[Note: I’m getting a lot of new followers who don’t know me personally and may not know my sense of humor. My intent is to amuse and not to offend any particular religious faith. Please know that I when I write, my tongue eventually finds its way to my cheek. Also, I write this thing after walking 15 or more miles with a 20 lbs. backpack and before I can get to bed. There will be errors, run-on sentences and a dearth of Oxford commas.]
We woke at 6:00 a.m. to get breakfast at 6:30 at Urokoro with plans to start out at 7:00. Idoji (Temple 17) is located 1.4 miles north of our lodge and Temple 18 and 19 are located miles to the south, so were able to leave our backpacks at the hotel and just take our pilgrim bags containing candles, incense, the guide book with the temple sutras and other pilgrimage-related information. I’ve been carrying my scroll in a blueprint carrier I brought with me from the states. Temple 17 is a bit smaller that the other temples so far and, in fact, a road turns a corner at the perimeter of the temple in such a way that, if it did not turn, it would run straight into the temple grounds with nothing to stop it. I forgot my Garmin tracker on my backpack so there’s no evidence I visited the temple beyond the stamp on my scroll and the pictures below.
After picking up our backpacks, we headed out to a post office we had found Google Maps. I had decided during our climb up to Shosanji (Temple 12) on Day 3 that, while I love my DSLR camera, the weight was not worth it. I had been reaching for my iPhone camera more and more instead of breaking out the really good camera and, when not in use, it was just dead weight. I had asked Connor to carry the 70-200mm zoom lens in his pack and he was happy to the released from his duties. Unfortunately, I found out the that Japanese post office would not accept a handwritten address so I had to access a website via QR Code and figure out shipping on the fly. The mail guys/gals at my office should be seeing a package from Japan with my name on it in the next few weeks.
Next, as we worked our was to Temple 18, I had to convert the $1,300 I still had sitting in my wallet when I initially landed. We headed to what I guessed to be a business district in Tokushima. I found what appeared to be a central bank as I had been striking out in the various branches. I ended up in an area with a row of private rooms – seriously, no one stopped me walking in – which I figured were more for financial advice and private client affairs. I figured, what the heck, and asked the next person I saw, “sumimasen, Awa ginkou desu ka?” [Excuse me, is this Awa bank?] It was. The gentleman I asked found a woman who spoke some English to help me and, between her much better broken English and my much worse broken Japanese, I found out that while they couldn’t help me at this location, they had a branch just down the street that would be able to help me out. The rest was as exciting as you’d imagine, except in half-Japanese/half-English phrases and sentences, pantomime, and imaginative reinterpretations of words the clerk and I both knew.
Both of these events took longer than I had hoped, but if a clerk walks out of the room with your passport in one hand and almost all of you money in the other, you feel obligated to stay. So it was just past noon when I finished and we had two temples to visit. But first, we had to experience the majesty of the lowest mountain on Shikoku.
With an elevation of 6.1 meters, Bentenyama is called the “lowest mountain on Shikoku.” I have no reason to doubt it. It had a similar feeling to seeing “the largest ball of string in world”, but with a shrine on top. We stopped to eat our lunch a few yards away before heading to Temple 18.
Onzanji (Temple 18) got a little bit of the short shrift as we were finding ourselves again running against the 5:00 temple office closing times and we still had to get to Tatsueji (Temple 19). Our lodging for the evening was 3 miles past Tatsueji and we didn’t want to have to come back.
We arrived at Tatsueji (Temple 19) around 4:50 p.m. and got our items stamped before attending to the hondo and Daishido rituals. A tour group of pilgrims came in while we were there and they just kind took over the place by shear size. At least they chant really good.
It was about 5:20 p.m. when we finished and still had a 3 mile walk to our lodging. We ended pulling out our headlamps and rolled in about 6:44 p.m. well after the sun had set and with the temperature quickly descending. A fish dinner (no picture) was provide by a lovely retiree woman who lives elsewhere but stays here and cooks when she has guests booked to stay. Time to wrap it up for the night.
2023 Shikoku Henro 