Luck eluded us on our visits to fishing towns on the coast of Wakayama peninsula. We visited two, on different days of the week, and found the village shut down in each case. We’d left Wakaura bay for the last day of our visit to Japan, and it was a bit of a shock to find the docks so completely deserted. Boats were tied up neatly. Fishing nets had been cleaned and spread out to dry. Flocks of noisy gulls were conspicuously absent. At the far end a fish shop was open. Cars came in one by one as we watched. Someone would get down, buy fish and leave. Eventually we walked up to investigate. Some shirasu (whitebait) was drying on mesh tables, and a vwry kind lady offered us some. This is the local delicacy. Since most restaurants were closed, we never got to taste the local shirasu-don. We did have a plate of sashimi for lunch, and enjoyed more of the Kansai-style shirasu.
The harbour being closed turned out to be a bit lucky for us, as we discovered as we walked out along a pier towards the lighthouse at the end. The harbour was full of interesting birds. The highlight was our first ever sighting of the Japanese cormorant (Phalacrocorax capillatus). The strong sun, the absolute quiet, and the birds were quite a contrast to the reminders of the normally busy dockside in the moored boats, drying nets and floaters.
We got warmer as we walked. Our layers began to come off. There was an interesting stone arch ahead and we walked off along the beach towards it. Unfortunately it turned out to be impossible to get a photo of the opening of the arch. Most views were as you see above. It was time now to go find a place for lunch. As we walked along the beach I found an interesting bird’s track. The Family wondered “Can the middle toe really be that long?” Unlikely, probably the heron had been dragging something in its beak. It was lunchtime for everyone.
Much less known than the shrine to Tokugawa Iyeasu in Nikko is the one in Wakaura bay, near Wakayama city. The Nikko Toshogu was founded in 1617 and now sees two million visitors every year. The Kishu Toshogu was built in 1621 and sees barely any tourists. When we visited in December we were the only foreigners. There was one Japanese family looking at the shrine at the same time as us. On our last day of sightseeing in Japan I was glad we found such a remarkable place to visit. The photo of the sleeping cat that you see above comes from the Kishu Toshogu and is attributed to the artist Hidari Jingoro. There is of course a more well-known version of it, also by the same artist, in Nikko.
We climbed the 108 steps to the entrance, counting each step as we went. As we caught our breath at the top we turned to look at the view of the bay. “So beautiful,” exclaimed The Family. The shrine was also beautiful, in a much more understated way than in Nikko. This was commissioned by Tokugawa Yorinobu, one of Iyeasu’s sons, when he took over as daimyo. There is a story about lords and samurai carrying stones up to the top for the building of the shrine. As a result, the climb is called the samurai-zaka. After the climb I could understand why this act was deemed to be a splendid show of fealty to the daimyo. The courtyard was calm and quiet. We bought our entry tickets and were told that we could take photos outside the shrine but not inside.
The shrine is beautiful, but not as grand and extensive, as its more famous predecessor. We looked at the guardian statues, the pair of well-armed zuijin or warrior monks. Their wide eyes were alert to all evil, and between them they say aum: one’s mouth open to pronounce the syllable au, the other closed to say m. This is how the Sanskrit word om enters into use in Japan. There are many beautiful painted panels. The one that you see in the gallery here is one above the entrance. The vermilion of the gate and the red and black lacquer-work on the panels sets off the glowing colours of this painting. A modern addition was this collection of WWII-era artillery shells surrounded by Jizo statues. Is it a memorial to children who died in the war?
history immeasurably is wealthier by a single sweet day’s death
e e cummings (1952)
Old pilgrim’s trails wind through the Wakayama prefecture, and make up the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage routes. But apart from this, there is the Saigoku Kannon pilgrimage which starts from the Seiganto-ji temple near Nachi waterfall, and takes in thirty three temples across the Kansai area. Pilgrims visit temples dedicated to Kannon, the Bodhisattva of compassion, originally Avalokiteshwara. The second temple on this route is the Kongoho-ji near Wakayama. It is more well known by the name Ki-mii-dera, which refers to three famous wells located inside the temple.
