Day 25 - Mishima, Numazu And Hara Juku, A Festival In Mishima Taisha, Walking The Tokaido Road In Japan
Day 25 - Mishima, Numazu And Hara Juku, A Festival In Mishima Taisha, Walking The Tokaido Road In Japan
From the beginning of our walk along the Tokaido, crossing over the Hakone mountain pass has been looming in my mind.
I have been mulling over how to do it for many days.
The Hakone pass is a challenge.
Approaching it from Kyoto, it is an elevation gain of 970 meters and about 24 kilometers from our last stop, which we would have to do carrying our full backpacks.
On top of that, Wendy had just recovered from whatever it was that caused her to throw up so badly, and I was feeling sick with flu symptoms, finding it hard to fill my lungs to full capacity.
I knew that Jules and I could do it, because we have climbed many mountains in Hokkaido and also Mount Hallasan in South Korea, with an elevation gain of 1670 meters in a single day, and then walked all the way down and on to our hot springs hotel, arriving before nightfall at our hotel.
Yes, my leg muscles were shaking afterwards for a day or two, but it was a fabulous experience.
Mount Hallasan wasn’t an ordinary hike up a forest path.
The hike required us to climb thousands of steps up and down the mountain, as well as clambering over rocks and waterfalls.
All along we were surrounded by hundreds of other hikers, because we made the mistake of going to hike on a weekend, not knowing how much the South Koreans LOVE hiking.
My original plan was to divide the Hakone pass into three sections.
On the first day, we would walk 21 kilometers or more, to get as close as possible to the slopes of the mountain.
The second day we would go up the steep path, following the old cobblestone Tokaido road for 20 kilometers, staying overnight at a hot springs hotel by the lake in Hakone.
On the third day, I planned an “easier” day, which would require us to do some climbing and then manage a very steep downhill on the cobblestone path, all the way to the Hakone Yumoto Onsen village.
It would be only about 12 kilometers to Hakone Yumoto, but it would be a challenging downhill walk on an uneven stone path.
But with our slow pace and the way I was feeling sick, the plan that I made at home seemed very unlikely.
So I decided to change it.
On the first day, which was today, we started walking from the lower slopes of the Hakone pass, which meant that tomorrow, we would have to walk only 13 kilometers with an elevation gain of only 700 meters to get to our hotel in Hakone.
I also decided that Jules and I should ship most of the contents of our backpacks to our hotel in Yokohama, and see how it feels to walk for a few days with very little. In the morning, we shipped a box with most of our things, keeping only the clothes we were wearing, plus one extra pair of socks, underwear and one extra shirt each.
This was the smallest and the lightest backpacks we had ever walked with.
We shipped our mini iPads and even most of our charging cables, leaving us with raincoats, warm down jackets, a tea thermos and very minimal toiletries.
The old saying came to my mind, as I strapped on my very light backpack:
“You drop something, then you are weightless and free!”
This morning we had beautiful views of Fuji-San mountain from our hotel.
The air was crisp and clear, a great day for walking, although the weather forecast for tomorrow called for a very rainy and cold day in Hakone.
We had two options of how to do today’s walk.
We could just walk from our last stop through the towns of Numazu and Mishima, to the foothills of Hakone Toge, and then wait for the hourly bus to take us back to Numazu where we will be staying for the night, or do it backwards, take a bus to the foothills of Hakone Toge, and walk back through Mishima and Numazu to our last stop, then return to our hotel in Numazu by train.
We decided on the second option.
As it turned out, it was the best choice because we got to Mishima in time for an annual weekend festival that was taking place at the Mishima Taisha shrine, and got to enjoy the festivities as well as enjoy the beautiful shrine and a good lunch.
If we did it the way I had originally planned, we would have missed the festival in the shrine because we would have been arriving in Mishima after closing time.
We took a train and a bus to the foothills of Hakone Toge and started walking down into Mishima on the old cobblestone path.
It was a very scenic walk, but it gave us a taste of what was to come in the next two days, when we would be walking on uneven cobblestones which could be slippery when wet.
Mt. Fuji is located near the junction of Izu and Honshu.
Around 100,000 years ago, a large eruption of Mt. Fuji drove lava through the valley surrounded by Mt. Ashitaka and Hakone.
There was another eruption of Mt. Fuji with a massive mudflow resulting from the collapse of the mountain slope on the east side of Mt. Fuji, about 2900 years ago.
This mudflow caused a large amount of debris to move as far as Mishima and Odawara cities (Odawara is in Kanagawa prefecture).
