Day 26 - A Rest Day in Hakone And The Story Of The Pilgrim’s Search, Walking The Tokaido Road In Japan

 

Day 26 - A Rest Day in Hakone And The Story Of The Pilgrim’s Search, Walking The Tokaido Road In Japan

“The Pilgrim’s Search”

Once upon a time, a pilgrim set out on a journey, searching for peace, joy, abundance and love.

Was that really so much to ask?
Shouldn’t the children of Life, the children of God, enjoy these things as a given?

But the journey grew long and the pilgrim grew weary...

At first, the pilgrim's steps had been light with hope.
She was fueled by the belief that the answers were just over the next hill. 

But as the miles turned into years, her steps became heavier and slower.
The road became hard, revealing so much along the way.

She walked through lands scarred by war.
Through regions rife with sickness and poverty.
She saw places filled with quarrels, rejections, and separations.

Worse still, she observed the tragic irony that she saw everywhere.
People were longing for the very things that they were unknowingly pushing away.

Longing for peace, they waged wars to defend what they had.

Longing for love, they built walls of distrust and isolation by locking themselves away.

Longing for health, they became consumed with protecting their health and fighting disease.

Longing for life, they focused on making money, and marched straight into exhaustion, depression, despair, and decay.

But one morning, the pilgrim spotted a small cottage by the side of the road.

It didn't look like much, just a quiet, unassuming little green house.
But something about it felt different. 

The windows glowed softly, as if holding a secret light, shining from within.
Needless to say, curiosity pulled her in.

Once inside, she found a small gardening shop, that felt warm and timeless, with a calm shopkeeper standing behind a wooden counter.

The shopkeeper smiled gently.
"Howdy, What can I get you?"

The pilgrim blinked.
"Well... what do you sell here?"

The shopkeeper's friendly smile widened, looking like a wise wizard:
"Oh, we have a bit of everything you could ever want here. Just tell me what you desire the most."

At that, the pilgrim's heart began to race. She barely even knew where to begin…
Could she really have arrived at the time and place where her wishes would be granted?

Then all her years of longing spilled out at once:
“I want inner peace, for myself, my family, for the whole world.

"I want the sick to be healed, the lonely to have friends, and the hungry to be fed.

"I want every child born today to have a chance to dream, to learn, to grow and to thrive."

"I want abundance for all, so no one has to worry about money again."

"I want freedom for every soul, and for everyone to be surrounded by peace and love."

The pilgrim exhaled sharply, as if she had just released a weight she'd been carrying for years.

The shopkeeper listened patiently, his face soft with understanding.
Then, with a gentle smile, he said:

"What you are asking for are ripe fruit.
They are fruit, meaning the results, of harmonious living, harmonious thoughts, self-realized feelings and loving actions.
We don't sell the fruits here.
We only sell the seeds…

You are full of potential!
You are surrounded by potentiality everywhere you look.
A tiny acorn can turn into a mighty oak tree.
One seed of a lemon can turn into a tree that will grow hundreds of lemons every year, and their seeds, if nurtured, could grow into thousands of lemon groves.

It is the same with olives, oranges, apples, plums etc.
The world is full of possibilities.
The unhappy world you see reflects the various possibilities that people have chosen.
You cannot rob people of their choices.
But you can choose your own path to be filled with the choices that bring you happiness, joy, health, awareness, peace, love, strength and abundance.”

This morning I woke up feeling too sick to walk at all.
I had fever, muscle pain, a sore throat, congestion, and a feeling of dizziness.

I suggested that instead of getting off the bus north of Mishima, our last stop on the Tokaido, we just continue riding the bus to our hotel in Hakone.
I also suggested that if Wendy and Joseph felt good and energetic, they could do today’s walk without me.

We had only 12 kilometers left from our last stop at the foothills of Hakone mountain to our hotel by the lake.
Yes, it was all uphill on an uneven cobblestone path, but it would be scenic and beautiful.
Wendy was so happy to skip today’s walk.

I was too achy and sick to figure out when and how we could go back to do that part.
I just wanted to lay down in clean sheets and sleep the pain away.
But we had arrived at our hotel too early, and they had a policy of not checking anyone in before 3:00 pm.

