Wednesday 27 May 2009

Week 3 - Off the beaten path...

It's only a few days til my friend Alan visits so instead of embarking on some far overnight trip, I took two day trips to some rather more unique places.

The first of the two trips (Tuesday, May 26) was to what's known as the Tsumago-Magome Hike. Tsumago and Magome were two post towns (aka: rest stops) along the ancient route between Edo (to use Tokyo's "old" name) and Kyoto. The route, having been designed for and became popular amongst shogun and daimyo's, has 69 stops along the way, with Tsumago and Magome being the 42nd and 43rd respectively.

Both towns have recently become tourist attractions and you can even stay overnight in one town and send your luggage to the other, allowing you to hike between the towns at your leisure. I started in Tsumago (above) which, of the two, has a slightly more "preserved" look to it, as if it was well kept throughout time. In all honesty, the towns offer very little aside from neat tea houses or souvenir shopping. Tourists seem to like it though, as bus after bus drove in and people wandered up and down the street.

A quick walk through the town sees you at the start of the Tsumago-Magome hiking trail which winds its way 8km towards Magome. The hike, having been made for dignitaries to cross, isn't difficult by any means even with one or two steep sections. It actually makes for a nice, short hike (I did it in well under two hours) which is unfortunate because it's rather hard to reach the trail in the first place, requiring rides on local trains and a bus. There's also really tiny neighbourhoods that live along the trail so you can walk past quiet houses with subsistence gardens and calm dogs, which just add to the atmosphere.

However, as modernity required linking everything with roads, some parts of the trail have actually be paved over and require you to walk from one section to the other on what is basically a paved mountain road. Traffic is few and far between so it's not dangerous though, just so you know =P... anyway, about halfway along, you can take a slight detour and see the Odakimedaki (Male & Female) Waterfalls (above, bottom). While not the most amazing waterfalls in the world, you can get quite close to them and, coupled with the clearest streams I've ever seen in Japan, do make for a great highlight to the hike.

The other reason why I suggesting walking to Magome instead of the other way around is that because Magome is slightly higher in altitude than Tsumago, the scenery make for a good cherry on top of the ice cream. Here you can see the surrounding Nagano countryside.

Magome, in interesting contrast to Tsumago, turned itself into a tourist attraction by almost reconstructing the old town look and feel, as you can see here with the neat stone paths. Lastly, the reason why you want to end up at Magome is that more busses from to the nearest train station, so you can leisurely make you way through the trail without have to worry about waiting an hour in a town that offers, quite frankly, very little to do. Also, many people stay the night in either town but I really feel there's not much to do there and certainly not enough to warrant a night's stay.

The next day (Wednesday, May 25) I headed to Ise in Mie prefecture. Ise is home to the Ise Grand Shrines, two Shinto shrines that together are known as the most scared shrines in all of Japan. It's easy to notice the distinctly greater number of people here praying to the various gods, including one couple expectating their first baby. The two shrines are divided into the Geku (Outer Shrine) and Naiku (Inner Shrine). Such is the importance of these shrines that photography is prohibited in the main shrines (the picture above is of another building in the Geku area) and they've even put up wooden barriers to prevent guests from entering too far without the guidance of a shinto priest.

This is about as close as you'll get to a picture of the main shrine at the Naiku. The shrines are particularly famous for their simple, almost determinedly basic buildings. Everything from the stones on the ground (light coloured stones on the paths, dark ones on the sides) to the tile-less roofs are humbling to see. Something even pictures cannot describe, however, are just how well built and intricate these structures are- the wood is selected from all of Japan, the fitment of the pieces are snug, and even the straw in the roof seemed to be aligned straighter than normal. The entire natural area around it even has the same feel, where all the trees seem just a shade browner and more "natural" to them. It's hard to describe but it feels like the whole place has a patina of natural yet cared for development to it.

The other thing that sets these shrines apart is that they're completely rebuilt every 20 years. As I mentioned before, the best wood is brought in from all over Japan and carried through Ise in cermonial fashion. As such, both shrines feel very different from other shrines or temples across Japan and they're so humbling that I almost felt bad for taking pictures. There's just something so down-to-earth about the atmosphere that the buildings and surrounding areas produce that it really is something that has to be felt to be believed.

Having said all that however, I do feel that, like Dr. Samuel Johnson said about the Giant's Causeway, the shrines are "worth seeing but not worth going to see". I say that because while the temples are definitely worth seeing, the town of Ise isn't. It's a rather long train ride (about 90 minutes from Nagoya) and the town itself is surprisingly rundown, or at least more so than I expected. A town with the most sacred of Shinto shrines deserves better than grimey stucco houses or rusted-over steel wall panelling. As you walk between the station and Geku or take the bus between Geku and Naiko (it's only a 1hr walk and you might be tempted, but don't... trust me, there's not much to see) you can't help but think that the whole laissez faire and basic nature of the shrines simply doesn't translate to much more temporary items like parking garages or cookie cutter houses...

At any rate, despite the city, the shrines are incredibly important, as the bus loads of elderly Japanese tourists can attest to- it's a place that is a must see, particularly because pictures can't really describe it. And for that reason and that the city is not exactly easy to get to, I do feel particularly proud for having made it there.

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