Day 5: Nirasaki - Kofu

Distance covered: 12.6km
Weather: Fine and very hot!

Thinking that breakfast was from 7am, I went down to the hotel restaurant a few minutes before the hour to find it was full (it actually opened at 6.45am), and had to wait a few minutes to get a table. It was billed as a "Japanese and Western style" buffet, but the selection of bread and pastries on offer was so poor I went for a Japanese-style breakfast of rice, miso soup, grilled fish (trout, I think), mini omelets, deep-fried squid rings (!?), and salad. I had a small coughing fit in the middle of the meal and felt a bit nauseous for a few minutes, a reaction to the unfamiliar morning menu (at home I'm a toast and coffee man) or possibly to the heat.

I left the hotel at 8.45. My goal for the day, the city of Kofu, was just 12.6km away, so I took it easy and made sure to drink lots of water given that the temperature was forecast to hit 32 degrees. After the sunburnt head debacle of the previous day, I'd switched to my Nike cap.

The scenery grew increasingly urban as the day wore on (Kofu is the capital of Yamanashi prefecture and the largest city in the area), although there were still plenty of nice old kura and other buildings and I enjoyed the views of the surrounding mountains. I even caught a glimpse of Mount Fuji in the afternoon, albeit behind a cloak of haze.


At around midday I passed the Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Art. I knew they had a substantial Millet collection as well as some Henry Moore sculptures. But I had another reason for stopping, and that was to escape the fierce heat. As I learnt later that evening, the temperature in Kofu reached 35.7 degrees that day. In that kind of heat, any concern for sartorial elegance is abandoned as one's instinct for self-preservation kicks in. In short, I put a towel on my head.


I spent an hour or so in the air-conditioned museum checking out the Millet collection as well as a fascinating exhibition of photographs by Felix Thiollier, a pioneering French photographer whose works (including some of the very first color photographs) have only recently come to the attention of the art world.

For the last few kilometeres into Kofu I was thankful for the shade the taller buildings of the city provided. I headed for the station area and lunched on spaghetti, salad, and iced coffee before booking into my hotel at around 2.45pm. After doing some washing in the bathtub (there was no coin laundry), I visited the basement food floor of the department store just down the road and bought a small can of beer and some deep-fried squid rings and some sushi and salad for dinner. As breakfast wasn't included at my hotel, I also got some yoghurt and bread for the next morning. Back in my hotel room, I checked out the weather on the TV to find rain was forecast, which sounded just fine after the scorching heat of today's leg.

Day 4: Tsutaki-juku - Nirasaki

Distance covered: 28.4km
Weather: Fine

The soreness in my legs and hips from the evening before had gone by the time I got up shortly after 6am. I've probably mentioned this before, but the body's ability to recover completely overnight amazes me.

At 7am I went down and got some bread and coffee from the little buffet in the lobby and ate breakfast in my room. I then checked out and headed to the station where I caught a taxi back to the Tsutaki-juku rest area, the point where I'd left the Koshu Kaido the day before. The fare was about half of what I paid then. I guess I was charged extra for the taxi to come from Kobuchizawa to get me.

At the rest area I stocked up on water before rejoining the Koshu Kaido. The temperature was forecast to reach the thirties, and I didn't want to be caught without water again.


It was 8.30am by the time I started walking. For the first few kilometres I followed a narrow road next to Route 20 through rice-farming country. The annual rice harvest was underway, and in drained paddies next to the road farmers were busy cutting the plants and hanging them up to dry in preparation for threshing. The cutting and threshing were done by machines, but the hanging seemed to be an entirely manual operation.


At around 10.15am I reached the post town of Daigahara. I passed an old sake brewery called Shichiken and popped in with the intention of using the toilet, but on hearing that I was walking the Koshu Kaido the proprietress insisted I taste one of the local brews. She told me a bit about the history of the brewery and explained the sake-making process. The tasting room was quite new, but the main building dates back to the Edo period. The large ball seen hanging under the eaves in the photo is called a sugidama. It's made from cedar needles and traditionally lets people know not only that sake is available but the degree of maturity of the brew. The greener the ball, the younger the sake.

