Monday, September 17th, 2001 (click to see all posts from this day)
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Shouinji and Hakuin
A day of highs and lows: It began with a great prayer experience, and ended with me being lost!
I got to Hara late (after laundry; since I have only two sets of samue, I have to do laundry every other day!). Then I discovered I was going to have to backtrack more than a kilometer to reach today's highlight: Shouinji. But boy, was it worth it.
What about Hakuin? Here are some links:
- A biography
- A wonderful story illustrating his personality [actually within the same bio]
- His great Song of Zazen in translation
would Hakuin laugh
to think this aging gaijin
worshipped at his grave?
Hara, Station #13 on the Old Tokaido
Hiroshige's Tokaido: Hara, Station #13 on the Old Tokaido
 The view of Mount Fuji from Hara is supposed to be splendid. So great, in fact, that it busts right out of Hiroshige's frame. But--as usual--it was obscured by clouds. |
SO... I faked my "official" picture for Hara. Can you guess which one is me?
Sadly, there's not much else to show or tell.
[2019: Found him! On a single homepage--see #4. He was headman of a village in Ukishima (where I walked) who tried to build a much-needed drainage canal. Sadly, as soon as it was finished, it was destroyed by a high tide, and he "died in depression." Another canal was built in the same place after 80 years or so, proving his plan was a good one.]
And the rest of the walk was of two natures:
- Industrialized areas and/or rather depressed-looking neighborhoods
- TOTAL and complete lost-ness on my part, up to and including darkness.
Yoshiwara
I could find nothing of visual merit in the Yoshiwara shuku (station). (And certainly nothing to inspire a haiku.) There is a place called "Hidari Fuji" where, because the road swings north, Fuji-san appears on the left side of the road. But of course I still couldn't see it.
So I planned to do my "official" shot of Yoshiwara by the Fuji River. But you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see it because I never made it! This is only the second time I've been completely bamboozled, but it was a good one. (The first was on September 9th, between Hodogaya and Totsuka.)
I caught a train at Yunoki station on the Minobu line about 6:45 and headed for "home." More tomorrow of this exciting saga.
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Posted September 28, 2019
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