Day 7. Three mountains to cross. First week over.

Updates slowed down. Sorry. Computer broke down and took a while to get a new one and set it up working.

Having had restless night(not sure why but I kept waking up only to fall asleep quickly again) I woke up. Last night I think I passed out around 21:30 which was earliest so far. I just felt so tired that by that time eyes barely stayed up. Indeed I decided to leave packing for morning rather than prepare packs for the morning.

Doing morning routines and packing backbag ready I then proceeded for breakfest that had something I had  yet to eat in Japan. Rice porridge! Different from the one in finland though. Think this has water rather than milk and generally was more liquid than finnish one. Still good.

The quiet one talked just enough this morning that I confirmed he was doing the pilgrimage so that's all of us then.

After breakfast we started to leaving. I was last one to leave and I would be walking while others accepted car drive to center of Katsuura. Temptation was strong but I decided to challenge myself.

Morning had beautiful blue sky with only passing clouds. Quite a bright day it would be. I was glad I would be going over mountains rather than streets though. This could be very hot over asphalt. At least on mountains trees provide shade.

Taking some stops on the way and exchanging few greetings with the few locals I saw(Shikoku has many places that are deserted when I go through them) I reached the bridge from where I would need to turn right toward the first temple of this day, The Kakurinji.

This would be first of the 2 mountain temples and 3 mountains I would need to cross. Taking brief stop at the gateway to the mountain I then entered in. Legs were feeling great. Lack of gel bottoms was helping!

Climb itself was great. If there's something to complain it is that due to heavy trees it was hard to see far. Still sights were beautiful and it's just so much fun walking through mountains. Path wasn't particularly steep, narrow or uneven. Just steady climb.

Look at the blueness of that sky! It was bright. Made it actually tad hard to take photos! Too stark lighting.

After surpriringly short time though I reached the temple. Alas this temple had no osamefuda to sell as I seemed to have lost mine on the Jigenji yesterday.

The temple #20 is called Kakurinji(Crane forest temple). This is first of the 6 difficult spots Kobo Daishi is said to have set up. Difficult in what way though? Just being tough climb? Didn't feel that tough though I'm not going up and down daily which helps.

On my way to the Main hall. Honzon here is Jizo Bosatsu. It's wooden statue carved by Kobo Daishi. It is also said to include smaller(about 5 cm) one inside which is supposed to have appear when he was training here and the statue appeared at the base of an old cedar tree guarded by pair of cranes(hence the temple name I suppose).

Crane temple, crane statues!

And the Daishi hall.

This temple is unique in the Tokushima that it has never been ravaged by fire! So even the Chōsokabe seems to have left this one alone. Woohoo!

In the temple there had also been arrival of another older couple and boy and girl(maybe grandkids). The kids sure were energetic running stairs up and down. Ah to be a young again!

Temple area was bit cold though. Maybe due to height or more likely because it was heavily forrested but it was chilly! So I went down pretty fast to keep me warm.

Leaving the temple the women from lodging arrived. This was mutual surprise as neither of us expected me to get here first. Though I think her path was longer than mine which compensated for her car drive.

I caught up with older pilgrim walking down and exchanging standard greetings I proceeded to go ahead.

Kind of like the effect of blue sky and black silhouette.

On route I ran into some sort of smaller temple as well. Good spot to take a small pause.

This photo I like very much. It contains all the elements I really love about Japan's nature.

I wanted to find vending machine to get some more drinks. As I caught sight of female pilgrim ahead left heading toward bridge we need to cross I also spotted vending machine on right so I went there. As I got my drinks grandparents and 2 kids came. One boy, maybe 5 or 6 years old, even exchanged few words and finally gave me a candy as an o-settai...

 This small gesture almost made me cry out of gratitude. Despite lone candy not being much importance in itself the gesture itself was heart warming so with "never refuse o-settai" in my mind I accepted o-settai with great gratitude. I just wish I had even one osamefuda left that I could have given him! This really buggered me rest of the day. Here was one person I really, really, REALLY wanted to give osamefuda but didn't have one. Damn why did I have to lose them yesterday!