As usual, midday came and went without me finding a suitable restaurant for lunch, so I bought a cold salmon-and-rice dish and some deep-fried goodies at a convenience store which I washed down with an iced coffee. Shortly after getting underway again I passed this curious object on a hillside overlooking the town of Maruno.


The sign next to it mentioned a scarecrow festival, so my guess is it has something to do with that. There are some photos of the festival here.

A little further on, while crossing the Kamanashi River, a noticed two figures standing on the bridge ahead of me, one of whom looked familiar. It was the retiree from Nara I'd met the day before. He was even more surprised to see me, since he'd just been telling his new acquaintance (a farmer who'd stopped on the bridge to check out the fishing prospects in the river below) about a strange New Zealander he'd met whose hobby was walking the old highways of Edo-period Japan. The three of us had a good old chat and then the retiree and I bid the farmer farewell and headed on together into the town of Nirasaki. I never did learn his name, but he did tell me he was 62 and an avid mountain climber.

The farmer and the mountain climber

I checked into my hotel in Nirasaki just after 3pm. When I got to my room and took my sun hat off I was surprised to see two pink patches on the skin just above my temples. It didn't take me long to realize that the sun had penetrated the mesh side panels of my sun hat. The mesh provided welcome ventilation, but the designers obviously hadn't taken into account the consequences for the follicly challenged. My hands were also slightly sunburnt.

Later that afternoon I walked down to the station area of Nirasaki and found a Coco's family restaurant. As you may recall from my Nakasendo and Tokaido diaries, the Coco's seafood soup spaghetti is one of my all-time favourite Japanese family restaurant meals, and I was delighted to find it still on the menu. Unfortunately it wasn't quite up to the usual standard. I was well into my meal before I remembered Mrs Fool had asked me to take photos of the food highlights of my trip. I took some photos anyway. So here are the remains of the seafood soup spaghetti dish:


And here are the remains of dessert, a green tea fondant with ice cream and azuki beans:

Day 3: Chino - Tsutaki-juku

Distance covered: 18.6km
Weather: Drizzly then fine

I got up at 5.30am and breakfasted on the rum raisin cakes, fruit yoghurt, and iced coffee I'd bought the night before. It was drizzling as I left the hotel at 8am but stopped after a few minutes. I had to walk a couple of kilometres to rejoin the Koishu Kaido, and along the way I passed the shrine where yesterday's festival had ended. I expected to see the pillars in place, but they were still lying on the ground, so I didn't feel so bad about leaving the festival early. There were some people milling around and I figured they were going to raise the pillars in the hours ahead. Unfortunately I didn't have time to wait around, so after taking a few photos I continued on to Chino station to rejoin the Koshu Kaido where I'd left it the previous day.

The logs at Tatsuya Sukura shrine ready for raising

Half an hour or so later I passed another shrine and heard shouting and band music. As luck would have it, there was another Onbashira festival in progress and they were in the middle of raising one of the pillars. It was quite a display. I watched while the pillar was raised by hand by teams of festival-goers using ropes passed around tree trunks, with three guys clinging to the top of the pillar giving occasional displays of acrobatics to the accompaniment of chanting and bursts of music from a small band.

Raising a pillar at Sakamuro shrine

All hands to the rope!

Securing the erect pillar

Another pillar ready for raising

I watched until the pillar was fully raised, then continued on my way along the Koshu Kaido, which for most of the morning followed busy Route 20. Just after passing through the post town of Kanazawa I came across this magnificent old keyaki tree marking the site of an ichirizuka, or route marker.


I was pretty hungry at this stage and running out of water, but there were no restaurants in sight. I passed another hiker going the same way as me, but since he seemed busy taking a photograph of something and I was desperate for water, I didn't stop to say hello. I little further on I spotted a vending machine down a side road and went to get a couple of bottles of water. The other hiker must have overtaken me during this pit stop, because shortly after rejoining the Koshu Kaido I saw him standing by the side of the road chatting to a couple of old women who were sitting at the entrance to a heavily wooded park.

