Sept 1st-5th: Kumano Kodo

   As the typhoon is still approaching and threatening, we also ask to the JR company about traffic shutdown for the next days; indeed they plan to stop activities on the next day. At the hotel, the tenants are definitively discouraging us to try to go in the mountain by such weather. Maybe we'll have to cancel our change our plans. But for this day, we have to visit few places in Shingu and go souther before we go to the mountains.

   On the western edge of the city, against the hills, stands the Kamikura Jingu.

   The entry of the sanctuary is located just behind a large primary school,  a small bridge and here stands in front of a sharp stairs with highly irregular steps made of rough and slippery stones a quite large and red torii in ryobu style. A few people are going in and out after quickly bowing in front of the torii. Disregarding the rain, I go up the unsecured rocky path. There, the shrine is indeed dominating the city offering a broad view on the city, the surroundings hills and the sea... if only the weather was nice. Meanwhile, in the yard below, my wife is talking with an old man busy with a broom who is no one else but the priest. He is explaining why the offering box is located down the stairs and not up: this is because one needs to deliver oneself from his greed and money before meeting with the kami. My stake is rather that because of the steady path, fewer people are going up and the shrine still needs to cash in - but whatever.

   The second spot in Shingu is one of the so-called Kumano Sanzan, the Kumano Hayatama Taisha. The rain is still pouring down and we are quite soaked when we reach the place, located a few 20min walk to the north. As we arrive there it is 9am and it is time for the religious office: a few parishioners are gathered to follow the ceremony performed by a couple of priests and miko: large offering made of fruits, vegetables and fishes are presented in front of the altar after the priest has purified the audience with his haraegushi (purification wand).

   We aim then for the main bus station and take a ride to the south, stopping at Nachi. Almost in front of the train/bus station stands the fudarakusan-ji, a Buddhist temple housing a strange miniature ceremonial ship ornamented with Shinto symbols, as an account of the synchretism period. Until the 16th century, the tradition was to ship away the remains of the priest when he would have reach 60 years old, and if he was still alive, too bad for him, he would have been put anyway into the ship and sailed away - you can easily imagine what happens to the poor old man.

    The next bus takes us to Nachi-san, deeper in the hills in the west, the second of the Kumano Sanzan. Despite the rain and wind, we still stick to the plan that consist in walking in the primeval forest up to the religious complex. At this moment the camera, exposed to too much water, simply gives up. The going-up path is well-paved and going through a forest made of century-old high trees. Maybe walking under the cover of the trees was not the smartest thing to do on such windy day; if the trees themselves are big enough to resist, several branches lying on the ground remind us of what kind of danger is above us. While 2-3 blows are stronger than others, we crouched ourselves against the tree-trunk. Finally we reach the top, after a walk that just long because of the weather condition. The site consists in 3 buildings: the nachi taisha, the seiganto-ji and its pagoda which is facing the waterfall. The balcony of the 3rd lobbies in the pagoda is exposed to the wind, but no one else is there and we can enjoy the view on the clouded valley, the primeval forest and the waterfall those sounds is still coming up to our ears. We go down to the base of the waterfall following rocky stairs among the huge old trees. The Nachi Falls with a free fall of 133m is one of the highest in Japan, it pours up to 1.000 liters a second. A shrine is built at the basement in front of the falls and small path allows to go so close to the water that one get wet from the splatters.

    The bus takes us back to the train station of Nachi. Waiting for the next train to Taiji, we go to the ofuro, the public bath, also called sentō, located almost in the same building as the train station. Although a group of people is waiting in the main hall downstairs, there is no one in the bath. With that we have an opportunity to change ourself from our soaked clothes before taking the train. A couple of station to the south, we reach the whale-fish village of Taiji, from the station we take a bus to the hotel. For the diner, we received a very tasty "sea-meal" served in the diner room which main bay window is offering a view on the agitated sea. From time to time , a bigger wave splatters the window. From our room, where we do have a view on the same side, it is also noisy because of the wind that shakes the trees and throws violently the rain drops again the window.

   TV is reporting about the progress of juningo, the typhoon, and announcing waves of 9m amplitude on the coast and heavy rain over the Kii peninsula; going outside has slowly be definitively became a no go. During the 3 next days, as the public transportations (trains & buses) were shut down, we stayed at this hotel. We tried to go to the whale-fish museum but it was closed, and an attempt to go to the combini store (convenience store) failed as we faced a landslide. Meanwhile, the camera died up and works again.

   Two units of policemen were also stationed in the hotel as backup for the upcoming disasters. I could talk a while with one of them who could a bit of English, to understand that - first -  a gathering of  protesters against whales and dolphins fishing was expected in the area (given the weather condition, no one is anyway going to fish) and - second - that Nagoya police office was equipped with HP servers.
   Finally and suddenly, on Monday the 5th, the weather is bright again. We take a bus as the train lines are cut between Shigu and Shirahama due to the damages caused by the rain. With the bus, we have the opportunity to go alongside the coast, stopping once in Kushimoto and Emisu to change lines.

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  The around 85km trip on the coast offers scenic view of the sea front which also displays the aftermath of the typhoon: in some area the sea water is still brown colored from the mud carried by the rivers and the coast is filled with remains of washed-out trees. In Kushimoto, a strange geological formation has left a few huge rocks aligned in the sea, while in Emisu, the inside of the train/bus station is filled with waka/haiku (poetry). Finally, we reach Shirahama from where the train will take us to Kyoto.

   In the end, our plan was perturbed by the weather as we were supposed to go in the mountains and arrive in Shirahama one day earlier. So we missed the third Komuno Sanzan (Hongū Taisha), skipped some hiking on the Kumano Kodo Pilgrimage Routes  and we canceled our overnights in several nice ryokan and nice hotels... For the few of Shirahama we saw, the city under the patronage of the panda bear: the zoo is hosting one, but the city is populated by a thousands of image of it. The train, also customized with panda features, is leaving for Osaka, where we change for Kyoto, the last spot of our several days round trip.

more picture about this episode on Picasa