Post by Ella Yesterday we had a few hours to kill in Kii-Katsuura waiting for our train to Osaka. A very small town but an important tuna fishing port. We wandered, were stopped by friendly locals to see if we needed help (we may have looked a bit bedraggled). One pulled up beside us and…
Author: Ella
By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
Post by Ella A big day. It’s April 1 here. Grubb’s 75th birthday and our anniversary (16 years married, together 20). Can we give the old arthritic man a congratulations for accomplishing the Kumano Kodo? Hotel Urashima, the most famous resort in western Japan. Situated on the Pacific with the waves crashing practically at the…
In the no hike zone
Post by Ella Grubb grabbed my title “shrine hopping” but that’s what the day entailed. No climbing treacherous mountainsides, no slip sliding, no cursing because the up kept on going. We left that all behind. Today was bus, shrine, train, bus, shrine, temple, sacred waterfall, bus, boat. Topped off by a soak in an Onsen…
Complicated and simple
Post by Ella How to ride a bus in Japan. We’ve successfully decoded the procedure for riding a bus now having taken about a dozen rides. One enters from the rear door and grabs a numbered ticket from a little dispenser. The number on the ticket represents where you got on the bus. If the…
The art of bathing
Post by Ella We are staying at the Fujiya Mae Ryokan, a traditional Japanese hotel in the town of Kawayu Onsen. Grubb is busy working on a post about our final hike yesterday. Onsen indicates hot springs. You can get a scoop at the front desk, walk down to the river, dig yourself a little…
Finally, people!
Post by Ella I’m finding it hard to keep this blog up to date. So many experiences on the Kumano Kodo portion of our trip. The first two days of our walking, we met no one else on the trail. Yesterday our hike took us onto a more popular portion of the Kumano Kodo and…
Shinto pilgrimage
Post by Ella I’ve not said much about the pilgrimage aspect of the Kumano Kodo. The trails we are walking are part of the Kumano Kodo and were developed as a way to get to the most revered shrines. The rugged mountains of the Kii peninsula are a spiritual haven where deities reside. By the way,…
The thigh burning continues
Post by Ella Yuasa to Hidaka Hike #2 went considerably better than Hike #1. No rain for starters. The ascent was paved (gravel in concrete) and not slippery even though we’d had a drenching storm the night before. Howling wind, rumbling thunder, flashing lightning. So all was wet but no mossy rocks to slide on….
Guesthouse Moriamon in Adiragawa
Post by Ella Maki, a vibrant woman in her 30s, fetched us from the Yuasa train station for the 20 minute drive to her guesthouse in the small village of Adiragawa. The Adira region is famous for mikan (mandarin oranges) and the area is chock full of steeply terraced mikan orchards. Guesthouse Moriamon sits nestled…
Shoyu
Post by Ella After our hike yesterday we took a train from Kainan to Yuasa. We had about an hour to kill before the owner of Guesthouse Moriamon cane to pick us up so we wandered around the town. Yuasa is the birthplace of Japanese soy sauce (shoyu) and has been designated as a historical…