Osaka

 On Saturday, by about 4pm I was in Osaka and it was a short subway ride from the station to the hotel. After relaxing a bit I walked around the area of the hotel. It is in the northern part of central Osaka and it is the financial district. I found a craft brewery called Yellow Ape  and had a couple of beers to celebrate my trip so far. 

The next day, Sunday, was my first full day in Osaka and it was sunny and kind of hot. I walked along a river near the hotel, starting at the Osaka City Hall, and the river has a nice park running along it.

I headed toward Osaka castle, with a huge moat around it. I went inside the main castle grounds which has a garden with great views of the castle itself.

I stood in line for a ticket to go inside, which has 8 floors including an observation deck at the top. The rest is a museum with displays about things like the huge stones that were transported from all over Japan to build the walls, the battle called the Summer of Osaka in 1615 between the new Tokugawa shogunate and rival families, and the life of Hideyoshi who was the previous Shogun who first united Japan.

I then sat outside for a while and did a drawing of the castle.

Afterwards I walked towards the Dotonburi area near Namba station, in the southern part of central Osaka. It took about an hour. Osaka feels more industrial than Tokyo, and it has rivers and canals running through it, often with boats doing some kind of business.

Dontonburi is a large area of narrow streets, branching some covered mall streets, all filled with shops, restaurants and bars. 

In the area is a small temple called Hozenji, with a moss-covered Buddha statue.

I walked around, had something to eat  and found a craft beer place called schua2. I met some people there and ended up staying for a couple of hours. By then it was dark, and walking back to the hotel through Dotonburi, I realized that it is at night that the place really comes alive.

The next day, Monday April 28, I did laundry in the morning, then took the subway to Namba station to go to the Kuromon Market, a food market covering several blocks.

There are stores selling fresh produce and lots of stores selling seafood.

There were lots of food stalls selling everything from strawberries to sushi to beef skewers. I had a skewer of domestic beef that was really good. It was not the crazy expensive Wagyu beef, though.

By then it was pouring rain and no good for walking outside, so I wandered around the huge underground mall of Namba station for a while. In the big Japanese cities, it seems a large part of the city is underground.

I then took the subway to the station near the hotel, and stopped at Yellow Ape brewing to read a bit. They have an interesting system for self-serve beer. You get a card, then go to a wall of beer taps. You put the card against the reader for the tap that you want, and it records how beer you poured. You can do that again for any other tap.

Afterward I went back to the hotel for an early night.

The next day, Tuesday, was my last in Osaka. It was sunny but kind of cool. I got up really early and took the subway to Tennoji station, further south than Namba. There is Tennoji Park, and as I walk through in the early morning I could see they were setting up for something. Then I realized that it was April 29, Showa Day (a former emperor's birthday) a public holiday and the beginning of Golden Week. 

I walked through the park to Isshinji Temple, founded in 1185 by the founder of Joudo Shuu Buddhism. As part of the holiday, I assume, many people were there dressed in black, lighting candles and incense to pay respect to ancestors.

I then walked over to the large Shitennoji Temple complex. There are several buildings, and on the temple grounds there was a large used book market.

The main part is a central walled off area containing the main hall and pagoda.

I also visited the little garden there.

I walked back to Tennoji Park and the festivities were in full swing. People were picnicing on the field, and there was a German style beer garden. I had some sausage and beer.

Next to Tennoji Park is the Shinsekai area, containing several narrow streets south of the Tsutenkaku Tower.

Rather than shops, this area has more of a festival feel to it, with food stalls and games such as shooting, arcade-type games and archery.

I kept walking northward and passed through Nippombashi Den-Den Town. This has electronics shops and manga and maid cafes, like Akihabara in Tokyo.

A little more walking and I was back in Dontonburi. All of the interesting areas like this seem to be clustered together in Osaka, so you can walk along all of them. I stopped for a beer again at schua2. Then I walked a bit in the Namba area, outdoors this time. It was busy with the holiday, and in a square there was a stage set up with live music. Then back to the hotel for another early night.

Kumano Kodo last day

Saturday, April 26 I got up early and walked a little bit more of the Kumano Kodo - about 15 minutes that goes beyond Nachisan, to get one more stamp. It is down a long flight of stone steps lined with large, beautiful cedar trees.

I had breakfast and then caught the bus to Kii-Katsuura. Reflecting on the Kumano Kodo, bumping into the same people along the way while we struggled up and down the slopes and in the day of rain, at the shrines, and sometimes meeting them at the beautiful Japanese accommodations... it felt like a cohort who were going through this. Looking back, the experience was so rich I thought: "all that in just 5 days?"

Here are all the pilgrimage stamps I collected.