As I left I thanked him many times and turned around for one last goodbye waves he returned with big smile.

Wish you all the best! You brought smile to my heart and extra spring to my steps for this day.

Just shows small acts of kindness can indeed go long way.

After this I moved forward catching up with the women who turned out to be 70 years old and from Hokkaido. We had so much fun time talking that I didn't mind slow pace and forgot to take pictures for a while :D Very sweet grandmotherly women. Grandmotherly with good legs mind you! While I was faster than she was respect for her health considering her age! I have been in worse shape than she is in this age.

And she was quick one to suggest me to marry japanese and start working here :D

Eventually we reached rest hut where she proceeded to take jacket off as it had been getting warm. We also stopped for a lunch break during which she gave me osettai herself. Man I had caught up before also joined us. Eventually we started to leave with him first,, me second and her last as he told me to proceed with my own pace.

Finally reached the start of 2nd climb proper

Next temple's name. Tairyuuji, great dragon temple. Curious that first sign though. "Fat". I would have thought without dot in the center(difference between "big" and "fat" kanji's) would make more sense. Wonder if this kanji had in older days other meanings?

And it's an arrival to the temple #21! Not sure why but this felt even easier than last one! Despite this being supposedly one of the more famous nansho's, difficult ones, of this pilgrimage. I got up into temple fairly quickly. And whom I meet there? The female pilgrim I had met at last lodging and the kids and the guardians(so I was on foot despite taking breaks and walking a while with the grandmother about same pace as they on car. Shows how much shorter in distance the walking path is!). Oh and whole pile of other pilgrims. Busiest temple visit I have seen so far. 

This temple(nicknamed also as Western Koya) is said to have been built by order of Emperor in 793 supposedly by Kobo Daishi. This however is rather weird claim as he would have been only 19 and still like decade before going to China. And he's supposed to have performed the Gumonjiho ritual(chanting Kokuzo Bosatsu's mantra million times) when he was 22 years old with temple supposedly built after that. Something gives here.

From the sanmon gate it took a while to even reach the temple buildings!

Hey looky look. What's there...

The previous temple! This was funny sight being able to see the other mountain I had just descended and then see just how far it is. You don't REALLY have sense of scale of distances when you walk. You just take one step at a time.

Honzon here is said to be carved by Kukai.

The main hall.

And the Daishi hall.

All sort of animal statues it seems. Wonder what they are for?

By the way another legend states that the temple's name comes about because a miraculous image, guarded by a great dragon, appeared during Emperor Jimmu's (the first Japanese Emperor) unification campaign.

This was interesting painting at the ceiling of one temple building(not main hall or daishi hall).

 Puttin temple behind me there was basically 3 ways to go from here. One is through east. 2 goes to south from which it splits. Oh and ropeway for 4th but that I never considered.

One of the south ones was supposedly very good(I asked temple staff and they disagreed with my path saying I should go south and then turn east. Huh? Didn't see what appears to be route there though black dotted line is there but is that path marker? Anyway since path was same for a while I figured I go south for a while and see if there's clearer markers there) so I headed toward ropeway where the path there would start.

Path was flanked by these kind of statues.

I was joined for same route by the female pilgrim though I soon outpaced her. Then I arrived to a bangai spot that had Daishi statue.

 This bangai spot is called Shashin ga take. Kobo Daishi wrote in one of his books how he climbed(to this place) and prayed facing the Muroto cape of Tosa(Kochi prefecture). This was located at 618m height.

I went there though getting there was tricky especially as I didn't think to leave backbag behind. Still views were beautiful. Women pilgrim catching up with me decided to not go there which might have been good with her shoes that looked more at home in asphalt. Mine were designed for terrain like this though!

Not the easiest path to go at.

 Above and below picture not taken by me but by Dutch women. My photos turned out blurry or too dark.

I caught up with her and we walked along until we came into split where we weren't sure which route to take. Temple staff had suggested left(now I understood her instructions!) for good views, she thought she had been warned it could be dangerous. But she opted to call to another person who assured it's safe. Taking heed of that we went left(which would also be shorter route). We continued together a bit before she said I should head forward alone as she stops sooner and I wouldn't want to be crossing last mountain in dark. Wasn't sure would it be in danger of that but it made sense so we bid farewells and I proceed on my own pace.