One of the old women saw me and shouted, "Hey, you can't come here without looking at this park. It's wonderful." I went over and introduced myself. The other hiker was a retiree from Nara who spent his spare time wandering the countryside listening to all sorts of stories locals had to tell. He was collecting these stories as a kind of unofficial, unwritten history of the country. After listening in on the conversation for a while, I excused myself and went to look at the park, which according to my map was called Fujimi park. It was nothing special, but I guess if you hadn't seen many parks you might think it was wonderful.

I was eager to press on, since when I mentioned my goal for the day to the people I'd just met they thought I still had a long way to go. Soon after this I came across a stretch of the Koshu Kaido that was marked impassable on my map, which gave two alternate routes. I followed what I thought was one of these alternate routes but the path soon disappeared and I found myself in a woods wading through waist high grass. I resisted the urge to turn back and struggled on till I saw a road in front of me, which I reached by scrambling up a bank. Minutes later I was back on the Koshu Kaido after seeking directions at a scrapyard.

For the next few kilometres I followed a quiet country lane before rejoining Route 20 with about four kilometres to go. The lane was up and down but the pleasant scenery took my mind off my tiring body. I finally arrived at the Tsutaki-juku rest area at around 2pm. I still hadn't had lunch (though I'd been snacking on Scrummy Mix throughout the day), so the first thing I did was have a bowl of soba noodles with mushrooms. I then turned my attention to figuring out how to get to my hotel, which was several kilometres north in the town of Kobuchizawa. I'd intended on walking (it looked close enough on Google maps!), but when I asked a couple of local stallholders at the rest area about the road they said it was windy and uphill all the way, so I called a taxi instead. Not only was the road windy and uphill, but there were some roadworks along the way that would have made walking pretty dangerous, so I was satisfied that taking a taxi was the right decision.

I checked into my hotel at around 3pm. After relaxing and doing a bit of handwashing, I went out for dinner at a wee curry restaurant by the station where the recommended dish of the day was banana curry. It was delicious! On my way back to my hotel I bought a locally-made purin (a Japanese-style custard pudding) at a store inside the station. Unfortunately it had been in the freezer with the ice cream and was frozen solid, so I spent a few minutes back in my hotel room cupping the plastic container in the palms of my hands until it was soft enough to eat. It was still much nicer than the mass-produced purin they sell in convenience stores. I went to bed at around 9pm, my body sore but my taste buds well and truly satisfied.

Day 2: Kami-Suwa - Chino

Distance covered: 6.9km
Weather: Fine

I woke feeling a lot more rested than the previous morning but with a slight tingle in my throat, usually a sign that a cold is on the way. Could it be that my downfall on this, my third major walking expedition, would be not an ingrown toenail or groin strain but a common cold?

I got up at 5.30am and an hour later went down to check out the hotel's buffet breakfast. There was a good selection of Japanese and Western fare, and I filled up on bread, pastries, fish, scrambled egg, and salad.

Having walked 5.9km the day before, I only had to cover 6.9km to reach my next destination: Chino. With plenty of time on my hands, I decided to check out nearby Takashima castle before hitting the Koshu Kaido. The castle was built in the 1590s but lay in ruins for many years before being rebuilt in 1970. It was originally known as the "floating castle" as its location on the edge of Lake Suwa made it appear to rise out of the water. However, as I mentioned yesterday, the lake level has fallen considerably since the Edo period, and the castle is now quite a distance from the lake.


After returning from my castle walk I checked out of my hotel and rejoined the Koshu Kaido at around 9.45am. I took my time, stopping frequently to take photos of some of the lovely kura (storehouses) I saw along the way. I reached Chino station at 11.45am and headed to the art gallery where I had lunch before checking out a couple of exhibitions.

