It's our 10th anniversary, so I tried walking 100,000 steps with my boyfriend

"It's been a year since we started dating, so why don't we try walking 10,000 steps?"

I never imagined that such a casual suggestion would lead to this 10 years later...

I spent this Golden Week just walking and walking with my boyfriend. I'd like to leave a record of it.

The Beginning

Since we both have a hobby of taking walks, we've been wandering around various places since we first started dating.

And around our one-year anniversary, wanting to achieve something together, we held our own "10,000-step walk."

Second year, 20,000-step walk, we did it.

Third year, 30,000-step walk, we did it.

Fourth year, 40,000-step walk, we couldn't do it.

40,000 steps in one day is just too tough. We gave up around 35,000 steps. I think we had walked about 25 kilometers.

Fifth year, 50,000-step walk, we had already stopped doing it.

Time passed, and before I knew it, it was our 10th anniversary, and finally? at last?, talk of marriage had come up. And then, I suddenly thought.

Don't we have to do a 100,000-step walk!?!?

No, we could reach our 10th anniversary and get married without doing a 100,000-step walk. But I felt that if we didn't walk at this timing, we would never do an anniversary walk again.

Can we get married with such loose ends? No! We can't!

So, we decided to hold a 100,000-step walk as a sort of rite of passage for our 10th year, before we get married.

With our current ability, we definitely can't walk it all in one day. We're planning for it to take about three days. Calculating the steps and distance, we decided to head toa place of memories, "Miura Coast," which often appears in our dates.

↓Here (past tweet)

This is my boyfriend's first overnight walking trip. He's coming along, half-forced?, but I wonder if we'll be able to make it back safely...

Day 1 (Home → Yokohama)

My boyfriend came home in the morning after a drinking party the night before and slept through the morning, so we didn't start until noon. This is the answer to 'Which is more important, your job or me?' lol. Well, it's the usual. It seems he has the stamina to walk a long distance the day after drinking until morning.

After walking a bit from our house and crossing the river, we were already in Kawasaki. This area is still our usual walking route. It's a breeze.

Since it was only the first day, we still had the energy to take photos while enjoying our breaks.

Along the way, there were also recommended spots I really wanted my boyfriend to know about.

It really is such a great place no matter how many times you visit. There were a few people taking photos that day too. It has completely become a bit of a tourist spot.

Seeing my boyfriend's fresh surprise, having had no prior knowledge, looked so innocent, and it made me reflect on how shocked I was when I first came here.

As we walked through the part of Yokohama near Kawasaki, which has an atmosphere like a seaside downtown area, the 'THE Yokohama' that many people imagine—the Minato Mirai area—came into view.

Man, it was crowded. It wasn't because of a large-scale concert or anything, it was simply crowded because it was Golden Week. Since people were concentrating only on Minato Mirai, my boyfriend and I walked along saying selfish things like, 'Can't they do something about Yokohama's urban planning?'

We stayed in Chinatown, but for dinner, we avoided the crowds and had a hidden gem of a steak bowl in Kannai!

That was delicious! I want to go back in my private time. Oh, wait, this is my private time too...

So, the first day was 21 kilometers, 34,753 steps!

My boyfriend, who rarely relies on compresses or medicine, started applying Salonpas and Roihi-Tsuboko.

Day 2 (Yokohama to Yokosuka)

Morning in Chinatown is the aftermath of a festival. In fact, they were setting off firecrackers with a bang the day before. We walked through the quiet, deserted Chinatown and headed toward the Negishi area.

For a Yokohama beginner who only knows the Minato Mirai area, this was a fresh place to see.

There were several large vacant lots on the hill with English signs. Looking it up, it seems to be a place called the "Negishi Housing Area."

It seems it used to be housing for the US military, but everyone has moved out, and the land is in the process of being returned. I had no idea.

I reaffirmed that the charm of a walking trip is being able to encounter places you wouldn't find while sightseeing in Yokohama by train or bus.

Including Negishi, the area between Yokohama and Yokosuka is a parade of small hills (mountains?). In other words, there are intense ups and downs, which is hard on the feet...

We passed through many tunnels.

When I go on walking trips alone, I think passing through tunnels is a bit scary, but it's fine with two people. The second half of the trip until we reached Yokosuka was a parade of tunnels, but we were hiking happily together.