The amount of debris is thought to be around 1.8 billion cubic meters (i.e. it would have filled 1450 Tokyo Domes).
This is known as the Mishima Lava Flow, and it created the land that we saw today in the northern part of Mishima City.
This lava is full of fissures and cracks, so groundwater seeps through it easily.
This water gushes out in the form of many natural springs at the ends of the lava flow.
This clean groundwater nourishes many clear streams.
In waterscapes like the Genbei River and the Sakura River, there are examples of how local villagers have taken advantage of these beautiful natural streams.
Visitors here can enjoy many unique local produce and products, aside from the striking landscapes created by the lava flow and its flowing water.
The large gaping hole on Mt. Fuji that was created due to this collapse was subsequently filled when Fuji mountain continued to erupt.
The Mishima Taisha Shrine is a hub of local religious beliefs from the famous Izu Peninsula Shrine.
It is also known as 'Izu Ichino Miya' (a major branch of the Izu shrine).
The patron deity of the shrine is "Mishima Daimyojin", which itself is a combined form of "Oyamatsumi" and "Kotoshironushi" deities.
The shrine is not only known for its grand design and its large collection of cultural artifacts, but also for its splendid compound and a sacred grove of majestic fragrant orange olive trees, reported to be 1200 years old.
There are many large lava rocks and boulders in the shrine that give you a glimpse of the land formation in this area.
We saw a big crowd of people when we arrived at the Mishima Taisha Shrine.
The cherry trees were in full bloom and people were posing for photographs.
The women were wearing beautiful kimonos and the men were dressed in suits.
The little girls were adorable in their long sleeve kimonos, looking like beautiful flowers themselves.
We strolled around the beautiful shrine, looking at the old wooden horse enshrined in the grounds.
In Japan, since ancient times, the horse has been considered a sacred animal and a vehicle for the gods.
According to the legend, the God of Mishima Taisha Shrine rode this "God's Horse" every morning and climbed the Hakone mountain.
In the past, a horse lived on the grounds of this shrine.
However, this live horse has now been replaced with a wooden horse.
Since the original wooden horse was destroyed by the Tokai earthquake in 1854, a new black lacquered horse was enshrined as an offering to the god.
The current God's horse was created in 1868 and was transferred to this new building after World War II.
In Japan, they say "Itadakimasu" which is the common expression of gratitude spoken before meals in Japan.
However, the family of the priest Yatabe, worshipping god's horse, would say before their breakfast, "Mr. horse has come back home"!
The town was packed with people all looking to eat lunch at some of the many popular eel restaurants.
There are many eel restaurants in Mishima.
A sign on the road said: “Residents of Mishima Post Town have long protected eels as the messengers of the god of Mishima Taisha Shrine.”
Eating eel only became popular after soldiers from the west, from Satsuma (from Kagoshima) and from Choshu (from Yamaguchi) who had travelled along the Tokaido in the late Edo period, ate eel and avoided divine punishment.
Because they were not punished by the gods, many eel restaurants were established and are still operating in the Mishima area.
In one eel restaurant by the river, dozens of people were waiting outside for a table.
Down the road from the shrine, we found a little cafe that had some available seats.
The town was packed with people and I felt grateful to find a place that served us avocado toasts, and also had oat milk for our lattes.
As we were walking through Mishima post town, Wendy told me that she was feeling happy to finally see a busy thriving town, after all the closed towns we have passed through.
I agreed with her and felt a bit sad as we continued walking out of Mishima,
We arrived in Nimazu in the afternoon, and everyone seemed to need a cafe break.
Because I know that Joseph loves to eat ice cream at the Tullys cafe, we went there to get a drink.
The cafe is a chain of coffeehouses similar to Starbucks, except that they have no alternative plant based milks and their attitude is very different from the willingness to satisfy customers that typifies Starbucks.
The cafe was very busy, and we sat separately from Joseph and Wendy.
We tried to order decaf lattes with soy milk and honey, but were informed that it cannot be done.
They did have soy milk but the decaf could only be made black, with no milk.
We looked at each other in amazement, but the lady returned a cold, unfriendly stare at us.
We asked if she could make a decaf and we could maybe add the soy milk to it?
She reluctantly agreed and made us two undrinkable strong coffees which tasted burnt and old, as if they were made early in the morning and stood in the percolator all day long.
I wanted to leave right then and there, but I could see that Joseph and Wendy were enjoying themselves and resting, engaging in a friendly conversation with the people at the table next to them.
