Japan for Homeward Travelers
The Complete Guide to 200 Return Journeys, Last Trains Home & the Keeping of Journeys' Ends
- AuthorAki Wakamatsu
- PublisherTakikawa TOKOTOKO Kids LLC
- CategoryJapan Guides & Culture
- LanguageEnglish
- FormatEPUB ebook
About this book
Every guidebook plans your going. This one is written for your coming back. Two hundred journeys, each one the final movement of a journey composed as a day in its own right: the last morning in the visited town, the leaving done well, the homeward ride ridden awake with the stations counted backwards, the far road chosen for the return, the last train taken as a traveller instead of a deadline, the approach across your own home ground, the arrival, and the keeping of the ended journey — the unpacking as a ritual, the journal closed properly, the stories told in order.
The unit of the book is the return itself — not the sight, not the vehicle, not the purchase, not the procedure for getting home. A shrine matters because of the last look back at its gate; a port because of the rope let go slowly; a suburb because it is read, once, with a traveller's eyes. Eight parts: learning the return · the last morning and leaving the visited town well · the homeward ride taken slowly · the long way home by the far road · last trains and final sailings, the day's last movement · familiar ground, approaching one's own country · the journey's end, arrival and keeping · and the homeward year and the method, returns in every season closing with the method of composing any return.
Because departures, sailings, closures, fares and seasonal arrangements change, the book never asserts them as current fact: every one of the 200 entries closes with its own official check — the named official source (railway, bus and ferry operators, the road and port authorities, shrine and temple offices, the inn association, the town office, the weather service) whose information settles what is current before you travel — on a homeward day, above all, the return's own departures. It asserts no rankings, no strength claims and no health or healing effects. Return patterns are described as patterns, which are permanent; the day's arrangements are always referred to official information. Written and created in Japan.