Just as I was about to set off to find my hotel, I noticed a crowd of people on the main road in front of the station preparing for some kind of festival. It was in fact an Onbashira festival. I had been under the impression that there was only one Onbashira festival, the famous one held in April and May that includes the ki-otoshi ceremony (in which young men "ride" huge logs down steep slopes) and climaxes with the ceremonial erection of the logs as pillars at the lower shrine of Suwa Taisha. But in fact dozens of Onbashira festivals are held all around the area. Like the famous festival at Suwa Taisha, these smaller festivals are held just once every seven years, and involve the symbolic renewal of the shrine at the centre of the festival through the raising of four onbashira (pillars) which have been dragged to the shrine by teams of festival-goers.

Preparing for departure

I had arrived just as the teams were about to set off for the shrine, which was about a kilometre away. The organizers generously invited me to join in (actually, unlike the main Onbashira festival, anyone can take part in these local Onbashira festivals), and so shortly after 1pm I took hold of a rope attached to the first log and helped drag it down a slope and through a series of narrow streets to the shrine. In fact I found it difficult to pull the rope and take photos at the same time, so after a hundred metres or so I let go of the rope and walked beside the log the rest of the way.

Through a torii and down the first slope

Around a bend

Hitting a snag

Pushing and shoving

Nearly there

Arriving at the shrine

We arrived at the shrine (called the Tatsuya Sukura-jinja) at around 2pm, and much as I wanted to hang around for the pillar raising I was pretty hot and bothered (it was 27 degrees) and decided to head for my hotel.

I checked in at 3.10pm. Unfortunately breakfast wasn't included in my package, so after dinner at a Coco Ichibanya curry restaurant I popped into a supermarket and bought some things to eat the following morning. On the way back to my hotel I also passed a large shopping complex with a MontBell store. I had a quick look for a belt but didn't see anything that took my fancy. By 9pm I was in bed, feeling satisfied after a day that, despite the short distance covered, turned out to be very rewarding.

Day 1: Shimo-Suwa - Kami-Suwa

Distance covered: 5.9km
Weather: Fine, then cloudy

I got up at 5am after a poor night's sleep and after showering and dressing I began to sort out my luggage. I'd arrived in Tokyo the previous evening with a suitcase containing my pack and the things I needed for my walk as well as some additional clothes and other items I needed for the week I'd be staying in Tokyo with Mrs Fool at the end of the walk. So I transferred all the things I wouldn't be needing on my walk into the suitcase, which I intended to leave at the hotel ready for my return to Tokyo in ten days time.

It was at this point that I realized I'd left the belt that goes with my walking trousers at home. I did have the heavy leather belt with the big buckle that goes with my jeans, but I was reluctant to take it as I'd noticed during my Nakasendo walk that the weight of my bum bag caused the prong to wear a hole in my top. I pondered my options. Duct tape might work, but I didn't have any. I had some surgical tape, but that was too thin. Neither did I have any string. I briefly considered buying a new belt, but decided that would be too extravagant. The only other option I could think of was to go beltless. In the end I concluded having a hole in my top was preferable to walking 220km with my pants around my ankles, and so I went with the leather belt.

At 6.30am I went down for breakfast of white toast and jam, shriveled croissants, and tasteless coffee. Throughout the meal, I could see a couple (him a foreigner, her a Japanese) schmoozing on the footpath across the road from the hotel, and wondered if they'd been up all night partying or were in the process of parting after a night in one of Shinjuku's love hotels.

I'd booked a seat on the train for Kami-Suwa leaving Shinjuku station at 10am, so to fill in time I walked around Shinjuku and had another coffee (a nice one this time) at Doutour. I went back to the hotel and checked out at around 8.45am and made my way slowly to the station.

The Super Azusa limited express runs on the Chuo Line, which roughly follows the path of the Koshu Kaido. The journey from Shinjuku to Kami-Suwa took two hours and nineteen minutes. I would spend ten days walking back along the same route. I amused myself on the train by among other things listening to my favourite train band, The Chills, on my iPod (a late inclusion on my gear list). I consider "Hidden Bay" ("Maybe I'm a fool, a fool, a fool / But baby you're so cool, so cool, so cool") the best pop song for listening to while riding on a train. It also has the advantage of being followed on the album Kaleidoscope World by "I Love my Leather Jacket", one of the best pop songs for listening to anywhere, anytime.


