When I returned to Tokyo, I was surprised at how normal everything was. Bars and restaurants were open. A few trains had been canceled due to decreased traffic from COVID-19, but the station was still busy. I noticed a lot of face masks, but that’s nothing new in Japan. It was jarring, hearing everything that was going on in the rest of the world and seeing that Japan seemed, more or less, fine. 

I headed to my hotel where I was scheduled to stay a week before heading to Kyoto. I checked into my hotel and got my temperature checked before dropping off my things and grabbing dinner from a packed, basement ramen shop (probably not the best idea, in retrospect). I was exhausted from hiking and traveling the last few days and fell asleep early that night. 

I woke up on March 19 and decided to treat my time in Tokyo as if I would have to come home any minute. I walked to Shinjuku Gyoen, a park known for being a great cherry blossom viewing spot. The trees were just starting to bloom, so there wasn’t much to see yet, but I’d hoped to come back in a week when they’d be in full bloom. I went to my favorite crepe stand in Harajuku and ate as much sushi and ramen as I could stomach. 

When I woke on March 20, I had several worried messages from friends and family asking if I was coming home due to the news. The Department of State had issued a Global Level 4 travel warning (the highest level) for the entire globe, urging US citizens not to travel for any reason. The US was closing the borders with Canada and Mexico and was talking about closing the borders everywhere else.

On the one hand, if I was going to be stuck somewhere, I didn’t mind being stuck in Japan. In many ways, it seemed I would be safer in Japan than I would be trying to travel home. I thought about traveling to a different country – New Zealand hadn’t yet closed its borders to Japan, and I could seemingly travel there and wait this out, but staying in New Zealand would be expensive, and it could be weeks or months until I could leave. I had no way of knowing. 

I went to get dressed and realized I didn’t have any clean clothes (I’d forgotten to do laundry the night before). After finally figuring out how to use the washing machine, I put in a load of laundry and headed out. I grabbed coffee and lunch to think it over and do some research on flights. I already had an existing flight out with American Airlines, but it wasn’t for a few weeks, and I wasn’t sure I could wait that long. In the end, I decided I should try to come home in the next few days before things escalate any further. 

American Airlines had waved their change fees due to coronavirus, so I called them to move up my flight. I asked what they had over the next few days, the woman paused for a few moments and said the cheapest flight they had for the next two weeks was four thousand dollars. I was stunned. Everyone also panic-buying flights out, and prices had skyrocketed. I asked if she could check if there was anything else, further out, maybe tonight or early tomorrow. The woman said there was a cheaper flight at 6:15 pm tonight. It was 2 pm at the time, and it takes at least 2 hours to get to the airport. It was going to be close, but if I left now, right now, I could make it. I told her to book it, guessing it was the best I’d get. 

Chaos ensued. My clothes were still in the washing machine, which was in Japanese, and I couldn’t figure out how to stop it. I called the front desk and they sent someone up, and we spent the next fifteen minutes trying to end the wash cycle. Eventually, we were successful and I grabbed all my sopping wet clothes and threw them into my backpack. 

Once I made sure I had everything, I went to the front desk to checkout. They politely reminded me I can’t get a refund for checking out a week early, and I said that was fine. I asked if they could call me a cab to the airport, but the time it would take for the cab to get there and then drive me (there was a lot of traffic and would be much more the closer it got to rush hour), so they gave me directions on the best train route. 

So I walked the 1.5 miles with my backpack, now much heavier due to my clothes being wet, to the train, where I then transferred to another train, then another. I made it to the airport around 4 pm. Airport security was very efficient, and I made it to the packed terminal with 30 minutes to spare. 

So, I didn’t get to see the cherry blossoms. I missed out on about a month of the trip I planned, but I made it home, safe, sound, and coronavirus-free.

The post Tokyo, and The End. appeared first on Kim Is Lost.

The Kumano Kodo is a network of trails that weaves throughout the mountains of the Kii Peninsula. The trail is almost one thousand years old and was previously by Emperors and Samurai as a sacred pilgrimage trail. It is one of 2 pilgrimage routes recognized by UNESCO, the other being the Santiago de Compostela in Spain. It is one of Japan’s oldest and most remote trails, with ancient Buddhist temples, shrines, and plaques featuring stories and lore of the area’s history along the way. 

