The students are writing about their summer break so I thought I would post an account of what I did over the summer...I had a wonderful summer vacation this year. I took two weeks off and headed down to the Kansai region of Japan, which some readers (hi, Mom) will recognize as the first area of Japan I lived in when I came here 8 years ago. The area is most famous for cities like Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe, but I was headed to Wakayama, a very beautiful, very rural prefecture made up mainly of farmland and mountains (the name “Wakayama” means something like “Mountain of Peaceful Song”). I had decided to hike along the Kumano Kodo, a series of ancient pilgrimage routes running through Wakayama prefecture as well as parts of Nara and Osaka. I had given myself 13 days to hike 150 kilometers and after two and a half years in Tokyo I was really looking forward to spending two weeks as far away from the big city as I could get. In the end, my hiking trip was shortened to only 6 days for reasons I'll get into in later posts. But regardless of length, it was an amazing experience and I'm already thinking about going back next year!
DAY 1: Seiganto-ji Temple to Koguchi
Distance: 16km hike
My trip began in Kii-Katsuura, home to Seiganto-ji Temple, a beautiful temple situated near the Nachi Waterfall. It really is a lovely area and the view of the temple with the waterfall in the background is pretty inspiring. The trail head to the Kumano Kodo is here and after spending the night in a small minshuku (family owned inn) next to the temple I struck out early in the morning for the first of six days of hiking.
The forest was deserted. In fact during the first six days of my hike I met maybe 10 people. The only real experience I have with hiking is at Mt. Rainier in my home state of Washington and there are ALWAYS other people hiking along the same trail. I’d never gone a full day of hiking without seeing another person and ultimately the lack of other hikers forced me to rethink my route as I didn’t want to be stranded alone in the woods with a broken leg. But for the first day, at least, I welcomed the solitude and spent the day soaking in the clean air, beautiful views and silence afforded by the mountain trail.
I spent the evening in a tiny village (Seriously tiny. The elderly couple who owned the minshuku where I stayed told me there were only about 100 people in the whole town and the average age was in the low 70’s.). I was delighted to find a clean, cool river perfect for swimming and after taking a dip I fell asleep on the warm rocks for a few hours. At dinner, I was served tempura, tuna sashimi, and fresh fish caught in the same river I had been swimming in just hours before. It was just what I needed after a long day of hiking. I really liked this minshuku and the owners were perfect- friendly without being too chatty. They even called ahead to a minshuku in the next town and booked me a room for the next day. Their Japanese was also really easy to understand which came as a relief. I had worried that in such a rural place people would have some pretty thick accents and would use a dialect unique to the region, but it wasn’t a problem. I went to bed the first day with a full belly, looking forward to the next day's hike.
