Arai (from Hiroshige's The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido) Like the section of the Tokaido between Miya and Kuwana I blogged about the other day, the 4km section between Maisaka and Arai at the southern edge of Lake Hamana was traversed by boat in the Edo period. If this wasn't enough to contend with, travelers also had to negotiate a checkpoint once they got to Arai. The punishment for men and women attempting to evade this barrier was death by crucifixion, or exile to Hachijo Island, an island so inaccessible it was known as "the island so far away that even the birds can't fly there".
This didn't stop some people trying to get through undetected. Some travelers who didn't want to be searched at Arai left the Tokaido before reaching the barrier and used minor roads to evade the checkpoint. This practice was especially popular among women, so much so that two of these minor roads became known as hime-kaido, or women's highways.
The geography of this area is interesting. Lake Hamana was originally a freshwater lake, separated from the ocean by a thin strip of land. However, a series of earthquakes and tsunami in the 15th and 16th centuries washed away this strip of land, opening Lake Hamana to the sea and transforming it into a brackish lake. By the Edo period the mouth of the lake had become so wide the only way to traverse it was by boat.
Today this channel is just 200m-wide and is spanned by a bridge, meaning it is again possible to walk this stretch just as it was before the Tokaido was established.
Distance walked today: 10.7km
Total distance walked since Tokaido training began: 70.9km
Days left until departure: 76
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