It would take months to hike through the entire network, but the trails are broken into sections to make them easier to navigate. I chose to hike the Nakahechi trek, beginning at Takijiri-Oji and ending at Kumano Hongu Taisha. The trail is significantly different than my New Zealand hike. Even though the trail winds through small rural towns throughout the region, I probably only ran into 10 people on the trail during my 4-day hike. Instead of staying in huts or camping, lodging is provided in the style of traditional Japanese homes or Ryokans (inns with communal bathhouses). Meals are often included with your lodging, providing a substantial dinner, breakfast, and a bento box for lunch along the way. There’s an option to have your luggage delivered to your lodging each day, but since there’s no need to be cooking supplies, utensils, meals, etc, my pack was light. 

Day One

To get to the trail, I took a train from Osaka to Kii-Tanabe where I dropped off my luggage and (thankfully) caught the last bus just in time to get to the beginning of the trail. Takijiri-Oji is a beautiful Shinto shrine tucked away by the Tonda River at the entrance to the trail. A few people paid their respects at the shrine, and they were the only people I’d see on the trail that day. Cherry blossoms weren’t yet in bloom, especially in the mountains, but I did spot a few plum blossoms along the way. 

The walk was only about 4km (2.5mi), but it still took me 3 hours, as the path wound vertically up into the mountains. It was a short but difficult climb. The trail is mostly dirt paths, stone steps, and wooden bridges. There were parts of the trail where the path was washed away or grown over, but overall it was pretty easy to see where I needed to go. Markers along the way written in Japanese and English give the cultural history of the many shrines and temples along the way. 

The trail, and even my lodging, made me feel like I was in my very own Miyazaki movie. The path was gorgeous and the lodgings are exactly what comes to mind when I think of Japanese homes – tatami mats and floor futons, ornamented paper walls and family-style bathhouses. I spent the night in an old farmhouse 15 minutes outside of Takahara. The town felt like a small slice of traditional Japan.

Day Two

It was very chilly outside at the start of my first full day, and I realized that when I packed, I brought my leather jacket by mistake instead of my heavy jacket. As the trail wound up and around the mountain, one side was clear and sunny, the other snowy and windy. The snow was beautiful so I can’t complain too much, and as long as I kept moving I was warm enough. 

Shortly after the snow had passed, I found a small cafe in Chikatsuyu with a few other backpackers and stopped in to eat my lunch and warm-up. The whole walk was 13km (about 8 miles) and took me 7 hours, passing many small, stone shrines and stacked rocks along the way before making reaching my guesthouse in Nonaka for the night.

Day Three

My third day was (supposed to be) my longest, the whole walk about 18km (11 miles) taking 8-9 hours. I ran into some issues along the trail, missing the detour point and ended up having to find a bus into town in the late afternoon.

The weather was much warmer and sunny for most of the day. Along the path, there were several areas I had passed that were closed or rerouted due to damage to the trail from a recent typhoon. 

There was a large area of the trail under construction. At one point on the trail, the road forked. One side of the fork was under construction and closed off. This was the road I would have taken had it not been closed, but I didn’t realize it at the time. I walked for about two miles, uphill, before noticing the river was on the wrong side of me according to the map. The markers along this side were all in Japanese, so I hadn’t noticed I’d left the Kumano Kodo trail for a different path. I had to backtrack 2 miles downhill, and then go back to the fork and get my bearings. I found a teeny, tiny sign that pointed up to the road. I followed the road around for about an hour before I was back on the trail. 

At this point, it was around 3 pm, and I was exhausted. Because of my blunder, I was only halfway to my destination. I hopped on a bus, which was a bit of a bummer to skip that part of the hike, but it gave me more time to visit the town of Hongu, most notable for the Kumano Hongu Taisha, a sacred mountain shrine, and the enormous Oyunohara, a Shinto complex featuring Japan’s largest torii gate representing the division of the spiritual and secular worlds. 

After exploring Hongu, I headed to my traditional ryokan in Yunomine Onsen, a remote hot spring town with two thousand years of history. My final lodging was by far my favorite, complete with an indoor and outdoor bathhouse. Dinner was Shabu Shabu, a hotpot dish of sliced meat and vegetables that you cook in boiling water. It was wonderful end to my day.

Day Four

I spent my last day enjoying one last dip in the hot spring and wandering around the beautiful town of Yunomine Onsen, truly one of my favorite towns I’ve ever visited. I caught the bus back to Tanabe, grabbed the rest of my luggage, and headed towards Tokyo, where I would stay for a full day before abruptly having to return back to Chicago. I’m incredibly thankful I was able to hike this trail before Coronavirus forced me home, and it was a highlight of my journey.

