Day 29 - Kozū Station To Hiratsuka, Walking The Tokaido Road In Japan
Day 29 - Kozū Station To Hiratsuka, Walking The Tokaido Road In Japan
This morning, after a good breakfast, we checked out of our hot springs hotel in Hakone Yumoto and took a train back to Kozu Station, where we had stopped walking yesterday.
From Kozu Station, we followed the Tokaido road which parallels the sea, but we couldn’t see the sea at all, except when we crossed over some bridges.
The sea views were obstructed by the highway and the rows of houses that were sandwiched in between the highway and the national road we were walking on.
These were not expensive houses with beautiful sea views.
They were mostly low cost apartments with lots of road noise, but beautiful sea views.
It wasn’t too hot yet, but the sun was making the day feel very hot, and people we met along the way were commenting about how hot the day was.
The Old Tokaido during the Edo period must have been very scenic here.
Between the post towns, there were forests, mountains, valleys, untamed rivers, farmland or raw seashore with sand dunes.
Nowadays, there is a stretch of suburbs, factories, industrial zones and commercial buildings, between the historic post towns.
We were looking for signs along the way, indicating any historical significance of the Old Tokaido road in this area.
We stopped to take off layers of clothing, but couldn’t find any place to sit in the shade.
We had to rest outside a convenience store, leaning on its metal railing.
All of us reminisced about the great convenience stores in Taiwan, which always have seating indoors and a cafe, where you could rest or eat a snack.
It felt almost undignified to be leaning on the railing outside a convenience store.
When we arrived in the post town of Oiso, we saw a sign for the old Honjin inn.
The Tokaido was developed by the Edo Shogunate, and they established strict traffic regulations and policies.
Rest stations were set up everywhere on the road, including tea houses in between the post towns in areas of difficult terrain.
Oiso-juku was the 8th post town on the Tokaido, and it was located in between Hiratsuka Juku and Odawara Juku, with the Oshikiri slope and the Shushun River ahead of the pilgrim.
Both the steep slope and the river crossing required places to stay and rest.
Many teahouses and shops lined the Tokaido Road in this area.
Oiso-juku’s main inn dates back to the year 1601.
It was a small and narrow inn sandwiched between the sea on the south side and the mountains on the north side, and there were few guests because it was too far from the Odawara inn.
There were 66 Hatago inns for common people in Oiso.
We passed by a beautiful old thatched roof house located on the banks of a small river that is now a museum.
The house traces the origins of Oiso, and of the Shonan coast.
In Oiso, I had originally booked a hot springs resort on the scenic Shonan coast between Yokohama and Odawara.
But visitors’ reviews mentioned that the resort was rusting from lack of maintenance and looked neglected.
There are also no places to dine within a short distance, so we canceled our reservations.
In 1664, during the early Edo period, the poet Sosetsu of Odawara carved on the back of a marker stone in Oiso: “Shonan, the land of clear and absolute tranquility,” likening the scenery to that of the Hunan region near the Xiang River in China, noted for its extraordinary beauty.
In 1664 the hermit monk Saigyo built his hermitage here.
It was just a simple thatched hut that grew to become Saigyoji Temple.
He erected a stone marker to mark the end of his hermitage stay here.
He showed the Narutatsuzawa River to travelers, traveling along the Tokaido road and praised its scenic beauty as "the most beautiful place in Shonan."
Saigyo Hoshi also wrote:
"Snipes flying up from a marsh on an evening in autumn.
Everyone who claims to no longer have a heart, must feel this sad beauty".
The haiku poet Oyodo Michikaze had come to retreat in this place in 1695.
He named it Shigitatsuan and became its first generation owner. Today, it is said that Shigitatsuan is one of Japan's three major haiku dojo, together with Rakushisha in Kyoto and Mumyoan in Shiga.
Oiso was known as the backroom of Meiji-era politics, frequented by Ito Hirobumi, the first Prime Minister of Japan, among eight successive prime ministers and other key political figures of the Meiji era, who built villas and residences here.