So I pushed away the terrible coffee and munched on a small cookie I had bought earlier.
The lady jumped out of her position at the cash register, and came over to inform me that I cannot eat my cookie there.
“Never!” She said almost yelling at me.
This was the last straw and I strapped on my backpack, and went over to Wendy to tell her that we were leaving.
I overheard the conversation Wendy was having with the next table, who recommended that we stop to see the Mishima Shrine that we had just spent more than an hour and a half touring.
Wendy seemed so interested, somehow forgetting that we had just came from that beautiful shrine.
I realized that I was experiencing the Tokaido in an altogether different way than Wendy and Joseph, or even Jules.
They were not really reading about the places we went through, and often didn’t even slow down to take in the beauty and the history. I had to tell Jules many times, that I didn’t mind if he chose to walk very fast through the industrial areas or areas full of car dealerships and chainstores.
But I asked him to slow down in the Jukus, the old post towns along the Tokaido, and in any part where there was beautiful nature.
We left Numazu and walked to Hara Juku, where we had stopped walking yesterday.
Along the way we passed by a temple that had a sign saying:
“Kamekaku Monument, Kannon Hall.
During the Horin era, when Kobo Daishi was training at Shuzenji Temple, he passed through this place and was so impressed that he carved a statue of Kannon Bodhisattva and built a temple to house it.
It is a miraculous divine Kannon that grants blessings to those who pray to it, just as if it responds to the sound of the reverberations of the heart.
In Kisegawa Village, there was a sign telling a local legend:
Once a wealthy man named Ono Zenji Sakomon was saddened by the loss of his only child, and he prayed for another child.
He was given another child, whom he named Kamizuruhime.
When the child was seven years old, he lost both parents in the springtime.
When he was eighteen, he was summoned to a banquet for hunting on Mt. Fuji by a local lord, but he did not attend.
Thinking that this world was a sorrowful place full of sufferings, he stood on the banks of the Kisegawa River, by the waterfalls in Mizukami, and said, "I trust in the Divine Buddha, even if my body disappears like the foam of this waterfall!"
He wrote these words as he sank into the river.
This took place on May 27, 1193.”
Numazu was a post town known for the scenery of Senbon Matsubara forest of pine trees since ancient times.
It flourished as a castle town, and played an important role as a port town that transported products from the Izu region to Edo.
Currently, not much is left of the old post town.
Most of the town has been burned down by fires and war disasters, so there is almost no trace of the Edo period.
During the Edo period, it had three main inns, one side main inn, and 55 inns for commoners.
It was getting late in the day and I wanted to get to Hara Juku before dark.
Instead of walking on the same narrow road by the noisy car road, we walked on the boardwalk along the sea, with the sea to our left and the forest of pine trees called the Senbon Matsubara on our right.
We walked on this pedestrian only boardwalk all the way to Hara station.
It was a long walk but the setting Sun was beautiful and we got nice views of Mount Fuji.
Joseph met a Chinese man who joined him for part of our walk, and they walked together.
Finally we left the boardwalk and walked down to Hara Juku post town.
It was a bright little town with wide streets and many signs about the Tokaido.
Hara-juku was a smaller post town on the coast of Suruga bay.
It is located between Numazu and Yodhiwara Juku and it is the site of many old paintings, depicting Mount Fuji in the background.
From Hara Station, we took a train back to Numazu where our hotel for the night was located.
I noticed that I was feeling uneasy, impatient and unhappy, which is probably why I was feeling worse and sicker.
Because it was cold and already late, we decided that it would be best to eat dinner at an Izakaya at Numazu station.
There were not many healthy options in the area and I just wanted to be done and take a hot shower and rest.
They only had seats in the smoking section.
Jules didn’t want to eat there, but finally he relented after I said that he doesn’t have to eat anything, and that I could give him his passport and directions to the hotel, and that he could just check himself in.
We ordered an avocado salad, an avocado and cucumber sushi roll, a Korean rice pancake with scallions, tofu, steamed edamame and a small beer,
The beer was probably a big mistake, because I was already feeling down and feverish, but I drank it anyway.
We checked in, did our laundry and took hot showers.
By the time I got to bed, I was feeling very sick.
31,222 steps.
21 km walked today
499 km walked to date.
With love, and light,
Tali
Today’s Stats:
Steps - 31,222
km walked - 21 km
Total walked: 499 km
Old Post Towns Visited:
Mishima Juku #11
Numazu Juku #12
Hara Juku #13