We sat in the lounge area in front of the lake and had tea and waited until 11:30am, when they closed the lounge to clean it.
Wendy and Joseph went to see the Hakone checkpoint, a historic site on the Tokaido.
Wendy said something about not wanting to miss it, and I was too tired to explain that we couldn’t miss it, because it was located right on the Tokaido, and we would see it tomorrow morning on our walk out of town.

Jules and I went out to eat lunch.
It was the weekend and Hakone was packed with Western, Chinese and Indian tour buses.
Hakone doesn’t have lots of restaurants, and it is always packed with tourists, making the place even less enjoyable to visit.

I know that I was sick and didn’t see things in the best light, but it seemed to me to be such a bad idea to travel in buses, take overcrowded tour boats just to see the Tori gate in the lake in front of the shrine.
To be crammed into busy restaurants with hundreds of other tourists, to eat the inevitable mediocre food that is prepared for hundreds of people at a time.
These are the worst kind of experiences I could imagine while traveling.

We found a table at a small soba noodle restaurant and got treated like royalty, because even though we looked like western tourists, we could speak Japanese.
Instead of feeling complimented, I felt like a rare monkey or a panda in the zoo.
“Wow, the monkeys can speak Japanese!”

I felt tired of the Japanese people’s narrow mindedness.
Why are they not advancing with the times…
In Europe, many people speak 3-5 languages which they have learned since childhood, and nobody is awestruck that a German can also speak English or a Frenchwoman can speak Spanish.
In fact, it is more amazing that some people don’t speak another language or two.

“You ARE NOT THINKING CORRECTLY!”
said a voice in my head.
“These thoughts make you feel unhappy and impatient, choose differently! Choose different thoughts or think about something else entirely!” the voice guided me.

Then we returned to the hotel and asked if they could make an exception and let us check in early, but they apologized saying they couldn’t.
We sat in the lobby and I promptly fell asleep for two hours until check in time.

Later in our room, I slept again until dinner time.
We went next door to the tourist market to buy grilled onigiri rice balls, fresh fruit and grilled corn, to eat for dinner.

After taking a hot bath, I went to bed early and slept all night long until early morning.

Before my long sleep, I made a tentative plan in my mind for the next few days.
Tomorrow morning, we would have to check out after breakfast.
We will walk up to the top of the Hakone pass, passing through the Hakone Checkpoint, through the old pine grove and up the mountain, following the old Tokaido road.

Then we will walk down the cobblestone path to the famous Amazake Chaya tea house, that has been continuously serving hot Amazake and traditional snacks to pilgrims since the Edo period.

The Tokaido passes through a small post town that is the birthplace of the famous wooden marquetry boxes, and we will walk to our hot springs hotel in Hakone Yumoto.

The day after, if I am strong and capable, we would return to the foothills of the Hakone mountain in Mishima, to climb the Hakone pass, so we don’t have to miss those 12 kilometers that we did today by bus.

Crossing Hakone mountain, was known as crossing the "Sword of the World".
Hakone has long been known as the most difficult part of the Tokaido road.
A place that was feared.
Abutsu-ni, a concubine of Fujiwara no Tameie, wrote about the Hakone route in her 'Zayoi Nikki" Diary of the Sixteenth Night:

"It goes down a very steep mountain, so difficult that even a person's feet cannot stand still."
In other words, it shows how harsh the journey must have been, with travelers worrying about how to cross Mount Hakone.

During the Kamakura period, (1185-1333) there were two routes over Mt. Hakone.
For those coming from Kyoto, there was the "Ashigara Road" which bypassed Gotemba from Mishima, and crossed the Ashigara Pass, and passed through Sekimoto and Kozu.

The second road was called "Sakamichi" which went directly up Mt. Hakone, passing Lake Ashi, and the Hakone Gongen, and descended to Yumoto.
This is the road we were planning to cross Hakone on, although during the Edo period, Tokugawa leyasu was in charge of road construction and the route over Mt. Hakone was significantly changed.

This is the route that became known as the "Hakone Hachiri."
This route, when coming from Edo to Kyoto, involved crossing the Hayakawa River at Sanmaibashi Bridge in Yumoto, climbing along the Sukumo River, passing through Hatajuku, and arriving at the shores of Lake Ashi.
Along the way, there were many steep slopes, and the mountain roads are still lined with tea plants.

Sending you love and healing,
Tali