mountain.
Seto Araya and Minakami were areas with many ponds and wetlands, so it was only after agricultural development occurred in this area that the Tokaido began to pass through the area.
Rice production here became famous for its “Oak leaves and dyed rice” snack that was sold here in Seto, which was much loved by travelers along the Tokaido.
In 1792, during a pilgrimage to the western part of the country to study Haiku poetry, Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827) wrote the poem, "Dyed yellow rice in green oak leaves".
It is believed that Issa was attracted to the contrast between the bright green oak leaves that were used to wrap the rice ball, and the yellow dyed rice.
It gave him a poetic sense of the changing seasons.
We stopped to see the Somemeshi teahouse ruins.
It is said that the Seto dyed rice balls began to be sold here and at tea shops along the ridge of Mount Seto, when the Tokaido road ran along the mountain ridge,p as early as 1582.
Even after the Tokaido road began to run on flat land, rice ball cakes and tea were sold at the current tea shop site until the end of the Edo period.
It is said that Somenmeshi is made by dyeing strong rice with gardenia flowers, and cutting it into thin oval shapes.
Gardenia flowers were popular among travelers, because it was believed to strengthen the legs and the hips.
The flowers were consumed in tea or in cooking, including in these rice cakes.
A woodblock press was used to press the oak leaves that were used as wrapping paper for the dyed rice.
Paintings in an old book show the old teahouse building, with an old woman standing by a stove cooking over an open fire.
In the steaming bamboo basket and at the front of the teahouse, there are yellow gardenia dyed rice cakes.
In front of the chaya sits a samurai who is there to determine the quality of the dyed rice.
By lunchtime, I noticed that Wendy and Joseph were looking very tired.
I was feeling fatigued too, both from my flu symptoms and from needing to cater to everyone in our group.
Today I was upset with Jules, for being childish about our food choices on the pilgrimage, and for making my journey even more difficult.
Every day I studied the maps, trying to find good places to eat, drink and rest for our little group, that would appeal to all our preferences and tastes.
Today I told them that we have a few options, a highly rated Udon restaurant that is what Joseph loves to eat, or a traditional soba noodle restaurant, which is what Jules prefers to eat.
Jules said that he prefers not to eat any udon noodles.
I took him aside and angrily explained that I am not running a gourmet tour of the Tokaido.
We are walking pilgrims, and we will have to eat whatever we find along the way.
If the Udon restaurant was open and has available seats, we would eat there, because by the time we would arrive at the soba noodle restaurant, they might be closed for lunch or sold out, or have no seats for us.
All of these scenarios have happened to us frequently before.
Finally, we went to eat lunch in the nearest cafe that was open.
Unfortunately it was a smokers’ cafe, run by a friendly woman who took orders, made drinks and cooked all the food herself.
Wendy and Joseph promptly fell asleep after we ordered our food.
They must be still adjusting to long days on their feet, and are feeling fatigued.
Jules and I ate cheese toasts, without the bacon.
They were actually very tasty and a nice light lunch.
Joseph and Wendy ate the hamburger lunch set and fell asleep at the table even deeper after finishing their food.
I felt sad to wake them up to continue walking, but we really couldn’t stay for too long.
As we were getting ready to leave, Joseph told everyone in the cafe that we were walking the Tokaido, and they all clapped their hands in admiration and asked many questions.
After we left, we continued walking to Fujieda Juku.
The old Juku is located approximately three kilometers from the train station, where we slept yesterday night.
Fujieda-juku was a castle town.
It was also a salt-producing area, from salt collected from Sagara, located south of the city on the seashore.
It used to be a successful post town and in its prime, it hosted 37 Hatago Inns for common people.
The area was a relay station to change horses and porters, to obtain permits and to send rapidly transmitted, high priority messages and goods, between Edo and Kyoto.
At the beginning of the Meiji era, when the Tokaido Main Line Railway was being built, the local residents were worried about the smoke and ash from the trains and how it would ruin their crops, and decided to block construction of the line.
As a result, Fujieda Station was built approximately three kilometers from the town, which actually led to a decline in prosperity for the old post town.
However, after Fujieda became a city, its area expanded greatly and it has since become an industrial community.
We walked through Fujieda to Okabe.
We only walked to the bus stop, since we will see Okabe Juku tomorrow.
We picked up our backpacks from our hotel, and took a train to our apartments in Shizuoka city.
It took awhile to check in, because the urban apartments were not located where the company office was.
Wendy was upset that her apartment, which she had booked directly with the hotel, cost so much more than our apartment, that we had booked with Booking.com.
After much discussion and without her getting any discount, we finally got the keys, and walked to our apartments.
It was a very nice apartment, with a huge projector tv, a great shower, a big living room, a comfortable huge bed and a mini golf course in the living room.
The apartment is located on a great street by the Tokaido, with old lanterns and mosaic paintings of pilgrims walking the Old Tokaido road.
We have a Starbucks cafe across from the apartment, an Isetan department store next door where we could buy vegetables and great bakery bread for breakfast.
I know that Wendy prefers to stay near the train station in each town, which the apartments that we rented are not.
I prefer to stay in beautiful places, preferably in the scenic parts of town, and away from the hustle and depressing business energy of the train stations in Japan.
It was a very cold night, but still we collected our laundry and went to the laundromat up the road.
While our laundry was being washed, we went to eat a dinner in a small Thai restaurant.
The food was great and it was a nice break from eating Japanese food.
With love, and light,
Tali
Today’s Stats:
Steps - 32,117
km walked - 22 km
Total walked: 390 km
Old Post Towns Visited:
Shimada Juku #23
Fujieda Juku #22
Okabe Juku #21
