Kakegawa & Mishima

Bustling checkpoints along the Tokaido road, filled with traveling merchants, pilgrims, and the warmth of roadside inns.

These post towns along the Tokaido road represent the lively, chaotic reality of common life under the Pax Tokugawa. The inns are noisy, smelling of woodsmoke, draft horses, and cheap sake, filled with the chatter of acrobats, merchants, and pilgrims. For Hanada Seizō, they are places of administrative headaches involving luggage fees and accounting ledgers; for Takuan Sōhō, they are opportunities to observe the simple, unvarnished nature of humanity and write poetry.