The alarm went off at 7.30 am on Monday morning and we closed up our backpacks and walked to Asakusa station. From there we went by metro to Ueno Station to catch our Shinkansen (bullet train) to Utsonomiya. On the platform we found signs indicating where you should stand for each carriage. The train turned up exactly on time and sure enough our carriage door was precisely in front of where we standing. A little over 40 minutes later we arrived at Utsonomiya and then transferred to a local train to Nikko. At the Nikko Tourist Information Office we found out that the Toshugu Grand Festival was on. Today was the first day with the Yabusame ritual (horseback archery) and on the second day (tomorrow), there would be a procession of 1,000 warriors (samurai). We checked into our hostel (it was brand new and we were the first occupants of the double room) and then we rushed off to the Toshugu Temple to watch the horseback archery. We got there just in time to see the beautifully dressed archers riding up to the temple. On the approach to the temple, three targets had been set up and the archers took it in turns to gallop along the 200 metre approach to the temple and fire at the targets. The gallops were over in a matter of seconds – almost before we had time register them.
The next morning we headed to the temple complex to watch the Hyakumono-zoroe Sennin Gyoretsu (Parade of One-Thousand Warriors). The procession was made up of one thousand men dressed as samurai warriors which was preceded by three portable shrines. There were several different types of warriors in distinctive costumes and bearing different types of weapons – some were wearing helmets and chain mail, others were carrying long bows, others were carrying long spears and others were carrying swords. This procession was a re-enactment of the transferring of Tokugawa Ieyasu's remains to Nikko. After the procession we went to the information centre to take part in a free guided tour organised by the Nikko Tourist Association. The tour guide was Japanese and he led us along the route of the procession explaining the history and origins of the ceremony. After the tour we went to the ticket office to buy a combined ticket to the Nikko shrines and temples. We went to the Toshugu Shrine and arrived just in time to see the procession of samurais returning. As the warriors arrived at the Toshugu Shrine, they piled up their weapons in front of a store house and then ducked off to the side to smoke, disrobe, eat lunch, go to the toilet etc etc. At the back of the procession, the three shrines returned. These were carried by 50 people and looked really heavy (apparently they were 1,200 kgs) and you could see the shrine carriers struggling to carry the shrines up the steep flights of stairs.
Outside the Toshugu shrine, we saw the famous carving of the three monkeys in "see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil" pose at the Sacred Stable (Shinkyusha). After visiting all of the shrines and temples, we walked to the Kanmangafuchi Abyss. This was a really pleasant walk along the riverside with some lovely scenery. Just before we reached the gorge, we walked past about 70 stone Buddha statues. We walked back into town a slightly different way passing through an old cemetery in the forest on the way.
We had another early start on Wednesday morning because we were catching a series of trains to Tsuruoka. We actually arrived at Tsuruoka two hours late (very surprising for Japan) because there was a technical problem with the train in front of us. At Tsuruoka we checked into a Japanese style room with tatami mats and mattresses on the floor. The hotel didn't accept credit cards so we went out to look for an ATM. This turned out to be much harder than we expected as none of the ATMs that we found seemed to accept international credit cards or Mastercard. It was also raining a little which made walking around unpleasant. We knew that there was an ATM that accepted international cards at the post office but we didn't know where it was. We asked quite a few people for directions – sales clerks and school kids – but no one seemed to speak any English. At one stage a man walking his dog stopped to ask us if we needed any help. We explained our predicament and he pointed us in the direction of a small post office branch but when we got there it was closed and the ATM was on the inside. Then the man who was walking his dog (Akitoshi Hosoi) pulled up in a car beside us and insisted on taking us to the main post office which was open. We were able to withdraw some money from the ATM and when we came outside Akitoshi was waiting for us and he drove us back to our hotel. Unfortunately, Akitoshi couldn't speak much English so we couldn't really converse with him. Anyway we thanked him profusely, wrote down our name and address and gave him a key ring that we had acquired in India.
