Thinking Allowed: Day 44-46: Watari to Hirono

Day 44: Watari to Kashima

Hours walked: 7:15 to 4:45

Distance walked: 32 km

Cumulative: 928 km

We left our campsite with fond memories, and with vegetables the grandmother got Zadie and Tova to pick before we left. We also bought extra pastries because we felt so indebted (and because they are delicious).

Today we walked past many pretty rice fields flooded with water - it was cool to see the bunches of rice stalks sticking up like tiny islands. We had cloudy, calm weather all day which made the walking much easier. We passed another ruined elementary school from the tsunami.

Reaching Soma, we decided to keep walking and slackpack 12 bonus km since we had the time to - so we celebrated 20 years of marriage by seizing the opportunity to walk some extra miles … seems fitting! We also shared a parfait in a cute cafe playing soft jazz, a quiet end to a good long day.

Fresh off the vine!

The signs now say Tokyo, not Sendai!

Tova took this one

Anniversary parfait

Day 45: Kashima to Namie

Hours walked: 7:00 to 4:00

Distance walked: 32 km

Cumulative: 960 km

An early wake up to catch the first train back to Kashima. It rained on and off all day. Tamar was struck by the weirdness of the post-nuclear disaster recovery; they’re trying to reopen these deserted little towns in radiation zones after 13 years, but they’re all ghost towns.

At the Namie rest stop, we got the local specialty: ice cream with green onion and soy sauce. When it came, we noticed the topping had little eyes: the soft serve was covered in whitebait! Zadie: “it was the most disgusting ice cream I had ever seen in my whole entire life.” We ate our vanilla ice creams while the little fishies stared reproachfully from their untouched cup.

Jakob and Tova sat out today’s walking and took a recovery day. They visited ruins, ran errands, did math over a parfait in the super cute jazz cafe, made a big sushi dinner and whipped up a small puzzle for the others too. We stayed in Mawari Guesthouse - since we were the only guests, we basically had a whole house to ourselves.

And we all thought tomato would be the worst local specialty ice cream

Tsunami memories

Imagine seeing this from your school’s roof

Just your ordinary playground

Tova prepares the sushi feast

Day 46: Tomioka to Hirono

Hours walked: 10:30-3:00

Distance walked: 16 km

Cumulative: 976 km

Nuclear wasteland skip! We weren’t allowed to walk in the “difficult to return” zone, with guards ensuring nobody enters on foot, so we had to hop over 15 km of plutonium fields. Aurora’s hat fell off the stroller in Soma, so we went back and rescued it. The 90-minute delay ended up dodging the worst of the rain, so that worked out.

Our walk was very pretty today. The newly built road was quiet and featured lovely views of the ocean every few minutes. We had lunch atop the seawall and enjoyed watching the big green waves roiling in. Walking past Fukushima No. 2 Nuclear Power Plant was creepy, every access point was a riot of barbed wire and warning signs.