Kumano Kodo, Day Four
From ancient trail to art trail
We need to move quickly this morning, which isn't easy when you're floating in a circle. The circle is Hotel Nakanoshima — long curving corridors of beige, peach and gold.
Miles from our room, we take a detour at the dining room and enter the maze that is the breakfast buffet — a feast of foreign delights that our western eyes and stomachs have too little time to digest. Many other hungry humans have also made their way here. However they seem to be circumnavigating the buffet leisurely and with a familiarity that only adds to our need for speed. Quick decisions. Small bites. Big gulps.
Goodbye Nakanoshima
We sail from this grand circle from another era, race to the shore and the local train station to put our luggage in a locker. Stopping only for a breath before boarding a bus to the third and final grand shrine of Kumano. Had we ventured here yesterday we wouldn't be run, run, running today. But we have no regrets because the rain of yesterday has fallen away to a gorgeous Spring morning.
Our pilgrimage is drawing to a close. Only a few hours remain and we're on a mission to see the sight that brought us to this ancient trail in the first place and carried us through. A place that must already be captured in a thousand photos. But captured our imaginations — two silly pilgrims from another place, another time.
Before we go up, we must go down a stone staircase to the base of Nachi falls, a 133 meter tower of fine white oriental silk. As wet as we are dry. Snap, snap, snap.
40 minutes and hundreds of steps remain, time to go up to the Kumano Nachi Taisha. We pause often, to take photos of the pagoda, not a breath. Up, up, up, down left, up right, zoom snap, zoom snap.
We are trying to soak in the fleeting moment we have here in this magical place. Capturing in a pinch the reality of it. Not imagined. Not a dream. Pinch, pinch, pinch.
Lest we forget... Here is the Seiganto-ji temple. Next to the shrine and the oldest building in the area, reconstructed in 1590.
What goes up must come down. Fast. Down the stairs we go. Which? We're unsure, one staircase gives away to many. But we're going down so we must be making progress. Many steps, few minutes. We arrive at a bus stop, further down the hill than intended, but minutes too late. Proof again that transport in Japan runs on-time, to the minute. The next bus can't come soon enough. We have luggage to release from their locker and a train to catch.
The race continues, bus to train, dragging us off the pilgrimage trail far to quickly. Pulling us away from the ancient towards the modern. Our heads spin as we pause in Osaka, briefly. Barely time to buy lunch.
As the evening approaches, we board a boat to see an altogether different dreamland on the horizon. History relinquishes to fantasy as we arrive at our destination for the next two nights – the Benesse Art Museum on Naoshima island.
The sun is setting fast but it is clear to see that we’re on an entirely different trail – the art trail. Perhaps our pilgrim shoulders will rub with some hoity-toity art lovers. The landscape certainly seems to have tilted dramatically to frame the outdoor installations, which now take their rightful place center stage.
Given the hour, we keep tonight simple – not to be mistaken with modern or clean. We have a simple room above a restaurant, Cin.na.mon. Eat a little at a Korean BBQ restaurant and then have a feast for the eyes at the art-centric Japanese-style public bath house Naoshima Bath "I Love Yu" (playfully named on the character for hot-water which is pronounced "you").
We can hardly wait for what tomorrow brings - modern art, modern art and more modern art. Checking out one piece outside the restaurant briefly with it's illuminated shell in the night skies. But besides this piece, it’s time to rest these weary eyes.
