In the early morning, I had to use the restroom, but there was no restroom and I didn’t think it appropriate to relieve myself just anywhere. So I made use of a bottle, which wasn’t large enough.
When I was awake and packed up, I dragged myself back over to the Family Mart for a quick breakfast. The first temple wasn’t too far of a walk, though it was in the foothills where the city (farmland at this point) met the mountains. The next temple was on top of a mountain and I followed the henro paths to find that there were some significant sections that required me to manually lift my luggage to walk over weeds and tree roots. I stopped at one intersection with the paved car road to fiddle around with the rope, but quickly gave up on making a harness. After toughing it out for the next 50m shortcut, I stuck to the car road which I took all the way down even though it added more than a kilometer to the next hike that lead all the way across town, pretty much due east and crossing both the highway and the train tracks.
Noticing a supermarket on my way, I popped in and grabbed a 100 yen apple on impulse (that was a sale), some beverage and another pack of peanuts mixed with those soy sauce flavored crunchy rice snacks. I carried on to the next temple to have my picnic and perform the rituals.
It was still fairly early in the afternoon, so I was optimistic about the next group of temples a short train ride away (to save me the 24 km distance). I imagined I would drop my suitcase at temple 62, backtrack to temple 60 and get all three done. Well, I was dreaming. By the time I got off the train, I was competing against several elements. I was briefly detained by a woman with her elementary school age daughter to serve as a English conversation practice. Temple 62, which was right next to the train station had a very hostile aura about it. It was the first temple I had seen with locking gates and a prominant “No Photos” sign in multiple languages. I decided to drag my luggage with me to Temple 61. The route was a bit longer than I was expecting from the map and followed a very busy highway with basically no shoulder. The cars weren’t going fast, but there was constant flow. Then it started to rain.
Temple 61 was massive, and I looked around a bit, not exactly sure what I was looking for. I did find a old Spanish man–the first foreigner I had seen so far on the trail. He was doing the circuit for the second time, in the company of an elderly Japanese couple he had met the first time. They–who had made an entire 45 day itenerary with guesthouse bookings six months ago–made pitying sighs about me not having a hotel and offered me chocolates.
I noticed a sign saying that it would take 3 hours to reach temple 60 by foot. Being almost 3 (and raining), there was no way I could do that before dark. So, the next order of business was figuring out a dry place to stay for the night. I had seen a sign for a michi-no-eki, which is a general term for highway rest stops. In my internet researches, it had come up as a possible place to camp out, so I figured it would be worth looking into. I walked the looong 2km to the “Forest Oasis,” crossing under a real highway (toll expressway) and climbing a steep hill to find that it was still under construction and basically just a parking lot for the onsen next door. I was hot, tired, and soaked by a mixture of rain and sweat, and I really started to think about throwing in the towel and calling it quits.
I headed back towards town, and noticing the public park I had passed before, took a chance going up that hill. I found a large area sheltered from the rain with benches. A mother was sitting there while her daughter played with a stray cat that seemed to have dominion over the office/entrance for the croquette field. I made use of the bathroom and decided to wash my face and hair in the bathroom sink. I changed into dry clothes, hung my wet clothes on some benches and went to the nearest convenience store. After a satisfying meal, I picked up some cat food and some stuff for breakfast in the morning.
It was dark by the time I got back, and someone had been by to lock up the office (meaning I couldn’t exactly sleep inside). There was no sign of the cat anywhere, and I was worried it might have been locked inside. The bathrooms were also locked, but I could get water from a water fountain right there and I felt no compunctions about relieving myself anywhere with the rain washing everything. Two of the benches were both as long as me and covered with a bit of padding. I dragged them together under the middle of the shelter (think of a covered car port bending around the bathroom building and the office building). Because there were three roofs draining in weird angles, there was quite a lot of water everywhere despite not being directly rained on.
As I was falling asleep, a cop car pulled up and a hurried officer rushed over to some cabinet affixed to the outside wall to sign in or whatever. He paused for a half second when he saw my pants laid out on the bench under him, but didn’t notice me until he was on his way out. He looked twice, then figured it wasn’t worth getting wet for and went on his way. There was occasional traffic passing through the park at night (I guess its a shortcut). The wind picked up and I started to get wet, so I dragged the benches over the awning directly in front of the women’s restroom. That way I had a wall on two sides as well as the roof and the hum of a vending machine.
37545 steps for the day.
| Family Mart Breakfast | 374 |
| Grocery Store Lunch | 284 |
| Train ticket | 360 |
| 7-Eleven Dinner | 631 |
| Temples x3 | 900 |
| 7-Eleven Extras | 296 |
| Total: | 2845 JPY (182 RMB) (USD 27) |
Running Total: 27611 RMB (USD 4099.82)
Daily Average: 300 RMB (USD 44.56)