Day 34: T43-Ōzu
I’ve just checked in to a hotel that’s upgraded me to a suite and delivered a bottle of French sparkling wine to my room and I’m also waiting for the enormous hinoki bathtub to fill with hot water, so yeah! there’s Wi-Fi tonight and holy cow, OneDrive already finished uploading all of the pictures from my iPhone to the cloud so I’m just about out of excuses: time to catch up on yesterday & maybe even talk a little bit about today as well!
Right, so: Uwajima. I stayed at the JR Clement Hotel, which is perched on top of the train station there. That’s JR as in Japan Railways; they run a number of hotels, often attached to train stations or next to them, & this was yet another one of those. I could kinda see the platforms from my room, but on the whole it felt more like a generic business hotel, but that’s absolutely fine: the longer I’m in Japan, the happier I am to not do things in a completely old school manner. Yes, it’s lovely to stay in a traditional Japanese inn, but most of them aren’t traditional in a tourist-friendly way: they’re just old and that’s an important difference. If you’re, say, Steve Jobs, you want old-old as in 18th or 17th century, albeit perhaps with fabulously upgraded infrastructure (no one wants to shit in a bucket for $1500 a night!). You don’t want old as in 60 years old, complete with toilets down the hall, the bathroom on another floor… but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Breakfast as the JR Clement was fine, again with Uwajima-style taimeshi, so raw egg, fish, soy, broth etc mixed together and eaten over hot rice. I didn’t grok that the metal thing on my breakfast tray was an egg separator; that would’ve made it more pleasant as raw egg white is the thing that makes it kinda ever so slightly icky for me (texture!). I did eat it, though, but I did once again ignore the nattō (but I really should try that again, last time I tried it was in the 20th century!) after all…
I’d forgotten that there was a bekkaku temple almost across the street from the hotel, so starting my day there was a no-brainer; it had all the charm of a Holiday Inn in Cleveland, but whatever, it was a good morning and the weather was holding up nicely. It was only about 9.5 km to the first ‘real’ temple of the day, albeit a road walk, boo - so I got going as quickly as I could to get that behind me. Near the end of all that road walking, the trail approached a small train stop with a Lawson to the left and a Family Mart to the right - decisions! I know I wanted a bottle of and some maple-margarine pancakes as a snack, so off to the right it was. And then not too much further to T41, but wait, what’s going on here? After going through some rice fields, there was a small village with a bunch of delightful Japanese ladies who’d set up some tables and chairs with tea and snacks for pilgrims; it really was deeply touching, even if we couldn’t understand each other very well. It’s kind of a win-win for everyone; the pilgrims get a break and a snack - I had a cup of tea - and the locals get a change to talk with strangers for a while, which must be a nice break from local gossip and what’s on TV. I felt a little awkward as none of the things I could’ve sat on looked like they’d survive an enormous American dadbear butt - I mean, those things were tiny and obviously meant for normal-size people - but more than anything I felt a little sad that I couldn’t exchange pleasantries for a few minutes, instead using Google Translate to express my heartfelt gratitude for their hospitality, but that seemed to do the trick - a lovely lady with happiness in her eyes gave me two rice balls and a little handmade fabric pouch with some candy in it an asked me to please be safe. I promise I will.
Three temples today! The first one was a little bit off because it felt like a pimple on a Shinto shrine’s butt - wait, how inelegant of me! It was confusing because once you got to the top of a lot of stairs, there were more stairs that went up to a Shinto shrine, but the usual two buildings were almost hiding on either side of the landing. Both were covered in weird surveillance gear and NO PICTURES! warnings; it did not make me feel welcome to watch a little white plastic Wi-Fi camera rotate to watch me as I lit incense, donated coins, and so on. Just ehhh, no thanks. Bonus: it still have covid-era BEWARE! VIRUS! signs up - it all added up to a general sense of ‘ugh, no thanks, let’s get our stamp and leave’.
Leaving was a little tricky because I had to navigate around an old European guy wearing safety yellow running shoes that matched the nicotine stains on his fingers. Finally, there was a tiny bit of actual nature trail, maybe half a kilometer? before getting back into the whole road-walking rhythm. If you’re not a hiker, well, road-walking sucks for at least two reasons: one, traffic; and two, it’s hard on your feet. There’s some spring/elasticity to actual dirt - and come to think of it, there’s a hugely important third thing for me as well: challenge. If you’re on a trail, you’re constantly navigating obstacles: sharp rocks, tree roots, plants you don’t want to touch, and sometimes even animals you definitely don’t want touching you. It’s just a lot more fun than plodding one foot in front of the other down a paved road - and if you’re lucky, the pavement slopes down at the sides to really make it annoying - hours at a time.
