Day 6: Yokkaichi - Kuwana (15.9km)

I woke at 4am and dozed until 5.30am when I turned on the TV to watch the news and weather. The forecast was for another fine day. At 7.10am I went down for breakfast. The "buffet" was a bit disappointing compared to the one at the last Super Hotel I'd stayed at in Kyoto, with the only Western-style offerings being toast and pastries. The coffee was from a vending machine (the Super Hotel chain have vending machines in the breakfast areas of their hotels which you can use for free at breakfast time), but it tasted surprisingly good.

I left the hotel at 8.30am and while walking through a shopping arcade soon after rejoining the Tokaido I met a group of four women who were walking the Tokaido in the opposite direction and who had just left from another hotel up the road. Further on, after crossing a couple of rivers, I came across a lone pine tree, one of many that were originally planted along the Tokaido more than 400 years ago to provide shade in summer and shelter from cold winds in winter. Quite a lot of these original pine trees still survive, some still in the form of avenues that extend for hundreds of metres. Many of these stands of pine trees have names. Oddly, this single tree bore the name Nihon no Matsu, or The Two Pines. As you might have guessed, there were once two old trees here. One of them died, but the original name remains.


For most of the morning I was walking through the suburbs of Yokkaichi. I was following a narrow street just off the main highway which was flat and dull and lined with small factories of all kinds. Hardly the most uplifting of surroundings, and to make things worse, when I stopped at 11.30am after crossing yet another river to have a rest and send a couple of emails from my phone, I got my first mosquito bite (I'd get a further eight before my journey was over). I moved away from the river and continued my break next to a large joyato, one of the giant lamps that burned throughout the night in the Edo period. Along with the ichirizuka, the avenues of old pine trees, and the occasional stretch of ishidatami (stone paving), these lamps are among the most common remnants of the original Tokaido the modern traveler is likely to come across.


The last few kilometres into the post town of Kuwana were tough. It was hot and muggy, and as I neared my goal I had to follow a series of doglegs (a common feature of the original Tokaido as it approached strategic towns, supposedly designed to confuse invading enemies). About a kilometre from the finish I passed a young solo walker heading in the opposite direction. His name was Aki. We stopped and chatted. He was covering about 30km a day and sleeping rough at night. I expressed surprise that his pack was so small. He in turn expressed surprise that mine was so big. "What on earth have you got in there?" he asked. Another walker had said the same thing, and so I was beginning to think that I had far too much stuff, which is ironic considering that at the start of the walk I was pleased that I'd managed to restrict the weight of my pack to under 10kg. Aki was thinking of walking the Nakasendo back to Tokyo once he arrived in Kyoto, and so I gave him a few tips based on my experience of walking the same route back in 2007. Before parting I took his photograph, something I tried to remember to do whenever I stopped to talk to people along the way.


A few minutes later I reached the point in Kuwana where Edo-period travelers caught the ferry across the bay to Miya on the other side of the modern city of Nagoya. Having reached my goal for the day, I headed in the direction of Kuwana station, thinking I'd find a nice place for lunch along the way. I didn't, and so I ended up buying some hot chips, a banana, and some iced coffee at a convenience store and having lunch in front of the station. At 1.50pm I boarded a train for Nagoya, arriving there at about 2.20pm. From Nagoya station I walked to my hotel, which was meant to be in front of the station but which was a bit further away than I anticipated. Along the way I passed a couple of Westerners. I realized I hadn't seen another Caucasian since leaving Kyoto. I resisted the urge to greet them.

The hotel was quite new and my room larger and better equipped than those in the business hotels I'd been staying in so far. I would have looked forward to my two nights there and the rest day in between if it wasn't for the fact that my toe was starting to really hurt. I did a load of washing then went out to have something to eat at around 3pm. I also withdrew some cash, thinking I might need a bit to pay my doctor's bill the following day. I took it easy for the rest of the afternoon and evening before meeting a friend at 7pm. Before going out for dinner we spoke to one of the receptionists and got details of the address and hours of a nearby hospital. We then went out to an izakaya where I drowned my sorrows in beer and sake. Back in my hotel, I watched some TV and went to sleep at around 10pm.

