2023.09.23
If you think about it normally, you would return to Tokyo by Shinkansen from Shin-Osaka. If you want to take a short detour, take the special rapid train to Kyoto, then take the Shinkansen. Previously, when I was on a business trip, I enjoyed walking along roads like the latter. Take a walk around Kyoto's Higashiyama and Gion areas, buy an eel bento at Izumoya along the Kamo River, and eat it in the car. Since this is the Obon weekend, the Shinkansen and tourist spots are sure to be extremely crowded. Thinking that the midsummer break would be a break, I took a drastic escape route. If you look at a wide-area map, it seems that the shortest route in terms of distance is via the Atsumi Peninsula. It's interesting that the shortest distance is a detour. We took the Kintetsu Express from Namba to Matsusaka for one night and had Matsusaka beef dinner. The next day, instead of going to Ise, I went from Futamigaura to Toba. Take a boat and stop at Cape Irago, then take a route bus and local train to Toyohashi. The travel cost was also a little cheaper than the Shinkansen, so I used that extra money to pay for the first-class car and first-class cabin, making it a little bit more luxurious. There were a few things I realized thanks to Michikusa. First, it was deserted except for tourist spots. I rarely passed anyone in the streets of Matsusaka. Most of the rooms on the second floor of the ferry were reserved, and there were no other passengers on the bus, so I was able to experience a mysterious world. The second thing was that I felt the sea road. Come to think of it, I heard about Cape Irago in Shimazaki Toson's palm tree, and it is indeed connected to the Pacific Ocean. When I searched the internet, I found an article about an experiment in which coconuts were released from Ishigaki Island. Some of them are said to have washed up on the Atsumi Peninsula, although not on the cape. In addition, I remembered that there was a monument commemorating a palm tree at Kaikoen in Komoro, Shinshu, where I stopped for soba noodles on my way back from skiing this winter. It may seem strange, but detours are good for exercising your brain and activating your brain.
Well, let's talk about afterword. A friend of mine who went to Koshien at the same time returned to Tokyo on the Hokuriku Shinkansen around the Sea of Japan. This route was taken out of necessity because the Tokaido Shinkansen was stopped due to a typhoon. Hearing that story was eye-opening. I have been to Kansai over 100 times in the past, but this route never occurred to me. Michikusa's third discovery this summer may have been to realize once again how narrow his perspective and inflexibility was.