I’d read about the lovely sunsets over Wakanoura bay which are visible from this temple, so we decided to go there one afternoon. We took a train to the Kimiidera station. The temple was a short walk away, and we unknowingly took a side road up. But let me show you the pictures in the order we would have taken if we had entered through the main Sakuramon gate (I liked that guardian next to it). The temple is known for its 1200 cherry trees, so I guess this might be on our spring itinerary one year. Beyond this is a steep climb of 231 steps; or you could use a funicular. Since we came down, we used the stairs.
I knew little about the temple apart from the cherry blossoms and the sunset. There is a legend that it was founded by a Chinese priest called Iko Shonin in 770 CE. It is said that he received six cherry seeds from the Dragon King’s daughter, which grew into the trees that are seen today. But all we know for certain is that during the 15th and 16th centuries, the Sengoku period, when Japan had broken up into multiple houses battling each other, and former vassals had risen against their feudal lords, the monks of this temple had organized into an army, along with local peasants, to defend their territory. That came to an end when Toyotomi Hideyoshi attacked the temple in 1548 during his campaign to unify Kansai. Much was destroyed in this battle, including records of the history of the temple.
Today the main hall of the temple holds a gold-foil covered 12 meters tall statue of Kannon with many arms. “Impressive,” The Family said as she tried to take a photo of the statue. It was impossibly foreshortened. There’s a story about Iko Shonin carving the statue and placed a small statue of the Buddha in its womb. There is in fact a Buddha statue in a separate enclosure in the temple, which is shown to the public every fifty years. In any case, the current statue of Kannon was completed only in 2008.
Next to one of the wells that gives the temple its name I saw a beautiful statue of Kannon. The cherry trees that the temple is famous for were bare, but there were other trees that gave it a bit of colour even in mid-December. Elsewhere there were casks of the alcohol. I wonder whether they are brewed here, or only kept here as an offering; I couldn’t find any information about it. The temple precinct is not large, but it was worth the visit. Of course, we were very lucky with the light.
Shichifuku no niwa, the Garden of the Seven Lucky Gods, is the smallest garden I saw in Japan. The seven stones within the circle represent the Seven Gods of Fortune (七福神, Shichifukujin), and the two sets of stones that touch the boundary of the circle are representations of a ship which carries them. I saw this sculpture inside the Wakayama castle. This dry garden is an example of the innovative directions taken by Japanese artists when the ideals of Chinese gardens were transplanted here. The treatment of stone groups in garden in Japan is quite different from than in China.
It is said that this sculpture was created for Tokugawa Yorinobu, the tenth son of Tokugawa Ieyasu, when he was appointed daimyō of Wakayama in 1619 CE. I was surprised to read that it was created by Yorinobu’s father in law, Katō Kiyomasa. After all, he was a man who believed so strongly that a warrior’s duty was only to fight that he banned the recitation of poetry in his domain. I learnt later that I was not the only one who found this attribution strange. Others have pointed out that the Kiyomasa had died in 1611, before Yorinobu moved to Wakayama.
Whatever, the truth, I stood and admired the view of this grouping of green schist. It originally stood in the inner enclosure of the castle, and was moved here just about a century ago, in 1923. The placement of the tree over it, and its relationship with the rest of the garden is new. I thought whoever was responsible for moving the group had done a lovely job.
A bus from Wakayama dropped us off at Wakaura and we walked from there to the harbour. The fishing harbour is a bit of a tourist draw in warmer seasons. But in the middle of December the hotels seemed to be empty. We walked along the quay to a small lighthouse at the end of it, and spent a nice hour watching birds. The fishermen had washed their boats and nets and left them to dry. A small shop at the beginning of the harbour was drying whitebait on wire meshes. I learnt later that this would be pressed into paper thin squares of tatami iwashi, a local delicacy. One of the women at work gave us some yet-to-be-dried whitebait to taste. It was delicious.
