A Long Walk Through Japan’s Kii Peninsula

Stand on the summit of Mount Hinodegatake, look inland across the Kii Peninsula, and there before you are a thousand peaks, crumpled earth like tin foil, frozen roil to the horizon, razorback edges of rock and soil. All muted tones. Turn toward the ocean and you’ll see the jagged coast, wrapping from the port of Nagoya down and around, back up to Osaka Bay, shaped by what’s called the Kuroshio, or Black Current.

Before the Nanki train lines were blasted from the mountains, and the lonely National Route 42 was carved out alongside the coast, these highland paths were in active use. People young and old would walk and haul their goods, stopping at a teahouse at the top of a pass for some yomogi mochi, or mugwort rice cakes, or maybe a few dango rice balls slathered with soy sauce and grilled over charcoal.

And, if not walking, then people could use boats to ply the coastal waters. Sailing from cove to cove must have been a wondrous experience 200 years ago: Imagine being young and in love with someone from Hadasu, maneuvering with the tide, meeting on sandy beaches, placing your feet together in Kukai’s spring.