Kii-Katsuura is a beautiful fishing town with a seaside pier and markets. I walked around and stopped for coffee before catching the train to Osaka. Train ride went around the coast of the Kii peninsula, with a view great views. 

A lot of the time it went through tunnels, and I nodded off.

Kumano Kodo day 5

The last and most difficult day of the Kumano Kodo, about 15km overall. Breakfast at the accommodation at Koguchi was at 6:15, to give people an early start to do the long hike and arrive at Nachisan in time to see the sights like the Kumano Nachi Taisha, the Nachisen Seiganto-ji, and the Nachisan waterfall.

 From Koguchi, the first 5 km was a fairly constant, steep ascent. The path was rough in some places and in others it consisted of stone steps. Fortunately the temperature was cooler, about 20 degrees C, and it was cloudy but not raining. Perfect for hiking. 

The forest consisted of evenly spaced, same-sized trees typically of logging. I heard that after the war the whole area was heavily logged to provide lumber for rebuilding.  Between the trees was young bamboo growing like shrubbery.

Along the way I started hiking with a group from Singapore, and a young American guy who had joined them.

Finally we reached the highest point of the Kumano Kodo.

 

Along the trail, over the past couple of days, there were 'poem monuments'. Some were so old the writing had faded, and some seemed relatively new.

There were also little bohdisatva statues that people made offerings to.

A little past the highest point there was a great view of the ocean, and I was lucky that the cloud lifted a bit for me to get a picture.

The path was up and down for a few kilometers, then in the last few km it dropped steeply to Nachisan. We made it!

The Kumano Nachi Taisha and the Nachisan Seiganto-ji together form a huge complex. In fact until the Meiji era it was a center for the combined Shinto-Buddhist belief system.

There is also the Nachisan waterfall, the highest single-drop waterfall in Japan. It is actually also a shrine in itself.

I made my way to my accommodation in for a much-needed hot bath and dinner.

Kumano Kodo day 4

 In the morning I took the bus from Yunomine Onsen to the point for continuing the Kumano Kodo, at a bus stop called Ukegawa. Yunomine Onsen is a popular place to stay, and the bus was full. About half were getting off at Ukegawa, the other half were going to a boat cruise down the river.

The day was fairly hot and sunny, but in the shade of the trees it wasn't too bad. The trail did not go on any roads or pass through any villages until the destination for the day, at Koguchi. About 14 km.

The trail rose a bit steeple for the first several km, and there was a great viewpoint of the mountains of the area.

I would meet the some of the people who were on the trail that day the viewpoint and at rest stops, but otherwise I had the trail to myself. From what I've seen over these past few days, everyone hiking the Kumano Kodo is a foreign tourist, no locals.

It went pretty quickly, and by about 1pm arrived at Koguchi. Another 15 minutes and I was at my accommodation, called Koguchi Shizen No Ie, which used to be an elementary school and it still looks like it, except the classrooms are now bedrooms. The rooms are nice though, there is a common bath, and dinner in the cafeteria-like dining room was pretty good. They also had much needed laundry facilities, and I finally got to clean and dry things after everything got soaked the day before.

Kumano Kodo day 3

 Wednesday, April 23, was day 3. Potentially a very long day, and the brochure describes different options for taking the bus part of the way. It was pouring rain, and the owners of the guest house kindly drove us to a point a few kilometers up the trail, at Kobiro-oji. From there we walked all the way to Hongu Taisha, about 12 km.

I spent the day hiking with the German couple from the guest house, Annie and Max. They were very nice and it was very pleasant to chat with them along the way. We slogged through the rain and the slippery, steep up and down slopes. 

An interesting thing was the numerous little red crabs that seemed to come out onto the trail because it was so wet.

Soon after our starting point, we were on the 'permanent detour' trail, since the original was destroyed by a typhoon in 2011. While we were on the detour, there were no distance markers or little shrines.

Once we were back on the original trail, there was the Yukawa-oji which felt quite remote.

After about 5 tough km, the trail went through a beautiful little village just before Inohana-oji, where there was a rest stop and a great view of the valley below toward Hongu Taisha.

Then we reached Hosshinmon-oji, where the trail toward Hongu Taisha was on road for a while, it was mostly downhill, and the rain had let up so we could take off our rain gear.

After a while the trail went off the road, but it wasn't rough and it was downhill, and soon we were at Hongu Taisha. 

This is the main shrine complex for the area and the focal point of the Kumano Kodo. There is the large shrine itself, and a long set of stairs down to the village lined by banners on each side.

We got there in good time to catch the earlier bus to Yunomine Onsen, where our accommodation was.

My accommodation was a traditional Japanese Ryokan, one of the oldest, and it was amazing.

I got cleaned up from the hike in the rain, spent time in the onsen inside the Ryokan, and had a traditional Japanese dinner served in my room.

