2 August, The 'Nakasendo', the path Tsumago - Magome        

        Between Kyoto and Tokyo the only intact route of those Edo period postmen is between the two small villages Tsumago and Magome, 7.5 km between rice fields, waterfalls, forests, ancient temples and tombstones.

        Early in the morning in a train full of workers dressed in light blue shirts and light dark long blue trousers the tourists were few and full of colors.

       In the last carriage, the conductor at every stop opens the door of his compartment, makes a hinted bow and starts checking the tickets of all the passengers. Just before the next stop, the conductor is pushed back to his compartment. The force of gravity was the announcement into the microphone of the next stop. But before to do that he turns to the passengers of the carriage, makes another bow and returned to his task. Eight stops, sixteen bows. It looks like a spring that the more it stretches the faster it returns to its starting position, especially when there is little bit of time between the stops.

       Tsumago is a tourist/Edo village. Houses that go hand in hand, which crowd the small main street. Between a museum and some scattered shop, between some Dutch looking for water and some Japanese sitting down to draw a glimpse of that history the heat was already in its strong youth. And there were 7.5 km to do

       The Nakasendo (the name of postmen path) begins in alternation of asphalt, stones or simple soil. Sometimes it joins bamboo forests, growing tall and thick, cedars trees, elders with more than 400 years, waterfalls teeming with water and more. Sometimes, however it breaks up abruptly and becomes a road for passing car, a small street of inhabited houses, rice fields conquered by brush.

       At one moment I got to be skin and just sweat. On the map it was marked the point where the path climbed up to 800 meters. That was also the mark of a cottage, or old inn, or a refreshment area.

      I went in, together with the old path there was an old man. He saw my condition and with a few gestured words invited me to sit down. It offered hot tea, onions in vinegar and a well-washed and shiny tomato. I accepted everything and in silence I let myself be possesed by tiredness, by the heat of the fire that on the side warmed up a teapot hanging from the roof. With the bittersweet taste of the cherry tomatoes and the wind playing hide-and-seek between the front and the back door I stared at teapot..

       That teapot hanging from the roof how many times it has been there waiting for travelers between the two cities, between continents and oceans. There that teapot immutable to the heat, the cold, the rain of all the seasons of the world. A teapot that suffered the moods, the laughters, the swearing, the pains, the tales of the postmen of that time. The teapot, that probably isn't the same now, still observes the new travelers, with their excited voices, with their thanks written in the comments notebook, with their clicks and snap-chatted memories.

      Soon I was up at Edo/tourist village of Magome. I check in, I get to my room, there was no bed. I throw the futon to the ground, lie down and rest there for what looked like a century.

      Today I came back from a meditative retreat. And the story of the pink panda will also be for the next time.