Thankfully, the next temple arrived quickly and was a lot more scenic and welcoming, right down to a large, friendly IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ASK US IN ENGLISH! sign next to a smiling monk. Even better, this temple has apparently become known as a place for people to come to remember their pets once they’ve passed away - that was lovely.
I left the temple, but immediately stopped at the rest area outside the front gates to eat the rice balls I’d been given earlier and to rest up a little bit; the next section was touted as the challenging once - it was a nice combination of modern expressway (no walking), currently in-use road (not convenient), old road (with tunnel, almost no traffic), and old henro trail (hopefully scenic, but f’n steep.) You can probably guess that I took the old trail; what I wasn’t expecting was exactly how steep it was going to be! Thankfully, I’m in a lot better shape now then when I left last month, so it was totally manageable. There was even a fun bit where the trail had washed down the mountain & they’d nailed a ladder pointed uphill to the dirt somehow, so you could just kind of gingerly make your way around the landslip and continue onwards. Awesome! And oh man, that view:
Sure, it was a little bit hazy, but oh man, what a feeling of wonder to see all of that countryside and think, well, I woke up on the other side of all of that this morning, walked for most of the day, and now I’m here. I love that feeling of accomplishment, especially when you arrive somewhere much more quickly than you’d expected to.
The downhill bits weren’t too bad, although wet and slippery in parts; it eventually kicked me out near a modern road with what looked like a countryside bootleg karaoke barn across the street from a rest area and a vending machine; I had a nice cold something or other, iced coffee I’m guessing, attended to my feet, and kept walking. Today’s foot issue was kind of a dumb one: because no place I’d stayed at over the last few days had a proper laundry I could use, my socks were getting dirty; when wool socks get dirty, they compact and offer less cushioning; when that happens and when they get wet, e.g., by sweating, then they tend to naturally make small ridges of compact, wet, dirty wool that are uncomfortable and which cause blisters. I should’ve remembered that clean socks are paramount, or least remember that if you don’t have those, you should stop every ten k or so to dry your socks out if possible, but oh well - live and learn.
There was still a fairly long way to go until the third and final temple of the day, all of it road walking again, yecch. Even worse, when the trail started getting close to the town where the temple’s located, the small red arrow stickers that tell you where to go started getting weird - they were clearly new and obviously the town had ideas about where they wanted walking pilgrims to go, likely as they were in the middle of constructing the new, modern expressway there. This meant going places that felt wrong; I kept checking a map on my phone and it didn’t seem at all right & I couldn’t get my printed guidebook out of my pack easily, so I just sucked it up. It eventually kind of made sense, but then the signs disappeared altogether. Fun! I did guess well, however, and didn’t get lost on my way to T43. Unfortunately, though, the last stretch was very steep and very uphill.
For some reason, I looked up while I was there and noticed that they had a cool ceiling in the temple - go figure! Very nice, but the overall vibe seemed to be derelict KOA, but with incense. It kind of felt like one of those random Cincinnati parks that’s there because there’s an Indian mound there, but there’s no signage explaining anything, if that makes sense. I sat down to take off all of my pilgrim gear in preparation for getting to tonight’s lodging and wound up having a conversation with a young Frenchman who was backpacking around the temples with a tent - he was maybe 23 years old and was one of those classic backpacker types out to see the world or at least parts of it, although the rare kind that seemed incredibly in tune with his surroundings, not just bouncing between hostels looking for, uh, good times (wink wink). A couple of friends of his arrived, a Melbournian and a fella from the Gold Coast; we had a nice chat for a while. The day was drawing to a close, the temple was getting ready to close up shop, and the three of them had to get to Ozu, the next major town, that evening because it had a free campground. I said my goodbyes, provided お接待 to the three of them, and left for the last k or so to my lodgings, an older ryokan with no Wi-Fi. Those dudes were fast, though, so our conversation continued until the bus stop they were headed to. I traded career advice (if you’re 23, how do you plan a life that will let you travel and provide well enough so that you can do so often?); in return, I received an osamefuda from the Frenchman as well as a story about his best day of the trail so far; I won’t repeat it here, but somethings those good times arrive out of nowhere, not because you’re at a hostel drinking with fellow travelers, but because you’re in a small town, a local catches your eye, and she knows a place where you can camp for free with your friends, so you spend the day surfing, chatting, eating cheap noodles, and being fucking free. I hope - I sincerely hope - that everyone who’s reading this has experienced times like this in their lives. There is nothing better, is there?