Our appetites whetted, we walked up the road and took a set of stairs which led to a restaurant some way up the cliff overlooking the harbour. Its name translated into Wakayama Cafeteria, but even with this simple name it came highly recommended. We got a table overlooking the harbour and ordered two plates of the sashimi that you see in the featured photo. The steaming bowl of miso soup was very welcome after our walk by the sea. The sashimi was an experience: apart from the usual maguro (bluefin tuna), salmon, hotate (scallop), kanburi (winter catch of amberjack) and tai (sea bream) there was fresh whitebait in a little bowl, and a whole fresh shrimp. This was the first time I’d tried uncooked shrimp and I found its familiar flavour is sweeter as sashimi. I like Japanese pickles, so I appreciated the plate of vegetables and pickles to go with the rice. The whole thing ended with a small sweet. The freshness of the sashimi made it among the top two plates that I’ve tasted.
Early winter in Wakayama prefecture is warm. In mid-December leaves were still turning gold and red. So one day after lunch we decided to take a ride on the slow train to the village of Kimiidera, which has a nice temple perched on a hill above the village. It threatened to rain all the time. The morning had been sunny and we’d not picked up umbrellas from the hotel. We were lucky. The threatening skies remained just a threat as long as we were out. But the clouds gave us lovely shots when we were on the mountainside. You see a panorama over Wakanoura bay and the Pacific ocean with those clouds in the featured photo.
As we came down to the entrance of the temple we saw an inviting little cafe. As we sat there and had a coffee and cake, the rain came pelting down. We thanked the hundred armed Kannon of the temple for extending this small mercy to us, but there was more to her blessing outside. As soon as we got out of the cafe an excited lady pointed to a rainbow over the hills. I could see a double rainbow, but persuading my phone to see it was tough.
With the rain the sunset had turned even more technicolor. In our years of living by the sea we’ve noticed this before. The microscopic water droplets suspended in the air just before or after a shower give a special light. If you want to know the technicality, it is called Mie scattering. But you could just enjoy the yellow and purple sunset instead. As we walked back to the railway station we realized that in the right light even a parking lot can look beautiful.
Wakayama peninsula is known for two things in particular. The first is the Kumano Kodo trail, a religious pilgrimage route across the Kii mountain range. This is what most visitors come for, and it is now inscribed into the UNESCO world heritage list. The other is an old and living tradition of fishing all along the coast, with its harbours and villages. In one long day we sampled both. We took a four hours’ trip from Wakayama city to the village of Nachi-katsuura by a fast train, then a bus to the beginning of a pilgrimage route, walked uphill to the Kumano Nachi Taisha and the Nachi waterfall, and then came back. Although the twelve hour day was tiring, in retrospect it is one of the unexpected highlights of our trip.
We got off the bus at the Daimonzaka stop and walked to the beginning of the slope (zaka) that would take us to the big gate (dai mon). We took a shadow selfie at the sign which marks the beginning of the slope. Trying to read the three character sign, I was surprised that the first character is pronounced almost it would be in Chinese, rather than in modern Japanese. The steps wound through a forest. Bears have been a problem this year in Japan; so much so that the kanji of the year was chosen to be 熊 (kuma, meaning bear). I thought there were enough people on the trail to keep them away. I started taking photos along the route, but after climbing about two hundred steps I gave up.
After a little more than an hour’s uninterrupted climb we reached the last steps below the big gate that you see above. This would turn out to be the entrance to the Kumano Nachi Taisha. This houses the kami (the god) of the Nachi mountain. I understand that the worship of the kami of this mountain and two others that lie in this range are the oldest religious beliefs surviving in Japan. I do not know enough about the architecture of these shrines to be able to show you its telling details. Moreover, I was really hungry, and the last eateries were going to close soon, so we hurried through this complex.
