Day 6 of the Journey

Thursday, November 30
29 km (18 mi) walked, 69 km (43 mi) in total
131 km (81 mi) traveled, 406 km (252 mi) in total        

I’ve been meaning to write for these past few days. It’s late morning (at least for Spanish standards), on December 31st, 2023. I’m sick, back at home, waiting for the hours to pass. My throat hurts and my body aches. I drink cup after cup of tea, thinking that I won’t be able to accurately and beautifully convey what happened in my trip.

I left my minpaku at 7:30 in the morning. Sadly, both owners were either out or sleeping, so I left a note and went on my way. I had to walk for around five hours to reach Yugyoyanagi. Snowflakes fell quietly on my coat, but they soon stopped. In a way, the scenery made me think of a fall Sunday morning back in my hometown in northwestern Spain. I could almost hear my dad in our kitchen boiling cabbage for our late lunch, and I’d be walking with my mom in the woods and plowed fields.

The first four hours went on quickly, but the last one was rough. It was close to 1 pm, and was getting hungry and tired again. Then, it was there.

The freshly reaped fields looked golden. There were two willow trees right in the middle of my field of vision and the surrounded fields to the sides, that stretched for miles in both directions. A small torii gate was in front of them. I cut across the fields and I it was there. Yugyoyanagi, the willow tree Basho had visited more than 300 years ago, inspired by Saigyo, a writer and monk who traveled around Japan around 1000 years ago. There it was me, alone, witnessing and contemplating the same scenery. I felt shivers down my spine. A lonely shrine, covered by gleaming gingko leaves, oversaw the willow trees.

Saigyo had written:

道の辺に清水流るる

柳陰しばしとてこそ立ちどまりつれ

By the side of the pathway crystal-clear water flows;

I’ll stop by the shade of this willow tree

And Basho:

田一枚 Ta ichimai

植えて立ち去る Uete tachisaru

柳かな Yanagi kana

The rice field will grow

And go, yet the willow tree,

Oh, it will remain?

Both Basho and the rice fields came and go, but the willow tree, even a millennium later, was still there.

I still had to make it to a neighborhood of Fukushima, Iizaka Onsen, where Basho spend a terrible night on a dirt floor. I walked six more kilometers, around four miles, to Kurodahara Station, to make it to Fukushima. My night was far more pleasurable, thanks to very hot water and company.

Do you have any thoughts on my trip, or are you thinking of coming to Japan? I'd love to hear about it!

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