Day 5: Shono - Yokkaichi (15.4km)

I woke at three or four but managed to doze off again without reading my book and slept through to six, when I was woken by my watch alarm.

I was expecting another buffet breakfast, but when I went down to the hotel restaurant at 7.10am I was greeted with an old-fashioned Japanese "Western-style" breakfast of toast, a boiled egg, and cold spaghetti (or pasta salad - I'm not sure there's a difference).

I left the hotel at 8.20am and headed back across the Suzuka River to rejoin the Tokaido at Shono-juku. From there I followed the Suzuka River to the next post town of Ishiyakushi, arriving at 10am. My toe felt good. After a short break, I pushed on towards the city of Yokkaichi.


A few kilometres out of Ishiyakushi I got my first glimpse of Yokkaichi and the smokestacks of the petrochemical plants that have made it infamous. Shortly after this I descended Tsuetsukizaka, considered the steepest slope on the entire Tokaido. The slope is in fact very short, but I was still thankful I was descending it rather than ascending it. I passed a famous well half way down, and I rested there and took some photos.


I continued on and at 12.30pm reached Hinaga no Oiwake, the point where the Tokaido and the Ise Kaido (the pilgrimage route leading to the famous shrine at Ise) diverge. There was a small shrine and a spring at the point where the modern roads meet. There was no one else about, so I surreptitiously filled my water bottle. While reading a sign about the history of the spring, two people arrived with multiple water containers which they proceeded to fill with water from the spring. I thought at first there might have been some religious significance to their actions, but the man I asked said people came simply because the water tasted better than the city water.


A kilometre or so further on I came across a Saizeriya restaurant (another Italian restaurant chain) where I had lunch. I left there at 1.30pm and arrived in central Yokkaichi at 2.40pm. It was too early to check in to my hotel, so I killed time by having coffee and cake at a coffee shop. After checking in I rang a friend who lives in Yokkaichi and arranged to have her pick me up and take me to have dinner with her and her parents.

Day 4: Seki - Shono (15km)

I woke at 3am and read until 4am. I then went back to sleep until six. At seven I went down for breakfast. It was a buffet but there was no bread in sight. Instead, there was a large rice cooker, a big vat of miso soup, and an array of Japanese dishes. Not my ideal breakfast, but it was all so elegantly presented with lacquerware trays and lovely Japanese pottery plates that I ended up enjoying it. At least they had coffee. I would have been very annoyed if they didn’t have coffee.

My toe didn't feel particularly sore. I was too scared to look at it, though, and so I left the bandage I'd applied the night before on and set off at 9am on what was one of my shorter days.

Nomura Ichirizuka (the tree, a muku, is said to be over 400 years old)

It was already warm when I left and was unpleasantly hot by the time I reached the post town of Kameyama. Thankfully, however, there was a cool breeze blowing where I stopped by a river on the outskirts of the town for my first break of the day. My groin didn’t hurt (I'd taken a Nurofen before setting off), and apart from the odd twinge in my toe I felt in pretty good condition. Soon after setting off again, while passing through Kameyama, I came across a group of 15-20 elderly hikers coming the other way. I said "Konnichiwa" but none of them seemed interested in stopping to chat.

A route marker dating from 1690

I was away from the main road for most of the day, following the Suzuka River as it meandered its way east towards the coast. At 11.30am I started looking for a lunch place. My mind must have been on food and not on my surroundings, because when I came to a bridge and checked my map I realized I'd missed a turn. My map did show a bridge, but its orientation didn’t match that of the bridge in front of me. I took out my compass for the very first time and was able to confirm that I was indeed in the wrong place. I turned around and walked back a few hundred metres before stopping to ask a farmer for directions. He was very friendly (he mentioned that he'd recently been to Australia) and told me how to get back onto the Tokaido.

A traditional kura (storehouse) near Shono. Note the fancy windows.

