YUNOMINE, Wakayama Pref. — My brother wanted to create a new room in the loft of his house in an English provincial city, actually Kingston upon Hull (population 250,000), a place of passing interest to Japanese because two centuries ago it was one of the world's biggest whaling ports. Today, the whales are still present, singing their haunting songs in a museum to the city's maritime history.
The local council refused him permission because the room would have required the insertion of a new window, and that would have ruined the uniform roofline of the avenue where he lives.
I was thinking of this when traveling recently from Osaka to the onsen town of Yunomine, an exhilarating journey along through the mountains of the Kii Peninsula. This is Japan's historic heartland, where the gods had their origins, and these routes have been a place of pilgrimage for a thousand years, through which people have sought self-discovery, purification and healing.