According to Kojiki, the creation myth of Japan written in 712 CE, the first emperor, Jimmu-Tenno, landed in this peninsula, and walked to Nara. On the way he discovered Nachi waterfall and its kami. The shrine complex is big. From the top we could look over its rooftops to the beautiful three-story pagoda of the temple of Seiganto-ji and the waterfall. The temple to Kannon (Avalokiteshwara) was founded by a monk who is said to have come from India in the 4th century. The pilgrimage route was initiated by the emperor Uda in 907. It is interesting to follow a route that has been walked for over 1200 years. Bears would certainly have been more common when the route was new, and it might have been quite an act of bravery to make the pilgrimage.
We took a detour for a late lunch, centered on a very filling bowl of udon. After this we were too tired to walk back up to the shrine and get a view of Seiganto-ji with the waterfall at the back. In any case it was late, and neither would be in sunlight. Instead we took the shorter walk to the waterfall. The 133 m drop of the waterfall is truly spectacular. It is Japan’s tallest waterfall with a single drop. Even today one can understand why so many features of the landscape here are said to be embodied into kami.
With the end of our walk we took the bus back to Nachi-katsuura. It would be dark soon, but we had time to walk around the town once. The first discovery was a picturesque house with a very colourful door, two lovely windows, and a bench from which to watch people go by (that’s the featured photo). We walked on to the deserted harbour. It had a beautiful rock formation at its mouth. I’d been hoping to see some birds, but it was too late. Wakayama province is the birthplace of whaling. It started here in the 16th century, but now the coast is known for its tuna. As I stood on the pier and looked for birds, someone came along and offered to guide me through the tuna auction the next morning. It was a natural confusion. This town has an onsen, and many visitors stay overnight.
It was getting near the time of our train back. In that strangely deserted town we’d found only one restaurant open. We walked into Tuna Bowl Muromaru and found that it offered the freshest bluefin tuna sashimi that I’ve ever eaten. Maguro is my favourite, and this cut was marbled with fat, clearly a winter’s catch. A bowl of rice topped by this incredible sashimi and a bowl of miso soup was a nice meal to end the day with. We had time to sip their tea before we headed to the station to catch our train.
When I proposed a trip to the Wakayama peninsula, The Family asked why. There were touristy answers of course, the Kumano Kodo trail with its wonderful sights, the Nachi waterfall, Koyasan. But behind it all was my curiosity about the Japan you see when you move away from the dense cities along the Shinkansen route. How do people live in these smaller places? What is the landscape and how is it shaped by the people in it? Eventually we spent a few days in Wakayama city, and one day we took a four hour train ride to see the Nachi waterfall. The fast train is named Kuroshio, after the warm current in the north Pacific gyre that washes across this part of Japan.
I found my seat and promptly took an hour’s nap. When I’d compensated for my morning’s sleep we were already well in the countryside. I’d imagined something very different from the landscape in Hayao Miyazaki’s films. So I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that there were parts which required only small edits to look like a scene from “My Friend Totoro”. A hundred years has not changed the place significantly. I decided to keep taking photos for the next three hours.
This coast has an abundance of fish and their fry, and fishing here is probably as old an occupation as farming. But it was only 400 years ago that whaling started in Japan, and it started from the coast of the peninsula that we were rounding on this train. I had not realized that we would pass as close to the coast as we did. Most people in the carriage didn’t even look up, but I thought it was beautiful in its own way: the Pacific ocean in front of us, grasses and flowers on the verge of the railway, low wooded mountains in the distance, fields and villages below them. Nothing to see, no grand monuments, no spectacular gorges or heights, just a landscape slowly being tamed by people.
This peninsula figures in the founding stories of Japan. According to the oldest book in Japan, Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters, 612 CE), the first emperor, Jimmu-Tenno, who was a divine figure born of the goddess of the sun, Amaterasu, first landed in Japan on this coast. The landscape of the interior is sacred, and pilgrims on the Kumano Kodo trail, which we would follow for a few hours on that day, pay homage to the Kii mountain range in the interior. In our age of media immersion, a very useful word is anemoia. This means nostalgia for things you have never experienced. I was headed for spectacular landscapes, but here the simple human scale of the landscape near the shore filled me with anemoia. It was nothing, but it was my kind of nothing.
Don't hold your breath 