When we passed through the last tunnel...

The sky opened up all at once, and the buildings got taller. I realized, "We've arrived in the city." This is the goal for the second day.

We thought about eating local gourmet food, but everywhere had huge lines because of Golden Week. We gave up and went to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant in front of the station. It was delicious—and it's still near the sea, after all. The fish was fresh and thick.

The second day was 27 kilometers, 39,613 steps!

My boyfriend has a blister on the sole of his foot and it looks painful... He's wearing a bandage we bought at Don Quijote.

Day 3 (Yokosuka to Miura Kaigan)

The final day. We have to reach 100,000 steps no matter what. However, if we head straight from Yokosuka to Miura Kaigan, we might not have enough steps...

We wanted to keep the final day light, but we changed our plans and decided to take a detour: Yokosuka to Uraga to Kurihama to Miura Kaigan.

Speaking of Yokosuka, it's the sea. Wanting to see the ocean while also racking up steps, we took a long way around on a road closer to the water called 'Yokosuka Kaigan-dori.' This isn't a formal walking tour or anything, so we're free to choose whichever street we want!

Everyone was busy fishing and having barbecues. We passed by thinking, 'That looks nice, I want to join in. Why are we walking on our day off?'

Even though it was a detour, the final day was lighter compared to the second day. We went to 'Kurihama Flower Park' to combine lunch with getting more steps in. How romantic!

We didn't have much time, so we just wandered around the entrance area, but I'm very satisfied with seeing so many flower fields! I want to go back here privately next time... lol.

Once we got through Kurihama Flower Park, there was a hill just as steep, if not steeper, than the ones on the second day! My promise that the third day would be light turned out to be a total lie! Sorry, boyfriend!

Starting around Kurihama Flower World, we huffed and puffed our way along a strangely named street called 'Shirikosuri-zaka Street' (Butt-Rubbing Slope Street), and before we knew it, we had crossed a mountain.

As soon as the Shirikosuri-zaka slope ended and the street name changed...

The sea began to spread out before us. Now all that was left was to walk along the coast to Miura Beach!

Shortly after the sea came into view, we found a place called the 'Kitashitaura Coast Promenade'.

It's great!! It was beautiful, looked new, and despite it being Golden Week, it was a total hidden gem with almost no one around! This is another 'walking-trip-only spot' that we probably wouldn't have encountered if we were traveling by train.

Almost at Miura Beach. We made our final push while walking along the coast, which, while seemingly the same, shows many different faces depending on the area.

And finally...

I wonder how well this comes across in the photo, but the distance from the sand to the water's edge is huge. It's just so far. At night, this creates a one-of-a-kind, thick darkness. We love this, which is why we've come to Miura Beach so many times.

You can't tell where the sand ends, where the sea begins, or where the sky starts... We crunched our way into that pitch-black space and savored reaching our goal.

Day 3 was 21 kilometers, 32,479 steps!

Summary of the walking results

We reached the goal safely, but the goal of this trip was to walk 100,000 steps. The final step count is...

106,845 steps!!!

We exceeded it! I'm so relieved. Since we don't usually go on walking trips while keeping track of our steps, I was nervous even though I had calculated it beforehand. Now, can we celebrate our 10th anniversary and get married with peace of mind?

On the way back, we returned easily on the Keikyu Line in less than an hour. If someone asked if there was any point in desperately walking such a short distance, I'd have to say no. However, I think this Golden Week was one where we talked more, used our heads more, and helped each other more than if we had just spent it lazing around at home or taking a relaxing resort vacation.This is what makes walking trips so 'intense', probably.

I feel like I might have left my boyfriend's body in tatters, but... by sharing such intense and difficult memories, the two of us have surely become a little stronger.

We left Miura Beach while talking about a 200,000-step walk that might come someday.

"200,000 steps for our 20th anniversary..."

"No way, how many days would that take? Haha."

"40,000 steps a day for 5 days..."

"That's too tough."

"But there were so many couples on the road who looked like they were on a walking trip."

"Maybe it's a quintessential hobby for retirement."

"We're getting into senior hobbies way too early."

"It would be nice if we could still walk together when we're old and gray."

100,000-step walk: The End