I arrived in Shono at 12.45pm, having failed to find a lunch place along the way. I'd also run out of water, and was in two minds as to whether I should walk around trying to find a restaurant or a convenience store in Shono (it was only a small town and I couldn’t even see a vending machine) or cross the Suzuka River into the city of Suzuka, where I'd booked a hotel for the night. I decided on the latter option, and soon came across a convenience store where I bought a bottle of water and a slice of fruitcake, which I wolfed down. I continued on to the hotel, which was further away than I thought it would be. It was too early to check in, so I continued walking until I found a shopping mall and had lunch at a restaurant inside the mall. When I finished lunch it was still only 2pm. To kill more time I stopped at a Mister Donut where I had a donut and two glasses of iced coffee. At 3pm I went back to the hotel and checked in. The young receptionist was very friendly and eager to help me (I figured he was either new or hadn't dealt with many foreigners before, or perhaps both).

I rested for a while and then hand-washed a couple of T-shirts. My mind then turned to dinner. There weren't many places to eat in the immediate vicinity of the hotel other than izakaya, which are mostly for drinking, so I walked along to a big shopping mall I’d passed earlier in the afternoon. I wondered around looking at the shops for a while. There seemed to be a sizable Brazilian population in Suzuka, probably related to the fact that there was a big Honda factory in the city. I found a Cappriciosa where I ordered a Margherita pizza and a glass of white wine (my first wine since leaving New Zealand) followed by a cup of tea. I then went back to my hotel and watched TV until going to bed.

Day 3: Minakuchi - Seki (27.4km)

I woke ridiculously early, read, snoozed, and got up at six. Breakfast was a buffet again, and while more than adequate, it wasn't on the scale of the magnificent offering at the Boston Plaza Hotel. My groin and hips were still quite sore, so before leaving I swallowed a Nurofen tablet, which quickly took effect.


I left the hotel at 7.45am to give me time to look at Minakuchi castle before rejoining the Tokaido. It had started raining during breakfast and drizzled on and off as I looked around the castle grounds, but apart from some more light drizzle in the late afternoon it was dry for the rest of the day.

I rejoined the Tokaido and followed it through the centre of the old post town of Minakuchi-juku. Here the Tokaido actually branches into three separate streets that run parallel to each other for about a kilometre. I took the middle street. This part of town was practically deserted. There were quite a few old buildings. I noticed a swallows' nest with chicks in it under the eaves of a building. These nests would become a familiar sight as I continued my journey eastwards.


In Japan, swallows have a close relationship with humans, mostly nesting in built-up areas. They usually return to the same spot each year to build their nests, and people welcome them as to have a swallows' nest on your property is considered a good omen. People sometimes even build crude platforms to make the nests more secure. They also lay cloth or newspaper on the ground underneath to catch the droppings. I'd often stop to see how many chicks were in each nest, or to watch the adults dart back and forth as they brought food for their young.

The area beyond Minakuchi was very picturesque with lots of tea plantations and newly planted rice fields. There was a powerful aroma of green tea, and it took me a while to figure out that the aroma was coming from the tea plants. I could also hear frogs croaking in the rice fields on either side of the road, although as I got within a few metres of each one it would stop croaking. I thought that if I'd been traveling by car I would have missed out on the experience of both the aroma of the tea plants and the croaking of the frogs.


This occasionally idyllic scenery continued all the way to the next post town of Tsuchiyama, some 11km from Minakuchi. There, while walking through the middle of the town, a middle-aged woman, herself a visitor, came up to me and asked for directions to somebody's house. I would have thought it was obvious I wasn’t a local, but then strange things happen from time to time when you're walking through rural Japan.

At Tsuchiyama the old Tokaido crosses National Route 1, the modern highway that follows more or less the same route as the Tokaido between Kyoto and Tokyo. I'd planned on stopping for lunch at a michi-no-eki (literally a "road station") that was marked on my map. Unfortunately they only had noodles, something I wasn't in the mood for, so I headed for a restaurant on the other side of the highway called More where I tucked into some deep-fried fish with rice, salad, miso soup, and pickles. The restaurant was run by several very friendly middle-aged women, who were curious to know what I was up to and were suitably impressed when they learned I was walking to Tokyo.

