I felt pretty good in the morning despite my critically low phone charge and no immediate prospects of getting it charged. The plan was to leave most of my stuff in the hut to visit two temples on the coast then swing back by to pick it up on the way to the third temple. I headed over to the Family Mart to grab a coffee and a sports drink, and drank those crouch outside (because still no tables). The sun came out, and I quickly busted out my solar charger and loitered there, eating my breakfast and using the internet while gaining critical battery power.
Bodily and mentally charged for the day (I had missed two days of Duolingo because of the convenience store situations), I walked the half hour over to Kanon-ji (the town’s namesake temple), bumping into the German guy on the way and walking together. We had our own morning routines, he went over to the Lawson’s to check his email while I was at the Family Mart studying Japanese for 15 minutes. For being a combo of two temples, it still really only felt like a single temple. After checking them off the list, I climbed to the top of the hill to get a look at the sea and the giant sand sculpture of a coin on the beach. It may have been the morning light or the rain from the last few days, but the sculpture looked a little washed out.
I headed back east wearing my backpack on the front to maximize exposure of my solar charger to the bright sunlight. After not seeing the sun for a few days, I welcomed the UV (but still slathered on some sunscreen). I grabbed my stuff from the Henro hut and proceeded onward to the next temple. About a block before reaching it, I took a small detour into a supermarket, which had a corner “cafe” of tables, and had an early lunch in the air conditioning. Afterwards, I visited Motoyama temple, which was surprisingly crowded, and proceeded over to the namesake train station to take a shortcut. It was getting quite hot by this point, but the sunlight had fully charged my phone, so I was grateful for that.
To get a local train to my target station would have required waiting two hours, so I hopped on the limited express train to the station before it. I still saved roughly half the distance, but had a long two hours of trudging north in the heat. Along the way, I passed by a house where an elderly couple were seeing off a friend. They called to me to stop and after a brief chat, gave me a bottle of tea as an osettai. I thanked them profusely and carried on. When I reached a crossroads marking the paths for the next two temples, I decided to deposit my suitcase at a quiet Shinto shrine. The next temple was well up a hill which would be a very tiring climb without any baggage. In fact, there was a staircase of a 108 steps, for which the temple is somewhat famous.
I bumped into the German guy again and was impressed how quickly he could travel on foot when I skipped kilometers at a time by train. Of course, my detours to pick up luggage and go to train stations add quite a bit of distance and I noticed my general pace was a measly 3 km per hour. On my way down from the temple, there was a very busy michi no eki with an attached onsen and park. I contemplated stopping there for the night, but being only 3 pm, I decided to move on to the next town.
Taking the roadway as opposed to the over the mountain footpath, I had some extra distance to cover, but I had no choice. As I was dragging the suitcase along the highway, I figured out a way to use the bungee cord to attach it to my backpack to provide some assistance and redirect nearly half the work to my frame as opposed to one arm.
On the other side of the mountains, I came across another small rest area, basically just a single bench with a roof, but otherwise reclaimed by the surrounding flora. A largish Family Mart was only a block away along the highway. Not being an optimal spot to stop, I carried on, hoping to find something nice closer to the next pair of temples. I failed to turn where I should have (being distracted by the road signs for drivers), and ended up near a public park. It was a nice park, and I would have stopped there except for the very prominent locking gate. After a brief rest and a bit of inspection, I verified that it locked up at 6pm, making it untenable. I swung by the next temple, reaching it after it was closed. I had no idea where to sleep, and was sitting around waiting for someone to rescue me, but no one came. A monk went about his duties cleaning up the candles and incense from the day, a couple of henro strolled in late, did their rituals, then rushed off to the next temple.
I decided to backtrack to the Family Mart and get some food. I supposed I lucked out because the Family Mart actually had seats, so I could chill their for a couple hours eating and eating. After dark, I went back to the little bench on the intersection of two highways, shooed away the ants, used a wet wipe to brush away the dirt and godknowswhat, laid down my picnic blanket tarp, and did the best I could to not expose any skin to the open air. It was a rough night.
45316 steps for the day.
| FM beverages | 228 |
| Rice balls & salad | 393 |
| Train ticket | 210 |
| Temples * 4 | 1200 |
| Dinner (Mapo tofu) | 501 |
| More food (popcorn and chocolate) | 226 |
| Total: | 2758 JPY (176.5 RMB) (USD 26.21) |
Running Total: 28242.5 RMB (USD 4193.6)
Daily Average: 297.3 RMB(USD 44.1)