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When I arrived at Osaka airport, I was so thankful to be there. I loved my time in Southeast Asia, but after months of exploring the unknown, the foreign, the unfamiliar, I was very happy to be back in Japan. It was my fourth visit to the country, and it was a luxury to not have to relearn how to take the train, basic vocabulary, etiquette, etc. As I walked through the streets of Osaka to my hostel, I felt my stress melt away. 

Myanmar felt very closed off from the rest of the world, so when I arrived in Japan, I expected things to be very different due to COVID-19. The US had just closed its borders to parts of Europe, and I was thankful to have gotten into Japan before they did the same. I figured if I was going to get stuck somewhere in Asia, I’d prefer it be here. 

Other than the temperature checks, things in Japan seemed…normal. I had half expected to arrive at a closed-down city, with people shut inside, but this wasn’t really the case. Restaurants were still open, karaoke bars still blasting J-Pop through the alleys. People were wearing masks, but that’s pretty par for the course here. There were far fewer tourists than I’m used to, especially so close to Cherry Blossom season, but otherwise, everything felt eerily normal. 

For dinner that night, I found a make-your-own-takoyaki (fried octopus balls) bar stand. A local helped show me what I was supposed to do and what toppings to add. Not the most healthy meal but definitely a lot of fun and very tasty. A group of Canadians wandered over and we all spent the night eating fried octopus and drinking Japanese beer. I had to be up early the next day for my overnight temple stay, so I said goodnight too soon. It was nice to know that even with a looming pandemic, Japan was as welcoming as ever. 

The next day, I left the city and headed for rural Japan, a 2.5-hour journey that to my stay at Eko-In temple in Koyasan, Wakayama. The thousand-year-old Buddhist temple offers lodging to locals and foreigners alike looking to learn what a day in the life of a monk was like. The temple features traditional, Ryokan-style rooms, vegan meals, and public baths with water from the local hot spring. 

To get there was a journey. I took a bullet train, then a normal train, where I misread the signs (my Japanese is a bit rusty) and got off a stop early. The train only comes once every few hours so I really didn’t want to wait around. A conductor who also got off the train could tell I was a bit lost. He handed me a paper map of the area which showed I was only a thirty-minute walk from the cable car I needed to take up the mountain. I dropped off most of my luggage at a locker in Osaka and only had my smaller backpack so I didn’t mind the walk. 

One oversight I had on this trek was the oversight of packing for the altitude – the weather was quite cold, and I hadn’t packed my hat or gloves as it had been warm in Osaka. Thankfully, the walk kept me warm, but I was thankful for the lesson for my upcoming hike in a few days. I made it to the cable car, took a bus into town, and finally made it to the temple. 

If it took me three days to get there, it would have been worth it. One of the monks greeted me and showed me to my room – a traditional Japanese-style space complete with beautiful paper walls, a tatami mat, and a Yukata robe to wear to the bathhouse. 

After settling in, I joined a few other foreigners who were staying there to learn about Zazen meditation. It involves sitting with your legs crossed in Burmese position and keeping your eyes half-open – partially present in this world and partially focused inward. I found it much more difficult than meditating with my eyes closed. 

Dinner itself was an event. There was so much food, and it just kept coming. The meals were all vegan, but I honestly couldn’t tell you what it all was other than it was delicious. 

After dinner, a monk guided us through Okunoin Cemetery, one of the largest, oldest, and most haunted cemeteries in Japan, complete with all the superstition and lore you would expect in such a place. The cemetery is about twelve hundred years old, with over two hundred thousand gravestones leading the way to the mausoleum of Kobo Daishi, the founder of the cemetery. It is believed that he is not dead but has spent the last thousand years in mediation. Thousands of lanterns are lit each night around the mausoleum, but photos are not allowed in this area out of respect. I wandered through it briefly during the day, and it was quite beautiful, but it really needs to be seen at night to get the full experience. 

Since I wasn’t dressed for the weather, I was freezing after the cemetery tour. I took a long dip in the tub of the bathhouse outside before bed. When I arrived back at my room, my table had been pushed aside and my (very comfortable) futon had been made on the floor. The room was cold, no doubt a result of the large windows, but the small heater made for the perfect cozy atmosphere for the night. 

Each morning, a Goma Fire Ritual is performed, a ceremony specific to Esoteric Buddhism that is believed to have a powerful spiritual cleansing effect. The fire symbolizes Buddha’s wisdom and the sticks used for kindling symbolize human desires, the root of our suffering. 

After a blissful night at Eko-in, I headed back to Osaka to prepare for my four-day-long hike on the Ancient Pilgrimage along the Kumano Kodo Trail. 

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