We walked by many leafy mansions with beautiful gardens but didn’t have enough time to venture inside.
For lunch, we went to the Sakura cafe, located inside a couple’s home.
They live on the second floor, with the cafe on the first floor.
We ate toasted jaffles, which is an Australian toasted sandwich.
Jaffles are made in a dedicated jaffle iron toaster, which seals the toast around the edges.
The owner was very kind and sincere and prepared everything with the care and attention to details of a master.
Then we walked by a beautiful neighborhood full of flowers and old trees.
Jules and I mentioned to each other that the area felt so much like Coral Gables in Miami, where we lived for several years.
Old trees spread their massive branches, providing shade and coolness on a sunny day.
We took a rest on the steps of a shrine and a Buddhist temple, with old wooden Nio guardians. These fearsome looking statues are designated an Oiso Town Tangible Cultural Property.
The wooden standing Nio statues are a feature at the entrance gates to many Buddhist temples in Japan.
Nio statues are known as the two kings, protecting the wisdom of the Buddhist teachings with their hair tied in a single layer, bare chested, and covered in a skirt on the lower half.
In this temple, the guardians were carved in the year 1634, by a Buddhist sculptor living in Ogiya, Kamakura, called Kan'ya O’hashi, and his disciple Kanpei.
The guardians’ bodies are made of Zelkova wood with carved eyes and coloring.
We drank our own tea and ate a snack while resting by these Nio Guardians.
We finished today’s walk in Hiratsuka station where we took a train to Yokohama.
We had booked a lovely hotel in Yokohama, because I was thinking that we could walk this stretch of the Tokaido by returning back to our hotel in Yokohama, instead of wasting time checking in and out of hotels and walking with our backpacks.
When we arrived at our hotel in Yokohama, Wendy argued with the front desk about getting a room with a better view.
Whenever she knows that she paid more than us for the same room, she argued for at least a better view or an upgrade.
She inevitably gets what she wants, but at the price of being an argumentative person, which is not in alignment with the search for enlightenment.
But are they really searching for enlightenment?
My feelings tell me that they are not.
They want fun experiences and to enjoy this lifetime to the maximum.
We didn’t get the box that we had shipped to the hotel yet, because it was not scheduled to arrive until two days from now.
After we canceled the Oiso resort, we added those two nights to the Yokohama hotel.
Because we didn’t get the box, we could not do our laundry.
We have been walking with only one set of clothes. In our backpacks, we only had our rain gear, toiletries and one extra pair of socks and underwear.
This experiment, of walking without a second pair of clothing for a week, did not prove to be successful.
I think that we must carry at least one extra set of clothing with us so we could change into clean clothes and go out to do laundry, because many hotels don’t have a laundry room.
I will wash some of our clothes by hand after dinner when we return to our hotel room.
We went to the nearest Starbucks cafe and then ate dinner at a vegan restaurant.
The food was good but the portions were very small and overpriced and they forced us to buy an overpriced drink each, which was their way of collecting a table charge.
We will not return.
The streets of Yokohama were very noisy, with evening baseball games and loud crowds cheering and screaming.
Back in our quiet room, we watched the charming show “Love on the spectrum” on Netflix.
I coughed a lot during the night and tried to sleep sitting up in bed.
Finally I realized that I had caught the whooping cough disease, currently diagnosed as being found in Japan.
They say that you are no longer contagious once the fever subsides.
I am definitely not feverish after that one day in Hakone.
But now my lungs have to heal and the mucous has to make its way out of my system.
Still, I plan to stick to the walking plan and walk every day until we reach our destination - Nihonbashi in Tokyo.
Wish me luck…
Tali
Today’s Stats:
Steps - 29,284
km walked - 20 km
Total walked: 548 km
Old Post Towns Visited:
Oiso Juku #8
Hiratsuka Juku #7