I left Tsuchiyama at 12.45pm, and after passing through the picturesque wooded grounds of an old Shinto shrine I began the steady climb up Suzuka pass. For most of the climb I followed National Route 1, which was very busy with trucks at times filling all four lanes, but occasionally I left the highway and passed through small hamlets on either side of the main road. For the last several hundred metres of the climb I followed a track through a pleasant wooded area (with the odd tea plantation) above where the road goes through a tunnel. I then climbed down some very steep steps before rejoining the highway for the remainder of the descent into the post town of Sakashita. After passing through Sakashita (which is very small and seemed deserted) I met two women walking the Tokaido in the opposite direction. We stopped to chat and take photos of each other.

It was almost 4pm. At this rate I'd have very little time to look around the next post town of Seki, which was about 5km away. I picked up my pace and got to Seki at about 4.45pm. The town is built along a long, sloping main street and is reminiscent of the post town of Magome on the Nakasendo. Like Magome, the locals have put an effort into preserving the atmosphere of an Edo-period town by burying electricity and other cables and keeping the facades of old buildings along the main street. However, every so often there was a building with an ugly modern facade which spoiled the overall effect. Also, except for the very centre, the town was devoid of any activity (maybe it was the time of day), giving it the appearance of a ghost town. In the end I passed through without stopping other than to pick up a map and take the odd photograph, and headed straight for my hotel on the other side of town.


I checked in at 5pm. Although seemingly in the middle of nowhere, the Candeo Hotel Kameyama is very modern and chic. I was even more impressed when one of the receptionists told me she had studied in New Zealand. After settling into my room I did a load of washing in the coin laundry inside the hotel. Unfortunately there were no restaurants nearby, so for dinner I bought some things at a convenience store across the road and ate them in my room.


My groin seemed to have handled the day's climb OK (I'd taken another Nurofen at lunchtime). However, my left big toe hadn't fared as well. I definitely had an ingrown toenail. The area around the nail had been slightly red and inflamed since I started the walk, but when I got out of the bath that evening I noticed some puss. I cleaned the toe carefully, applied some antiseptic cream I had in my first aid kit, and bandaged it. But based on past experience, I was convinced things could only get worse. In a day or two I'd be limping, and before long the toe would be so painful I'd be unable to put shoes on, let alone walk 20km with a 10kg pack on my back.

I was practically resigned to the fact that I'd be unable to complete my walk. I started thinking about what I needed to do to end the trip and head home early. First I'd have to arrange an early flight home (was that even possible on the ticket I had?), then I'd have to cancel all my forward accommodation bookings, incurring cancellation fees in some cases. The next three days were comparatively short (around 15km each), so I decided I could probably make it to Nagoya, where I'd scheduled a rest day. I could see a doctor there and get some antibiotics to combat the infection. If I did have to quit the walk, I thought, Nagoya would be a convenient place to come back and resume it some time in the future. These were the thoughts that were swirling around in my head as I hit the sack at the end of day 3.

Day 2: Kusatsu - Minakuchi (24.8km)

I woke a couple of times during the night, but generally slept better than the previous night. Nothing like walking 25km with a heavy backpack to ensure a good night's sleep. At about 4.30am I was pretty wide awake, so I got out my book and read for a while. At 5.30am I turned on the TV and watched the news and weather.

I got up at six and went through my usual routine of showering, dressing (remembering to apply anti-chafe balm to my feet before putting my sox on), and shaving. At seven I went down for breakfast. The breakfast buffet at the Boston Plaza Hotel was one of the early highlights of the Nakasendo walk in 2007, and I'm pleased to say it was up to the same high standard in 2009. I had scrambled eggs on toast, various fancy pastries, and cereal with fruit, fruit juice, milk, and yoghurt.


I left the hotel at eight and retraced my steps to the point (identified with the stone route marker shown in the photo above) near the honjin I visited the day before where the Nakasendo and Tokaido go their separate ways. My legs were still a bit tired from the previous day's effort, and my groin, left big toe, and hips were all sore. Still, I felt excited at the prospect of venturing into unknown territory.