By then it was dark, but I went outside to walk a bit. In the center of town, by the hotspring creek that flows through it, there is a pool of pure hotspring water that is so hot it can be used for cooking. 

There was a Japanese family there who were cooking a full dinner there: fish, vegetables and eggs. I chatted with them a bit, the kids wanted to talk to me, and they shared some of the food. Very cool experience.

Kumano Kodo day 2

The second day is a long hike from Takahara to Nonaka, about 12 km, but no really steep parts and it is mostly flat or downhill. I started walking about 8:30, the weather was cloudy and cooler than yesterday, but quite comfortable. There were several small shrines to get stamps at. All the shrines had a little story written about them. Often it is a place that is mentioned in an ancient document, for example that an emperor stopped there and commented on something.

Most of the time I had the trail to myself, and I'd usually bump onto the same people at shrines and rest stops.

It was all forested area with medium sized trees, and a creek here and there. You can tell when an area, despite being forest, has a long history of human impact.

In the early afternoon the trail followed a road as it dropped down to the village of Chikatsuyu. The view struck me as a contrast to the big cities.

 I passed through the village and continued uphill on the road to the neighboring Nonaka area, looking for my accommodation.

My accommodation for the day was uncertain, as the name of the place on my reservation did not show up on Google Maps or the brochure. I finally found something online, that the place has a new owner and a new name, so I kept walking hoping to find it.

I found the place with the new name, but check-in wasn't for a couple of hours. About the same time, a group I'd seen before came walking by. They were waiting to check-in as well, and were walking to the next shrine at Tsugizakura to kill time, so I joined them. This shrine was next to a couple of very large, very old trees.

Next I walked back to the guest house, just as the owner was driving up. He confirmed that this was the right place. About the same time a young German couple I bumped before arrived. We talked with the owner about the plan for the next day, had dinner, and called it a day.

Kumano Kodo day 1

 For the week of Monday, April 21 to Saturday, April 26, I made all the bookings for accommodations and luggage transfers, to do the 5 days of hiking  of the Kumano Kodo. It is in the Kii peninsula south of Osaka. The hike has a history as a pilgrimage going back 1000 years, and it was done by emperors. 

It is a  World Heritage Site and an official pilgrimage. At the information center you pick up a little book, and at every little shrine along way, you get a stamp. Half of the book is for the Kumano Kodo, the other half is for the Camino pilgrimage in Spain. If you do both, you can get some kind of certificate.

On the first day I got up at 5 am in Kyoto to take the train to Osaka, transfer in the huge Osaka station to the train to Kii-Tanabe, meet the person to take my luggage, then get the bus to Takijiri. The timing of all these things had to work out, so I was a bit stressed. However everything went ok.

I requested a guide for the first day, and she met me at the bus stop in Takijiri. Her name was Mitsuyo, and she explained a lot of the history as we went along.  After a brief stop at the information center, we stopped at the first shrine and then started hiking up the steep trail. 

The first day of the hike goes to small hamlet in the mountains called Takahara. It was only about 4 km, but very steep. Great views at the top.

Just inside Takahara there I very old little shrine called Kumano jinja.

Finally after another steep climb we arrived at the guest house. Very nice little place with an amazing view from my room.

And the meal was amazing.

Last day in Kyoto

 Sunday, April 19 was a free day, my last day in Kyoto. I needed to set aside some time at the end of the day to rearrange my luggage for starting the Kumano Kodo hike, but otherwise there were no plans. 

I decided not to try to do too much, so I spent the morning and afternoon  hanging in Nijo Castle, not far from the hotel. The grounds of the castle are huge, with beautiful Japanese gardens.

Nijo castle has an interesting history, being built by the Shogun Tokugawa in 1600's marking the beginning of the 250 year, prosperous Tokugawa Shogunate. It was also the site of the transfer of power back to the emperor at the beginning of the Meiji era in 1868.

There are two large Palace complexes, the main one was occupied by the shogun when he was in Kyoto. 

The second was moved here later after the transfer of power to the emperor, and is surrounded by its own moat.

I walked all around, then got a ticket to go into the main palace. The wood floor of the corridor made a squeaking noise that sounded like chirping birds. The series of large tatami rooms all had beautiful walls with paintings on a gold background. There were paintings of tigers to symbolize the shoguns power, pine trees for longevity, etc.

After I'd seen everything I sat outside some more and did a drawing of the Kara-mon Gate.

Next I headed over to Kyoto Beer Lab for a late lunch and beer. I had time so I decided to walk back to the hotel. On the way I passed the large Nishi Hongan-ji temple, and went in for a look.

Finally I went back to the hotel to get ready for the hike and make it an early night.