are enjoying , a sweetened sticky rice cake which was a speciality of Kusatsu-juku. The tea house was so named by Tokugawa Ieyasu after he stopped here following his victory at the Battle of Sekigahara and was presented with a rice cake by proprietor, a 84-year old former wet nurse of the Sasaki clan who had escaped the destruction of her clan at the hands of Oda Nobunaga. Afterwards, the tea house was mentioned by Matsuo Basho, Yosa Buson and other noted travelers. In front of the tea house, on the highway itself, a passenger in an open kago (palanquin) holds on to a rope as the porters rush to his destination, while a larger, covered kago, presumably for a high status passenger, heads in the opposite direction. Neighboring post towns Nakasendō Moriyama-juku - Kusatsu-juku - Ōtsu-juku Tōkaidō Ishibe-juku - Kusatsu-juku - Ōtsu-juku References External links THE WOODBLOCK PRINTS OF UTAGAWA HIROSHIGE The Great Tōkaidō Kusatsu on Kiso Kaido Road Kusatsu city official home page Kusatsu city tourism information Shiga-Biwako Visitors Guide Notes Stations of the Nakasendō Stations of the Tōkaidō Stations of the Tōkaidō in Shiga Prefecture Kusatsu, Shiga Historic Sites of Japan Ōmi Province