It was mostly flat with little traffic all the way to the post town of Ishibe, making for pleasant walking. I took it easy, taking a couple of long breaks to rest and eat scroggin, eventually arriving in Ishibe at 10.45am. There I'd planned to make a side trip to the Tokaido History Museum and Shukuba no Sato, which according to one description I'd read on the Internet was a kind of theme park dedicated to the Tokaido. I made my way to the railway station from where I caught a taxi to the museum and theme park. While making plans for my trip I'd considered walking to the museum as it was only a couple of kilometres at most from the station, but I was glad I took a taxi as what I hadn't realized was it was uphill most of the way.

The taxi driver dropped me off at the main office where I left my pack and paid the entrance fee of 320 yen. The "theme park" was a collection of around half a dozen reconstructions of the kinds of buildings that might be found in a post town in the Edo period. Each was filled with period furniture and other bits and pieces. There was also a reconstruction of a pair of ichirizuka. Ichirizuka were mounds of earth, each topped with a tree, usually an enoki (Japanese hackberry) or matsu (pine), placed on either side of the road at intervals of one ri, or approximately 4km, for the purposes of calculating distance along the Tokaido. Some of them still survive, although it's very rare to find original ichirizuka on both sides of the road as when roads were widened one or the other inevitably had to be removed. As well as these originals, there are also quite a few reconstructions of ichirizuka along both the Tokaido and the Nakasendo.


The Shukuba no Sato was quite interesting, but not as impressive as I'd imagined. The museum was rather dreary and I left after just a few minutes inside. I went back to the office and picked up my pack. After chatting with the staff there for a few minutes, I set off on foot down the hill in the direction of the station. I knew I'd hit the Tokaido before I arrived at the station, so my intention was to rejoin it at the point. Unfortunately I lost my bearings and had to ask a young couple for directions.

I felt a little frustrated as I was concerned at the amount of time this little side trip had taken up. However, the scenery around Ishibe was very pleasant (lots of old buildings, newly planted rice fields, very little traffic) and this soon put me back in a positive frame of mind.

At around midday I started looking for somewhere to have lunch, but it wasn't until
I reached the town of Kosei at about 1.45pm that I found a place I liked the look of: a Japanese chain restaurant called Washoku Sato. I ordered the Nagomi bento, which consisted of cold soba, tempura, chawanmushi, rice, and a choice of drink (I had iced coffee).

Soon after leaving Kosei I rejoined the main highway to cross the Yasu river, whose course I'd been following for most of the way since leaving Kusatsu. Along from the modern bridge was a monument marking the spot where travelers used to cross the river in the Edo period.


My legs were quite tired by this stage. Thankfully it was only another three kilometers or so to my final destination of the day in the town of Minakuchi. Once there, however, I had trouble finding my hotel and had to ask directions at a petrol station.

It was about 4pm when I finally checked in. The room was a bit drab but offered a nice view over the city. I rested, watched some sumo on TV, and then popped over to the big Heiwado shopping complex next door to the hotel to have dinner. I didn't think much of the restaurants there, so I bought some things (deep-fried squid, chirashi gohan, beer, and a grapefruit dessert) at the supermarket and had dinner in my room. I watched some more TV and was asleep by 9pm.

Day 1: Kyoto - Kusatsu (25.7km)

As was the case the day before, I found myself wide awake at the ridiculous hour of 2.30am, and as I couldn’t get back to sleep this time I decided to read for a bit. I finally managed to doze off again, and was woken by my watch alarm, which would remain set at 6am for the duration of my walk.

I got up, showered and packed. At 6.45am I went down to reception to see if they had a computer with Internet access. They did, so I checked my other blog and found that the emails I was sending from my mobile phone weren't being posted. I quickly realized what was wrong and fixed the problem by changing a setting.

By the time I'd finished on the computer, breakfast was being served. It was quite an impressive buffet for a cheap business hotel. There were several Japanese dishes, but my stomach has trouble coping with anything other than Western food first thing in the morning, so I sampled some of the several different varieties of bread on offer along with a plate of salad (with egg) and a bowl of yoghurt with a dollop of jam on top, which I washed down with coffee and orange juice.

I finished breakfast at 7.15 and went up to my room to get my stuff. I was checked out by 7.45, and I set off on foot to Sanjo-Ohashi to begin my walk.

It was already quite hot. A high of 30 degrees was forecast, which was much warmer than average for the time of year. But despite this and my injury worries I was in a very positive frame of mind. It felt good to be under way after the long journey from New Zealand and the day in Osaka and Kyoto.