On Thursday morning, we woke up feeling like we had slept out on the road with our heads on the kerb. The mattress was really thin and the pillow felt like it had been filled with sand. As it was raining we were in no rush and we took our time getting ready and having breakfast. After breakfast, we headed to the Tourist Information Office next to the station to find out about getting to Dewa Sanzan – Trio of Sacred Mountains. It turned out that there was a bus leaving for Mount Haguro in 20 minutes, so we dashed back to the hotel to brush our teeth and grab our day pack with jumpers, snacks, and Lonely Planet. At the bus stop we met Michiko from Tokyo who told us she had come to Tsuruoka to pray at her parents' graveside. She was also going to Mount Haguro to eat at a special vegetarian restaurant run by monks. The bus ride to Mount Haguro was really beautiful. Everything looked really green and fresh. We drove past water filled rice paddies and mist filled forests of conifers. We got off the bus at the top of the hill and we found ourselves walking down the hill with Michiko. We walked along a narrow wooden boardwalk, stony paths and slippery muddy leaf filled tracks – we were both wearing sandals which was not great. We saw herons nesting in trees next to a frog filled lake and some piles of snow but hardly any people!. At one stage we walked past a large complex of around 10 shrines. Before entering the complex, Michiko showed us how to wash our hands, rinse our mouths and then wash the scoop at the water trough at the entrance. Our favourite shrine was surrounded on all sides by shoes and Japanese wooden sandals (geta). Michiko said that this shrine was dedicated to travellers, who need good shoes – which was very appropriate for us! Just before we left the shrine Michiko went to the shrine shop and when we asked she showed us her purchases. She had purchased what looked like two tiny little masks (one was a black crow and one was a red long nosed face) which were actually sake cups. The large shrine was impressively thatched with a massive wooden structure in front housing a metal bell. At the restaurant we said our goodbyes to Michiko, and much to our embarrassment she presented us with the cups! We continued our walk down Mount Haguro, past the 5-storeyed pagoda and the 1,400 year old cedar tree with a rope tied around it. We saw a beautiful waterfall with a picturesque little red bridge across a flowing stream next to it. At Haguro Centre, the bottom of the hill, we saw that the next bus wasn't due for another hour, so after a toilet stop and a quick look around, we decided to start walking to Tsuruoka. Fifteen minutes later reason kicked in. We worked out that our bus trip from Tsuruoka to Mount Haguro had taken at least forty minutes so the journey would be a minimum of forty kilometres! We decided that we should keep our eyes open for a bus stop. We were very relieved to find one and very relieved when the bus turned up a short time later. The bus dropped us off at the station and we went back to the hotel to drop off our stuff before going out to look for somewhere to eat.
On Friday morning, we woke early because of the sunlight shining through the screens – Japan really is the land of the rising sun! Keith went out and bought tangelos, grapes and cherry tomatoes for breakfast and the shop owner threw in a tray of strawberries for free. How unbelievable! We caught a series of trains from Tsurukoa to Niigata, to Takasaki, to Nagano, to Nagiso. From there we shared a taxi to Tsumago with some Dutch tourists. We saw more great scenery with the early trains running along the coast for the first time. Everywhere we saw the Japanese working on their rice paddies or vegetable gardens. The later trains wound up into the mountains after Matsumoto and we saw more forests of bamboo waving in the wind and treed mountains capped by snow. When we got to Tsumago we went to the Tourist Information Centre and organised to stay around the corner in a Hatago (historic inn) – Sakamoto-ya. Tsumago –juku is an old post town and looks like a museum with the old style picturesque wood and plaster houses of the Edo period preserved where elsewhere most was destroyed by fire over the years. It used to be on the important highway between Kyoto and Tokyo (Edo). It looked like the set from an old Akira Kurosawa samurai film. The main street was lined with shops – mainly selling souvenirs and sweets. We felt like we had stepped back in time because the main street was closed to traffic and at dusk the street was only lit by a few small lanterns. After our walk around town and along the river we went back to the inn where we sat on little stools on wooden slats and scooped hot water over ourselves from a wooden bath. Afterwards we climbed up the steep stairs to our tatami-matted "lounge" and ate our dinner. Because we were the only guests in the inn for the evening we had the use of an additional sleeping room which was separated from the lounge by sliding doors. Normally because of limited space the lounge doubles up as a sleeping room as the low table and cushions can be pushed to one side and the bedding can be pulled out of a cupboard at night time.
After breakfast the next morning, we packed up and dropped our bags off at the Tourist Office to be transferred to the Magome Tourist Office. We strolled through the village and began the 7.6 kilometre hike along the historic Nakasan-do Road up the Magome pass to Magome-juku. Most of the walk was along the Araragi River. We walked past beautiful white plaster and brown wooden houses with sculpted bonsai and colourful flower gardens, pine and bamboo forests, vegetable gardens, a trout farm, waterfalls and newly planted rice paddies. There was water everywhere and there were several points at which we could fill up our water bottles with fresh mountain spring water. A lot of the houses had water features with water running into flower filled containers near the front door. We saw a dead elephant shrew and a small bright orange snake. We arrived at Magome-juku at 1.00 pm hungry and eager for lunch. After lunch we went to the Tourist Office to collect our bags and we found out that the next bus for Nakatsugawa Station left in seven minutes so we had to rush down the hill to the bus stop. At the train station we found out how to get to Takayama and boarded the first train. After a couple of changes we arrived at Takayama. At Takayama Station we went straight to the Tourist Information Office to get directions to our hostel. It turned out to be a couple of blocks away so it was an easy five minute walk – a big relief because we were tired from our morning hike.
On Sunday morning it was raining pretty heavily when we woke up so we decided to treat it as a rest day. We borrowed umbrellas from the hostel and went to the "food festival" which took up a whole street a block away from the hostel. We tried some pretty odd tasting fishy products, rice crackers, prawn crackers, fish crackers, saki, mochi (pounded rice balls filled with red bean paste – azuki) and some strange nuts. After that we went to the supermarket and bought some food to cook in the kitchen. It was really good to cook for ourselves for a change.
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