October 16, 2006

End of another long day on the road as I have made it around to Temple 23, which is the last temple before leaving Tokushima Prefecture.  This temple is also the first temple that is near the Pacific Ocean and it was a beautiful site to see as I rounded a corner with less than 30 minutes to go before getting to the Temple.

 

Tonight I am staying in a old converted bus that a local restaurant lets walking Henro stay in for free. They also gave us a huge free dinner as well.  I say we, because there will be 6 of us sleeping in the old bus tonight and there will be little room for anything other than futons & sleeping bags.  I have met 3 of the others before while walking and that would be; Kamemoto-san, Showgo-san, HIro-san and I’m sure I will know the rest before the walk is over.

The bus thing is part of what they call Osettai, which is the custom of giving free gifts to Henros as they are walking along as it brings good luck to the giver as well as the receiver.  So far I have been given cold drinks, a little money, candy and actually two free nights lodgings.  There is the one tonight and one about two days ago.  As I was walking down from Temple 12 a taxi pulled over, which had 4 older ladies also doing the temples and they gave me some snacks and the taxi driver gave me his card and said something I didn’t quite understand but something about Temple 16, so I thanked them and went on my way.   I actually made it to temple 17 that day and as I was sitting in the temple courtyard trying to figure out where I would spend the night another gentleman sitting nearby asked me where I was from in Japanese and then said something I didn’t understand and then he said “free stay Sakai Taxi”.  So this Sakai Taxi was the same taxi company that had passed me earlier in the day and what the taxi drive, who was actually the owner, was telling me he had a place at his business where he let Henros stay for free.  So I pulled out the business card and showed it to him and he said “Yes, That’s It” more or less.  So I walked the 1.5 miles back into town and found the taxi company and sure enough he had pretty decent place over the taxi garage where me and another Henro stayed that night.

Here are some more scenes along the way between temples 12 & 23:

An old Lady who gave me money Osettai

 Taken from the bridge crossing the river

Discarded prayer beads & walking sticks at temple

 Morning Sunrise over the Pacific

I’ll try to get more pictures loaded up into Flickr next time I find a McDonalds as I have quite a few more of interest

So this is the end of the first week on the road and hit a bit of a milestone today as I just went over 100 miles. The next few days will be along he coast line and there won’t be any temples for a couple of days.  The weather remains very nice with high temperatures in the upper 70′s and not much humidity and hopefully this will continue for awhile.  It hasn’t always been easy to find the time to write in the blog as either I’m to tired or don’t have a very good place to get setup.  I have been able to “free camp” as they say for the last 3 nights and if I can put in a long day tomorrow I guess there is a place about 20 miles away that will let walking Henros stay for free as well.

Till next time,

Lou