The walk from Kyoto to Kusatsu was a repeat of the first day of the Nakasendo walk I did with Erik in 2007. I was tempted to put away my map and see if I could trace the route from memory. I think I would have been OK as far as Otsu, but after that it got a bit tricky, and even with the map I was occasionally unsure if I was on the right road.

The first few kilometers were uphill. Although it wasn't steep I found myself huffing and puffing, a reminder of how unprepared I was. I then dropped down into Yamashina before tackling the day's main obstacle: Osaka pass. On the way up a cycle tourist whizzed past going the other way. He was going downhill, so there was no way he was going to stop, but ours eyes met and he gave me a wave.

Near the top of the pass there was a small rest area with a toilet and a panel explaining the history of the pass. I didn't remember this from last time, so I stopped to read the panel. It explained how the pass had been used since the Heian period, when Kyoto was the nation's capital, to transport provisions that had been shipped across Lake Biwa to Otsu over the hill to Kyoto. Ox carts were used for this purpose, and to guide the oxen and prevent the carts slipping back down the hill if the oxen decided they'd had enough, a mechanism called kuruma-ishi (literally "wheel stones") was invented. These consisted of rocks with grooves cut in them set in the earth with gaps in between them. Some of these kuruma-ishi can still be found over the Osaka pass. In fact there were some in the rest area where the panel was.


Soon after leaving the rest area I noticed a Japanese man with a backpack walking in the opposite direction on the other side of the road. We waved to each other, and he gestured to indicate that he wanted to cross the road and talk to me. The road was very busy, and the only place he could cross was near the rest area I'd just left, so I turned around and went back to wait for him.

His name was Mr Koguchi, and his business card gave his occupation as "adventurer". He was walking the Tokaido as part of a longer journey that would take him the length of Japan. And he was doing it the hard way, camping out and cooking for himself. He was very friendly, and we talked enthusiastically for several minutes before taking photos of each other and heading our separate ways.

Mr Koguchi, Adventurer

After descending the pass, I continued on through Otsu and along the shores of Lake Biwa to Zeze where I stopped for lunch just before noon. I'd intended to have lunch at the same restaurant Erik and I ate at in 2007. I couldn't remember the restaurant's name (mars-mars), but I could remember roughly where it was, and I was happy to find it was still operating. None of the staff seemed to remember me (perhaps they were all new). However, they gave me the same friendly reception we got in 2007. (On that occassion we sat outside on a terrace, and one of the waiters brought us knee rugs.) Seeing my pack, one of the waitresses asked me if I was out for a "stroll" (using the Japanese word "sanpo"). She was shocked when I told her I was walking the Tokaido all the way to Tokyo. The food was as good as last time too. I had one of the lunch sets which consisted of seafood spaghetti, a salad, and as much bread as I could fit on my plate, followed by an iced coffee.

Salad (with meat!) at mars-mars

An hour or so after leaving Zeze I crossed the Seta river. Soon after that I left the main road and for several kilometres followed a smaller, twisting road that was quite hilly in parts. At one point I encountered a group of elementary school students, who reacted as many Japanese elementary school kids outside the big cities do by pointing and shouting "Amerikajin!" ("American!"). One even ran up to me, looked at my face, and then ran back to his friends and shouted, "Honto da!" ("It’s true!") We soon got talking, though, and I explained to them all about the Tokaido (which they didn’t seem to know anything about).

I reached the outskirts of Kusatsu at about 3.30pm. I was buggered, and the tops of my forearms, where I hadn't bothered to apply sunscreen, were sunburnt. As well, my groin was quite sore and my hips were bruised from the weight of my pack. I was tempted to go straight to my hotel next to Kusatsu station, but decided instead to stop at a small museum and take a look at the honjin (Edo-period inn for feudal lords) in the old post town of Kusatsu-juku. After all, one of the reasons I'd decided to walk less distance each day compared to 2007 was to give me more time to see these kinds of attractions. I was glad I did stop. Although the museum wasn't great, the honjin was fantastic. I was the only visitor at the time, so the custodian talked to me at length, explaining how this honjin was the best preserved out of the 30 or so left in the country. However, I embarrassed myself by almost forgetting to take my shoes off before entering the building. Mind you, it was only my third day back in Japan. Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to take photos inside the honjin, otherwise I would have taken one of the beautiful lacquered toilet reserved for feudal lords.

