A sensory account of walking the 1,300-kilometer Kumano Kodo pilgrimage route around Shikoku Island without knowing the language or having fixed plans. Marie shares her experiences from this liberating journey, where she and her husband Torben, with no prior Japanese experience, embarked on one and a half million steps through mountain ranges, rice fields, and local communities.
The lecture unfolds the encounter with an entirely unfamiliar land, its culture, and the social codes to navigate as a tourist. Marie tells of seeing the world through a child's eyes, meetings with locals, daily culinary surprises, and everyday challenges such as understanding road signs and navigating traffic.
You will receive practical answers: How do you manage without Japanese? Where do you sleep along the way? What goes in the backpack? How far can you walk daily? The lecture concludes with three key takeaways: insight into the pilgrimage route and daily life as few tourists experience it, practical knowledge from long-distance walking in Japan, and reflections on being a stranger and discovering the world with fresh eyes.
