A Namamugi Incident

More years ago than I care to remember I walked "The Kiso Way" from Magome to Tsumago in Nagano-ken, one of the few remaining sections of the Tokaido, the Edo Period stone highway connecting Tokyo and Kyoto. At least I thought I did. Researching this article I've found I'd strolled the Nakasendo, the other road from Tokyo to Kyoto. Which somewhat negates the flow of this article that last weekend I walked the other end of the Tokaido, but this time I'm sure. I had a historian with me. And he had a map.

Setting off from Hachiko in central Tokyo at 6.00AM beating the noise and heat of day (admittedly in December so we somewhat embraced the chill of the morning) with a purpose in mind. I enjoy a good walk and my destination was the Gaijin Botchi (Foreigners' Cemetery) on the bluff overlooking Yokohama, some thirty-five kilometers to the south. I had a detour in mind this time, I'd known of the Namamugi Incident when an Englishman took on the 700 strong retinue of a homeward bound Daimyo with a somewhat predictable outcome. But at least they put up a plaque to him and erected a small (and quite quaint) memorial right next to the Spring Valley Brewery (interestingly founded next to our destination for the day).

Strolling in the morning light we passed through Magome again, this one a suburb of Tokyo (no offense to the residents but, don't go there) and caught up with the third of our party. And then age and sore hips started to take their hold and a detour via a morning cafe where wine and painkillers would be gratefully quaffed became something of a necessity (en-route to which we came across a rusted Nissan Skyline shooting break carrying a tax disk that showed it hadn't been driven in over thirty years, about the same time I was walking through the peace and beauty of the first Magome. And strangely a sign on the side announcing "For Public Use Only"). 

Sustenance received and we moved on. To the train station from where we advanced to Namamugi of said incident only to find the wall and the plaque had succumbed to a wrecking crew less than a week before and the memorial had been relocated (but this one we found). We did find a red footprint and decided this must be the spot of the epic battle and so declared the first objective of the day duly successfully achieved and boarded our train bound for the Gaijin Botchi, a few stops beyond Yokohama Station.

Climbing the steep rise to upper plateaux of the Bluff (actually, there's an escalator concealed inside the hill) we reached the destination of our eventful day. To find it locked. But what a beautiful day, December and people were picnicking on the lawns with a bridal pair thanking their lucky stars for the photo-op. So we crossed from the view of Fuji to the other side of the hilltop and took in the view of Yokohama Bay, thinking of those days before escalators had been invented. And then we went home. By train. No reason to be silly about it.

Thanks go to Rory and Marty!

Nihonbashi - the bridge where Japan begins

It's an interesting question as to where the "Tokyo" is on the highway signs that line the arteries of Japan. The city is a large place after all. It can't all be the same distance away. Well, that's true, it isn't. Around the world cities adopt a specific location and then everything is measured to that point. Often this will be the City Hall but not always. For New York, distances are measured to Columbus Circle at the southwest corner of Central Park. In London, it's the statue of Charles I in the courtyard of Charing Cross, a stone's throw from Trafalgar Square. And in Japan, distances to "Tokyo" are measured to Nihonbashi, the historical bridge at the start of the ancient routes linking Tokyo to Kyoto. The administrative capital to the Imperial capital. 

The original wooden structure, built in the early days of the Tougawa Shogunate, was eventually replaced by the larger stone structure still standing today. Over the next 300 years the area boomed being at the centre of not only transport, but also bordering the seat of Government on one side and the traders of Ginza on the other. The Mitsui family located their new store, Mitsukoshi, there and a lively food market grew up with the associated bustling noise and distinctive odour of the fish merchants, much to the disdain of the mandarins of the western fringes.

And then Tokyo suffered a direct hit. Some 140,000 perished in the fires and aftermath of the 1923 earthquake. Downtown was razed as a firestorm ripped through the city. And the men in grey kimono saw their chance at last. The recently abandoned foreigner's enclave in Tsukiji, a couple of miles to the south, would be perfect for a new, improved, fish market they argued. It's near to the river, closer to the bay and freely available. It was also not in their backyard. The fish merchants were pushed out and Nihonbashi returned to being a "civilised" district once more. And then, for the 1964 Olympics, they built a massive highway on top of it. And you'd no longer know that this is the place where Japan begins.

  

Running the Nakasendo - From Kyoto to Tokyo

The Nakasendo, Japan's central mountain road, is one of Japan's five (relatively) ancient super-highways that stretched some 500+ kilometres from Kyoto to Edo, modern day Tokyo. The problem had arisen in the early days of the Tokugawa Shogunate, the military government that came to power in the early seventeenth century. For the first time Japan had a potentially stable leadership and to secure that stability it needed rapid communications. Edo and Kyoto being the two effective seats of power, it became necessary they were linked.

Prior to the creation of these roads, travelling the length of the country was little more than navigating village lanes. Not an ideal approach to deploying the occasional army or carrying a message in the fashion of the Pony Express. And so the lanes were connected and the roads became highways and the Nakasendo came to cut through the centre of the country. With sixty-nine overnight stations, approximately a days walk one from another, the super-highway was created. And although it didn't require fords, it did have its breaks where a little scrambling is required.

The village of Oiwake, with its statue of Sherlock Holmes (a story for another day), is one of those stops, it's central route through the town having been recently repaved in a more traditional style akin to the days of the Shogun. And if you visit during Obon, make sure you follow the drums and wander into the forests. You'll be surprised the sprites you find there. But if you want to see the entire length of the Nakasendo, do what the British School in Tokyo achieved last year. Repeat the run, on foot, all 332 miles of it. In five days. Nicely done to students, teachers and parents who took part, what an incredible achievement.

The Nakasendo through the old postal town of Oiwake, Nagano-ken