Finish Time: 4:00
Distance: 4.6 km
Temperature: 31 C
Times I Had to Go Back Home: 0 (Yay!)
Forgotten Items: 0
Lost Items: 0
Souveniers: 0
So today I had my trusty guidebook, so back to Old Tokaido. The guidebook didn't help much for getting out of Yokohama Station. Jamie and I ended up wandering around a bit until I decided to ask the Front Desk Customer Service Lady at Sogo department store. She phoned to get directions and gave us a little map.
We took a small detour off of what looked like the Old Tokaido according to the map. We went up to a temple and went up the hill that passes it. We found makers for a historical walk. It wasn't the Old Tokaido, but it was nice. There wasn't much of a view, but the streets were made of small, roughly cut square stones.
The sidetrack made it's way back to Old Tokaido. The rest of today's section was on a side street that runs parallel to the Number 1. It was nice not to have the sound of cars roaring fill my ears for sevearl hours. After my time on Day 3 and the end of Day 2, I'm dreading the part around Fujisawa. According to the map, it's all along the Number 1. Maybe when I get there it will be different.
We stopped to take some pictures of some kura (old storehouses) and an elderly Japanese gentleman was interested in our pictures and took the time to tell us that the kura we were photographing wasn't old as it was made of cement. He then explained how to make a traditional kura.
How to Make Traditional Kura (the highly abridged version):
Bamboo was used to make a frame for the building and a plant called wara (?) was used to make a support for the walls. A mixture made from tsuchi (mud?) was then painted on in a thick layer. After it dried, it was whitewashed.
I always thought that kura was made of stone. Maybe it was stone if you could afford it. I have seen that method the gentleman described on TV when some craftspeople were making a house.
As the man was explaining this to us, two of his buddies came out and started talking to us. One man told us that when he was a child, there were many kura made in the traditional way in his neighborhood. The men chatted with us until a younger man called them over for their ride to somewhere.
Matsuhara shotengai is just east of Tenoucho Station and has a great vegetable market. Well, only three or four shops, but shiitake mushrooms sold for 200yen/basket. It was a pretty good pile, I'm guessing half a kilo or more. I was sorely tempted but the desire not to carry anything else was stronger. I also saw the biggest watermelon I've seen in Japan. It was large enough to make a good catapult projectile. More shocking still was that it was only one thousand yen.
The area between Tenoucho station and Hodogaya was nicely marked with signs about Old Tokaido. It was comforting to see a more neighborly feel after the long stretch of the Number 15 on day three.
It started to cloud over for the last part of the walk. This was very welcome in terms of comfort but made things less appealing for photos as the light was flatter.
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