Forecast to be another hot day, and with the promise of some sort of festival, we thought we’d explore one of the suburbs of Kyoto, Arashiyama. It’s popular with tourists, and it being a Sunday, it was a bit crowded, but we set off with Liz and Jonathan on the train to check it out. It was a beautiful natural…
Saturday, May 20: More Kyoto Temples and Shrines
Of all the many shrines and temples in Kyoto, and there seem to be hundreds, we have selected a few that are of particular interest, or which seem to offer something unique visually or historically. So I set my sights on two such places today. Luckily the route to the first was along the river. It was a very hot…
May 19: Kyoto/My Birthday Part 2
The real benefit of having one’s birthday halfway across the globe is the ability to recognize it for 37 hours! When I woke this morning in whatever version of the heavenly bed the Ritz Carlton offers up I had many birthday wishes from time zones across America and Europe. Was quite nice to have a second day of nice messages…
May 18: Kyoto
They say it’s my birthday. Although with the time difference between here and there I’m tempted to either delay or milk it for 36 hours! It was delightful to sleep in a western bed and not have a schedule for the day. We found a boulangerie around the corner and had a wonderful American breakfast. Just what I wanted as…
May 17: Kii-Katsuura to Kyoto
Once again the dormitory/hostel type accommodation meant a very early wake up time — someone using the hair dryer across the hall in the dual gender bathroom served as our alarm clock around 5AM. But we had an early train to take anyway, and were anxious to move on from the southern countryside to a more urban and sophisticated spot.…
May 16: Kumano Koda — Koguchi to Nachi Taisha
The last section of the Kumano Koda is known as the most difficult, rated a 5/5 for the trekking. It is a climb and descent over the pass and is mostly in the forested mountains. The first section is called the dogiri-zaka, which can be directly translated as “body breaking slope” — it climbs almost 800 meters over about 5…
May 15: Kumano Koda — Ukegawa to Koguchi, 13km
Today’s hike was shorter, and while graded a 4 (out of 5), the guide books suggested that it was fairly benign, at least compared to the other 3 trekking days! I decided to go ahead the hike the day; Karen chose to take a boat down the river to Shingu (as the wealthy did the pilgrimage back in the day,…
May 14: Kumano Koda — Tsugizakura to Hongu Taisha, 22km
Today’s trail was rated a 5 out of 5, so we knew that in order to complete the full 22km we needed an early start. Given that we had to take a bus back to the spot we had left off on our first day, and there were limited bus schedule options, we were on the bus at 6AM, and…
May 13: Kumano Koda — Chikatsuya to Hongu… or not!
After a pretty decent sleep, once we got used to the “firm” nature of the futon/tatami combination, we woke to a torrential downpour. We had been warned that it was likely to rain, and the weatherman didn’t disappoint — it was rain, heavy most of the time, all morning. So, it was not safe to make today’s trek. We took…
May 12: Kumano Koda — Takijiri to Chikatsuyu, 13km
For this pilgrimage, all of our arrangements had been made for us by an Australian company, RAW Travel. We had met yesterday at the tourist office in Kii-Tanabe with a young woman who provided us with all the maps and guides and directions for navigating this trek, so we had some specific timetables to meet this morning. We picked up…