Tochimenya Yajirobei, "Yaji," who lived at Hatchobori in Kanda, was originally the son of a merchant in Fuchu in the province of Suruga, but he ruined himself with drink and pleasure, squandered his fortune, and fled to Edo with his hanger-on Kitahachi, "Kita."
Life in Edo did not go well either. Yaji's wife died, and Kitahachi blundered at the shop where he was in service. The two decided, "Why not go on a pilgrimage to Ise to shake off our bad luck? And while we're at it, we'll see Kyoto and Osaka too."
Scraping together borrowed money, they got ready for the road and, one spring morning, set out from Nihonbashi in Edo. Yaji was about fifty, Kitahachi about thirty. Both were frivolous, fond of women, scatterbrained and full of mischief.
Nihonbashi was the starting point of the Five Highways and of the fifty-three stations of the Tokaido. From early morning the bridge bustled with travelers, merchants and people seeing them off. As the song goes, "From Nihonbashi in Edo, setting out at the seventh hour," travelers heading west on the Tokaido usually left before dawn, at the seventh hour, around four in the morning.
At the Shinagawa post town the two shared farewell cups with the friends who had come to see them off, and at last began walking west along the Tokaido.
"Hizakurige" means using your own knees in place of a chestnut horse; in other words, traveling on foot. When Jippensha Ikku published the first part in 1802, it was an instant hit, sequels followed one after another, and it became a vast work spanning twenty-one years. It is said that an unprecedented travel boom swept the commoners of Edo, and many people set out on the Tokaido just like Yaji and Kita.