First Day On The Michinoku Costal Trail - October 9th (Day 1)

Today we began our walk of the Michinoku Costal Trail. 

The day started in Sendai, the largest city in the Tohoku region in Japan. For those who don't know, Tohoku is roughly the area between Tokyo and Hokkaido (Japan's north island). We had caught the train from Tokyo last night and arrived at about 8pm to the cheapest hotel I could find that included both free breakfast and a Japanese public bath:

The hotel smelled of kerosene and the room was frightfully depressing. It had a heavy metal door, no carpet and plain white walls with no pictures:

Our cell for the evening

In spite of all this I still enjoyed the place. One of my favourite things about budget travel in Japan is the cheap hotels. They have a certain 90s time warped charm about them that makes them interesting and unique.

Also, whilst they may have their faults, they are rarely dirty or dangerous like you would find in cheap places in other countries. 

Greg and I woke at 6:30am to get breakfast at 7am. The breakfast was kind of strange. It consisted of nothing but boiled eggs, plain bread and orange slices:

No jam, butter or even salt was present

I'm not complaining, it was a free breakfast after all. So after filling ourselves with this odd mix we hopped on a train at Sendai station to make it to the trail head at Soma Station in our finest hiking attire:

We then caught a taxi to the trail head at Kankyo Park

Happy to begin!

It has been about 4 and a half years since I have done any serious walking. In spite of it being so long I have not forgotten the lesson I learnt from not training properly beforehand. Those first two weeks on my last walk on the Tokai Shizen Hodo were honestly the most painful of my life so this time I put in the time and effort before hand to train myself to a reasonable level so I do not repeat the mistake of both my big toe nails falling off (don’t believe me? read here).

So I have been training on Perth's iconic Jacob's Ladder for the past month, up and down, up and down:

It has about 240 steps in total

Greg has also been training by walking around the area where he lives for hours with his full pack on. So with us both feeling confident we could handle this walk, we set off at around 11am. 

The trail started on the outskirts of a small town called Soma and took us through semi urban roads for most of the day:

About an hour into the trail we met a Japanese American guy who had been walking for 29 days from the other end. It was great to have a chat with him and get some tips for what was to come. He was in the Japanese Navy and had gotten some time off work so decided to do a thru hike of the trail. I wish I had taken a photo but unfortunately I was still not in blog mode yet and forgot. Apologies, won’t happen again.

We continued through the day and it was pretty uneventful apart from a few things:

Convenience store lunch by a river

Mine was crumbed chicken and rice

A farmer had tied a dead crow to a pole in the middle of his field. I guess to scare off other crows?

First Tori gate of the trip

Greg found a snake skin. Probably not the only snake we will see on the trail

What struck me was how much I missed walking in Japan. There is a simple satisfaction in it that I had totally forgotten about. You have a simple physical task, walking, and you have a goal, the end of the trail. Each step you take brings you closer to that goal so you always feel like you are achieving something. You also get to see and experience interesting things that you could not get elsewhere like beautiful views and scenery, or just simple happenings of life in Japan that you only get out in the country.

The fact you are doing something physically exerting all day also makes you appreciate the small comforts all that much better. Having a cold drink or a hot coffee or even just sitting down for five minutes on a bench seems all that much more pleasurable when you have been walking for the past 6 hours:

Something like this can seem like a luxury when you have been walking for 6 hours with a heavy pack on

We planned to camp at the top of Mt Karo where the Japanese American thru hiker had recommended. But our ambitions were bigger than our ability and by 4pm it was starting to get dark and the mountain was still looming large in front of us:

Still so far away!

By the time we started the accent Greg and I were both pretty tired. We had only done 24kms, but it’s our first day and we are not used to carrying the heavy packs on our backs yet. 

So we started looking for a place to set up our tents a little early. We were following a paved road up but the map told me it was going to stop half way up and a walking trail was to begin. Experience has taught me that where a mountain road ends and a walking trail to the top begins there is sometimes a toilet, a bench and/or a flat spot to camp. 

This time we were in luck as there was a flat spot with not one but two benches just off from the main walking trail:

We got the tents set up just before it got dark:

It didn't have a bad view either:

Greg theorised that the epic beams of light were caused from radiation from Fukushima 40km south of us

Anyways we have now just finished our cold convenience store dinners and are getting ready for bed.

Happy to be done the first day of the Michinoku Costal Trail!

DISTANCE WALKED: 24.54km