Day 31: End of Month 1
It is the morning of October the 1st as I write this. Back home in Canada it is still September. I have now been in Japan for one month. My most obvious purpose for coming here was to hike the Tokai Shizen Hodo trail through the mountains from Osaka to Tokyo. That plan went out this window about 3 or 4 days in to the trip, with the final nail in its coffin the aggravation of my lingering right knee injury. It was very difficult for me to walk away from that plan; figuratively as I spent so much time researching and planning that hike, but also literally as I had to climb back down a mountain with a fucked up knee. After mulling it over, and waiting back in Osaka the late summer heat to pass, I settled on walking the old Tokaido road along the southern coast that once was once the link between Tokyo and Osaka in the Edo period. This would let me follow the spirit of my goal, but save me from ruining my knee in the process, as the costal route profile is much smoother, with vert