Beautiful recently restored pilgrim path. Sometimes there were tougher sections with ropes but as long as you didn't rush it no problem so well worth coming this way.

As can be seen path wasn't at times exactly spoiled with width...

Ropes. Generally these were useful for real and not just for show.

These signs stating "national treasure, Awa(Tokushima) henro path, rocky mountain route" and distance to the village I was heading for.

More ropes! Here it was tricky as I needed to get to lower level but the gap between levels was kinda high.

Not quite sure what kind of building middle of forest this is. Old abandoned home?

Eventually proceeded to come out of forests to small village...And back to mountains again. This time much smaller though which was good as if it would be as bad as last ones I would have called taxi! As it is I was pretty damn exhausted coming down from the other side.

Okay this was bit odd place. Right? Forward?

For some bizarre reason this gave me very nostalgic view.

Water scooter? Here in the middle of nowhere without sea nearby? Weird.

Slight issue that started to bother me was lack of drinks. I had exhausted almost all except for half a bottle of sport drink I had in my backbag.

These colourful flags are fairly common in Buddhism. They basically symbolize 5 elements we are made of. Water, earth, fire, wind and spirit I think.

Quite an interesting looking rest hut!

Another type of osettai here were wooden walking staffs for pilgrims to take if they need one. Most tend to buy at the start but guess they could wear down or get lost or some other reason resulting in new one being helpful. And some probably prefer more natural looking one here rather than industrial produced one.

By now I was starting to get extremely tired. Luckily the short stop made feet feel much better already.

On my way to the train station I spotted old women doing some rice planting related thing and out of curiosity decided to ask if my image of rice planting process is right. It was and I got good ABC's of rice planting! She seemed happy to talk for a while and I was happy to learn something new.

Finally got into the town. Post office was already closed so I would be sending book I had bought to a friend next day. I could have tried temple 22 but was tired and it would be touch and go would I make it so left it for next day.

On route to station I ran into yet another 86 years old grandma with whom I talked this and that and among topics we brushed was how it's the human to human interaction that's really important in this pilgrimage. Temples are nice yes, mountains are great but the things that REALLY stick with you are the people you meet in the between. This makes explaining this pilgrimage and what's so nice about it very hard as the meetings are by nature personal and situational. Basically every pilgrim will have different experience despite walking more or less same person.

When I finish this one way or another and look back do I remember specific temples? Or do I remember the Mr. F? Or the runner I met at the Sudachi-kan? Howabout the bike riding aunt-like lady? (well that one is hard to forget! She's the kind of person that seems to dominate surroundings with her great personality!)

Without all the meetings here I would have already called this quits. It's all the meetings with fellow pilgrims, hosts and locals that really are giving me energy needed in this.

The yellow building gave me a flashback to the golden pavilion temple in Kyoto!

Phew. Anyway getting to the station with feet hurting I checked for train schedules. Over hour to the train and it was getting chilly there. I talked with parents a bit and then started to find lodging for the next day.

Booked up. Vacation. Booked up. Then one flat out refused to take me because I'm foreigner. DAMN! That really put me up on a foul mood. I tried calling yet another. Booked up. This was looking bad. And train came so I had over hour I couldn't call(phone calls during train in japan is no-no) so I was bit worried through the train trip.

Arriving to Tokushima i checked in ASAP and went to room to find lodging. Booked up. This is bad. Luckily next(last one before business hotel and if that fails some serious rethinking needed) had place. PHEW! Hardest lodging to book so far and even blatant case of racism for first time. I have had times where japanese look discomfortable when I approach but generally those loosen up when I speak in japanese so i guess those have been not so much discomfort at me being non-japanese as to discomfort at the idea of having to face english conversation whih they might struggle or be totally incapable at. But openly hostile reaction for being non-japanese? Nope. First time for that.

With lodging sorted out went to the same restaurant I had been on first night for my dinner.

Ankles feeling pretty bad which is worrying. Luckily tomorrow should be shortish day.