I arrived in Kami-Suwa at 12.19pm and walked the short distance to my hotel. It was too early to check in, so I dumped my pack and after buying lunch at a nearby supermarket rode a local train one stop to Shimo-Suwa, the starting point of my walk. I'd originally intended to rest today and start walking the following day, but I felt good enough to walk the 5.9km from Shimo-Suwa to Kami-Suwa. I took it easy, taking a long break to look around the lower shrine of Suwa Taisha, one of Japan's oldest shrines and the scene of the climax of the famous Onbashira festival. For the five or so kilometers from the shrine to Kami-Suwa, the Koshu Kaido clings to the hillside high above Lake Suwa, while the railway line and main road follow paths closer to the edge of the lake. This puzzled me until I learnt that the lake level is much lower today than it was in the Edo period.


It was fine and warm (around 25 degrees) when I started out, but had clouded over and was threatening to rain by the time I got back to Kami-Suwa at around 3.15pm. I checked in to my hotel, then wandered down to have a look at Lake Suwa. For dinner I chose a restaurant overlooking the lake, where I sampled a glass of what passes for white wine in nearby Nojiri, a relatively new wine-making area I passed through in 2007 while walking the Nakasendo. The food was nice though, and the staff friendly and helpful in meeting my request for a meatless meal in a restaurant I later learnt specialized in local pork.

Back in my hotel room, I watched TV before going to bed at around 9pm. I was feeling positive about the days ahead. I had no injuries, and my body felt good, with none of the stiffness I'd experienced the day before.

Notice

Dear readers

Tomorrow I fly to Japan to walk the Koshu Kaido. Here is my final schedule.

Day 1: Shimo-Suwa - Chino (12.8km)
Day 2: Chino - Araki (18.6km)
Day 3: Araki - Nirasaki (28.4km)
Day 4: Nirasaki - Kofu (12.9km)
Day 5: Kofu – Tsuruse (28.9km)
Day 6: Tsuruse - Otsuki (27km)
Day 7: Otsuki - Uenohara (21.3km)
Day 8: Uenohara - Hachioji (26.7km)
Day 9: Hachioji - Chofu (22.5km)
Day 10: Chofu - Nihonbashi (23.1km)

I'll be posting a full report soon after I get back on October 4, but if you can't wait that long you can check my progress on my other blog:

http://tokaido2009.blogspot.com/

Regards
The Walking Fool

Yukon

In Vancouver I had sold my first gun, never having had an occasion to use it, and I was scared of the thing anyway. On my way north this time, however, the incessant panic talk had stampeded me into buying a gross and unwieldy shotgun - a "Savage," so it said on the barrel.
To learn something more about the weapon, I took it to the local gun expert, which in this land populated with nothing but gun experts happened to be the assistant postmaster. He confirmed my worst fears: "It's factory-flawed. You've got one shot and then you might as well chuck it." We agreed that one shot would probably only enrage several hundred pounds of bear and all but guarantee for me a swift and messy exit from this life.
Fortunately, I chanced to meet a man named Leach, chairman of the Yukon Trappers Association. "I've been in the bush for getting on thirty years," he said, "and never have I seen anything I didn't want to see."
"Well, what did you carry?"
"A bell." He then added, almost defiantly, "You won't need a bloody gun!" That did it. I happily abandoned the Savage.
Beyond the small settlement of Upper Liard, I came upon a herd of horses grazing beside the road. They eyed me and my pinging bell, for they, too, wore bells, partly for the same reason. It was an odd musical confrontation as our different notes momentarily mingled on that cool spring day.

From The Longest Walk by George Meegan

Distance walked since last post: 36.2km
Total distance walked since Koshu Kaido training began: 298.9km
Days left until departure: 4