Overview of today:
The sleek Shinkansen Hikari #463 zips me from Tokyo station to Shizuoka City, where I take the JR for Tokaido post station Yui, to soak in the ambience of the old Tokaido road. I take a walk in the Yui Honjin Park and visit the Tokaido Hiroshige Art Museum, which houses ukiyo-e by Utagawa Hiroshige. You have seen the woodblock prints, but from the same place as he sketched them in? Lunch should have been the famed local sakuraebi, the cherry shrimp. Taking the train back to Shizuoka City, I take the bus at terminal 4 to Utsunoya-iriguchi, where I review a valley of old houses and cannot find a tunnel remaining from Meiji times. Another short bus ride and I am walking through Togeppo Saiokuji, a Japanese garden. Dinner features a yam soup mentioned in the classic tale of travel, “Tokaidochu Hizakurige”, or “Shank’s Mare”. I return for the evening to downtown Shizuoka and the Hotel Prezio.

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