OK, so the ryokan: one of the better ones of its vintage, with everything in tip-top working order, spotlessly clean, with the kind of hospitality that you rarely see. No English spoken, no problem, but we made ourselves understood; I was shown to my room, provided with a huge thermos of cold barley tea, given a clean yukata (bathrobe of sorts) and towel, and invited to use the bathroom (i.e., a room you take a bath in, not a toilet) downstairs while they did my laundry for me. Not wanting to take advantage - believe it or not, they only charged US $47 for dinner, bed, and breakfast - I declined the offer of laundry, but happily cleaned up, asked about Wi-Fi (no, smiling!), and then promptly fell asleep. They woke me up at 6, I assumed it was because suppertime, and I assumed correctly; if the previous night’s elaborate dinner had only cost US $34, I was not expecting much for dinner, but surprise - it was obviously not lavish or expensive in any way, but lovingly prepared with a nice variety of things (rice, soup, potato salad, sashimi, pork, pickles, tea). It hit the spot; I went upstairs, ate some doughnuts I’d bought at Family Mart earlier, and eventually fell asleep (the inn was on the main road through town and across from the train station, so sidewalk crossing lamps made noise until they shut off at I think 21h00, passing traffic shook the building, etc.)
Needless to say, I woke up earlier than I would liked to’ve, but thankfully everyone else there were early risers as well, so it wasn’t a surprise when the phone rang again at 06h45 to ask me back downstairs to breakfast. I met the other guest, a geologist who kindly informed me that most of the local rock was chert. Chert! WOTD, hands down.
Looking at the maps and guides while not sleeping let me to grumpily acknowledge that I was stuck with a whole lot of road walking again today, this time with zero temples. On the bright side, it was going to end at Ozu, a lovely old castle town apparently so picturesque that a number of beloved films and TV specials were filmed here for that special untouched-by-the-hand-of-time feel. But first: road walk.
Dear reader: after ten kilometers of that, I said, you know, fuck this. I’m getting on a bus.
And then I got on a bus.
Before I did, though, I did see one cool thing: a giant neon sign on some tiny side road maybe half a mile from the main highway. It looked like the hotel had maybe even been in business recently - it didn’t look like it was in particularly bad shape & the FOR SALE sign was slightly blocking a sign advertising room prices that looked fairly recent. Note to self: see if this is on Google Street view. (You’d be surprised how much of Japan is!)
There was one bus every two hours, so I had no choice but to keep walking until I’d get to a bus stop around the time the bus showed up, so I still managed to get ten or twelve k behind me before throwing in the towel. The bus dropped me off smack dab in the heart of the old part of Ozu, which seriously does look like a movie set in parts; I went by my hotel & dropped off my backpack so that I could spend the day seeing the sights here without schlepping that damn thing around. For the first time on this trip since Tokyo, the hotel staff were quite clearly the sort of people who probably learned how to hotel in Switzerland shortly after spending a few months in London learning English: it was kind of a shock. There really is a certain way, manner, or form of being incredibly good at hotel that not many places are good at; this was on a par with the Hotel Victoria in Montreux, for example. Of course they were happy to accept my backpack and if you didn’t mind too terribly much would it be OK if they brought it to your room for you when it’s ready? Thank you for staying with us, here’s an English map of the town, see you in 5 hours, and is there anything else we can do for you? Uh, no, but thanks! Damn that felt nice.