Kusatsu honjin

After leaving the honjin I pushed on into central Kusatsu and checked into the Boston Plaza Hotel. I think I must have been a bit dehydrated, because the first thing I did when I got to my room was gulp down about three big glasses of water. The second thing I did was take a close look at my feet. When I took my shoes off at the honjin I felt like I had blisters. On closer inspection, however, this appeared not to be the case. My burnt forearms were a worry, though, so I went out and bought some sunscreen to supplement the tube I'd brought from home, which was really just for my face and hands.

For dinner I went to a noodle place and had a nishin soba set (soba with grilled herring, a bowl of rice, and various side dishes). On the way back to my hotel I stopped at a convenience store and bought some yoghurt with fresh fruit in it which I ate in my room for dessert. I then had a long soak in a hot bath before going to bed at around 9pm.

Osaka - Kyoto

I woke at around 2.30am and snoozed on and off until around 5.30am, when I was pretty sure I couldn’t sleep any more. The first thing I did on getting up was to try to get the phone going. I was sure I'd tried pressing all the different buttons the night before, but just to make sure I tried pressing them again. Suddenly the phone sprang to life. I then remembered you had to press a particular button and keep it pressed down to turn the phone on. I felt like an idiot, although I would have felt like more of an idiot if I'd taken the phone into a shop and asked them if they could "fix" it, which was what I was originally planning to do later that day. Anyway, to have the phone going was a huge relief.

I showered, etc. and watched TV until 7.15am when I went out for breakfast. The area around the station was already quite busy, and I was shocked to see so many people wearing facemasks. I swear as many as eight in ten people were masked up. I found a coffee shop inside the station building and ordered a typical Japanese coffee shop breakfast set of toast, boiled egg, salad, and coffee. No other shops were open yet, so I went back to my hotel room and topped up the phone and sent a few emails.

At 10am I went out to buy some provisions (bottled water, sachets of washing powder for washing my clothes along the way) and to check out some bookshops. I then went to the Mont Bell flagship store and bought a belt. I checked out of my hotel at 11.45am and went to have lunch at an Italian restaurant not far from the hotel where I usually eat when I'm in Osaka. While I was eating I looked around me and felt something was wrong. After a while I realized that it was because none of the patrons were wearing facemasks. I'd already gotten so used to seeing everyone around me wearing a mask that the absence of masks seemed strange. You'd think that if you were going to use a mask to prevent catching swine flu then a crowded restaurant would be one of the first places you'd use it, but of course you can’t eat with a facemask on.

After walking around for a bit I picked up my pack from the hotel and wandered over to the Hankyu Railway station to catch a train to Kyoto, arriving at Kawaramachi at around 2.30pm. It was too early to check in to my hotel, so I had an iced coffee and some cake at a nearby coffee shop. I noticed that far fewer people were wearing masks in Kyoto, even though it was only half an hour by train from Osaka.


I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the Pontocho area on the west bank of the Kamo River. It's an area of Kyoto I'd never really explored before, and doing so left me with a new-found respect for the city, which apart from the temples has always left me feeling underwhelmed in the past. I went as far north as Sanjo-Ohashi, the bridge that marks the beginning (or end if you're walking from Tokyo) of both the Nakasendo and the Tokaido, taking quite a few photos along the way, including several of the bridge itself.


For dinner I went to Cappriciosa, a popular local Italian restaurant chain, where I couldn't resist ordering a glass of a beer to wash down my salmon spaghetti and garlic bread. I'd decided as a rule to stay off alcohol during my Tokaido walk, but I figured I wasn't actually walking yet. Plus, regardless of the time of year, I always feel like drinking beer when I'm in Japan, which is odd since it's a beverage I rarely drink in New Zealand.

Despite all the walking I'd done, the toe felt pretty good. But the next day would be the real test. I was due to start walking the Tokaido.