Start: Kotai Jingu (Ise Shrine inner shrine)

Finish: Yoshinoyama

Length: 375 km

Total ascent: 17,663 m

Duration: 18 walking days

Transfer to start: local train from Nagoya

I studied Japanese at university with a hope of learning more of an older China unadulterated by modernity or doubt about its own centrality in the universe. What would China look like if it preserved as much of itself as possible? On the way, I had the opportunity to live and study for a year in north eastern Japan, and have formed a strong bond with the land and the way of life there.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to answer my own question about the counterfactual China, but I treasure what modern Japan has become and what it has preserved. So now, at my “half life”, I will return to it again to ask more questions – on a pilgrimage.

I must admit I’m rather proud of putting this pilgrimage together: stitching together three different routes on the Komano Kodo, ringing minshuku owner on their landline to book accommodation in rusty Japanese, puzzling out the unmapped (officially) Kobo Daishi Way from blogs and running club routes, and connecting the routes. It made me dream of walking on, to Nara, and on, to Kyoto, and on and on…

I set off in the second week of October.