So what do you do with five hours in Ozu? Well, you see everything, more or less: a couple of old houses, a newly reconstructed castle, and a number of small shops selling delicate, expensive things. Eight different elegant, tiny confectionary shops selling eight slightly different takes on the same thing, local to Ozu and not produced anywhere else. Me, I did everything there was to do on the map - and I enjoyed the hell out of it. Garyu Sanso, for example: I didn’t know what it was, only that it was part of the reason people come here; turns out it’s a teahouse and a small unassuming country cabin type thing that of course was built at the turn of the previous century by a fabulously wealthy person with exquisite taste, but in a style that is as unassuming as you’d hope for:
In other words, hell yeah, my kind of place. I’ll never be able to afford to live in a place of that myself, but wow - absolutely stunning. It’s whatever the opposite of bling is: on the surface, the thatched roof and intentional flaws might fool you, but spend a few minutes here - especially if you’re lucky and have the place to yourself along with a member of staff who speaks perfect English and is happy to explain why this place is so beloved - and you’ll probably get it. Let’s take the deck boards in that picture, for example: they are perfect, the grain is exquisite, and they meet symmetrical boards at the corner - and those other boards match up so that if you round the corner and look back, the color changes on the ones you’ve just left behind you. Next level OCD - and those nails? Yeah, they’re just decorative. And on and on and on… and oh, would you like to sit down and just enjoy this space for as long as you’d like? Why yes, absolutely I would. And I think I came as close to crying from beauty as I ever do; it was so peaceful, so natural and also so incredibly artificial, but in a way that makes you appreciate the care and artistry we humans are in fact capable of - yeah, it was pretty damn great. And then, serendipitously, I got up to leave and a tour bus arrived. Timing!
There’s a slightly more modern house built up the side of a cliff, for example, that really had me thinking, no, wait, did Frank Lloyd Wright visit Ozu before building Fallingwater? And then I headed over to the local onsen to soak my aching feet for a while - not bad - before walking over to the castle, stopping by a KBBQ place for a pork bowl with a locally-brewed black IPA (first craft beer of this trip and a damn good one!), and then over to the hotel. As expected, the hoteliers trotted out further five-star service; check-in was at a private table, accompanied by tea and a sweet, my bag was in my room, and oh, our apologies, but we’ve taken the liberty of upgrading you to a suite just across from our all-you-can-drink lounge - and do you need a shuttle back to the castle for supper? After all, our restaurant is over there; our French-trained chef from Kyoto is here, so (casually gestures at menu) there’s a nine-course Japanese-French thing happening at 19h00, and oh our breakfast is in another historic building tomorrow (do you eat raw eggs? We understand Americans do not like them, Chris-you-are), and also do you need a shuttle to the train station or absolutely anything else? Help with booking another hotel for your onward journey? You get the idea. Yes, I am often very happy with simple lodgings, but I do love me some high-end luxury from time to time if possible - especially if doesn’t cost the earth.
Fun fact: if you’re coming to Palm Springs for Tidal Wave this summer, you’ll be paying $149 for a hotel room there, not including parking, breakfast, or dinner. There might well be an “amenity fee” of some kind. So, maybe $180 for that room. This room costs $215, all-in - yes, far more than average for this trip, nearly five times the price of last night’s ryokan - but you know? I’m happy to do it.
And on that note, I’m gonna shut this laptop down and go get me some free booze at the lounge. Some of that French sparkling wine is looking great; I haven’t had any wine in over a month! Oh wait, no, I did have a little bit in Kochi. Still: almost a month!
Random notes: Sadly, the picture I took of the European dude smoking next to the no-smoking sign at the rest hut outside of T42 didn’t come out that well. Even so, kind of mean of me to post that, no?
I’m starting to lose count (and interest) in all of the decrepit, rotting, abandoned building in this part of the world - it’s wild how many people have left these places. For example, Ozu had almost twice as many residents in 1960 than it does in 2025 - that’s part of the reason why my hotel exists tonight, for example. I’ve never seen one like this before; it’s not a single location, but maybe a dozen buildings scattered through the old town, all carefully renovated into luxury hotel rooms. The restaurant, for example, is across the street from the castle; I’m at the opposite end of town, looking out my window at a beautiful garden. Walking between the two places, though, means that you will pass a number of shops that look like they went out of business years ago, vacant lots, and yet also luxury boutiques selling fifty-dollar essential oils. I wish Ozu the best of luck in transforming this charming town into a high-end tourism destination; it’s not near anywhere and takes time to get to, but that could just be some of its charm, right?
Even with today’s bus ride, I still hit the 16 km walked mark, not too bad - it’s about 18 km from last night’s lodging to tonight’s, so it’s kinda sorta a wash. I think I would’ve enjoyed the one mountain pass I skipped - but I definitely enjoyed some relax time more.