Day 20: T34-T36
Before I continue, I’ll just note that although I’m staying at another onsen tonight, not only was their virtually no one at dinner tonight, no one was wearing yukata, so I’m glad I peeked in beforehand and dressed accordingly!
This morning’s breakfast was fine; I left the small portion of natto the hell alone & noted that they had apple juice and milk available, so I drank some milk. (Not something I’d ever do at home, but Japanese milk is really good.) Check-out was easy, I left early, and was definitely in the right mindset to enjoy a long walking day. It’d been a few days since a really long walk, my pack was now as light as I could make it, and the weather was excellent - temps in the high 60s, sunny, and dry, aka perfect walking weather.
The first six or eight kilometers weren’t much to write home about; it was all alongside major roads leading to Tosa, a medium-sized town west of Kochi. Surprisingly, I encountered the Czech woman walking the other direction, which made no sense as it wasn’t anywhere near a guesthouse or a temple - when I ran into her again later on, it sounds like she was determined to get to an organic bakery that I’d passed just before spotting her. Makes sense!
Crossing a large bridge to get into Tosa, I recognized a lot of what I was seeing because I’d used the area as a Google Street View sample to get a feeling for how easy it would be to find signage for the pilgrim trail (verdict: not easy at all). Turning right after the bridge, it was another couple of kilometers into and through town; I passed a fancy-looking supermarket and, well, how could I resist that? I bought a carton of milk tea and a red-bean bun; the cashier was super friendly, wished me a nice day in English, and gave me a straw and a napkin, so I settled in to the in-store consumption area (no, not TB) for a bit to enjoy my second breakfast. From there, it wasn’t too much farther to T35, Kiyotaki-ji, which was up a fairly steep hill from the outskirts of town, with an absolutely majestic view:
While I was readying myself to perform rituals, the Czech woman appeared carrying a small bottle of tea and some snacks; apparently she’d made a new Japanese friend who was driving her around to a few temples and he’d brought osettai, or treats for pilgrims. Score! Although I did of course wonder how she went from being a walking pilgrim to that… it’s funny how many people I’ve met who came here intending to walk, but who quickly changed plans due to a number of factors (injury, annoyance at endless road walking, etc.). I get it! I’m still glad I’m mostly walking, but as mentioned before, I’m also very much happy to switch things up to improve the enjoyment of my time here.
From there, I retraced my steps almost back to the supermarket, but then winged it hoping to see some other parts of the city. None of it was particularly amusing; I should’ve tried harder to walk through the historic shopping district, but it just didn’t happen. Just before leaving town, an absolutely humongous Family Mart sign popped up, so yeah, time for a third breakfast (or early lunch): two rice balls, a 600 mL Pepsi, and yet another daifuku mochi thing (wait, no, that’s still in my pack, didn’t eat that one!). After that, I did a lot more road walking for maybe five or six kilometers until arriving at a very fancy rest area at the trail head of the old pass trail up and over the mountain to the seaside, so I stopped, had an iced coffee, and all of a sudden the Belgian cub showed up again - sweet! He’d booked into a hostel in the next town but had taken a taxi to the trailhead so that he could enjoy a nice day’s walk over a couple of passes, so we agreed to walk them together. He was kind enough to run back to the trailhead when I’d forgotten my sunglasses there, and he also took a couple of great pictures. One of them is of a snake (also not a mamushi); the other one is this:
It was delightful having him as a walking companion for a couple of hours; we stopped in at a Lawson just before the bridge over to the peninsula where we were headed (visible in the distance in this picture) for a cold drink; I attempted to improve my afternoon tea smoothie technique but nope, those things really just don’t work as well as you’d like! I wasn’t a fan of walking over the bridge to the peninsula; too narrow a pathway next to a busy road, plus my hat kept threatening to blow off of my head, so I was greatly relieved when we finally arrived at the other shore. There, we agreed to go up and over the old pass to the next temple, opting out of the much easier shoreline route. I’m glad we did; the passes are getting easier and it’s great exercise!
T36, Shoryu-ji, was one of the more beautiful ones, albeit again with a huge number of steps up to its temples. Whew. At least this time it was easy to leave our packs at the temple office before going up those steps. Amusingly, or not, this was also another temple where a monk was blowing leaves with a very loud gas blower the whole time we were there, which made for a decidedly un-meditative air to the place.
Once we were done, it was time to part ways; the Belgian was very sweet and presented me with a small amulet to say thanks for walking together. Awww! On the way back to the bridge, I checked in to my hotel, invited him in to join me in the hot springs there, and we enjoyed one last conversation together while soaking in a bath outside. Then, he took off for his hostel across the bridge, I gave him a goodbye hug, and headed up to my room for a quick snooze before dinner.
That didn’t happen thanks to a really good conversation with an old friend who’s currently in Japan, but believe me, I wasn’t mad about it! Eventually, dinnertime rolled around, and I settled in to the most over-the-top meal I’ve had yet. There was lot of nearly unidentifiable seafood - was that a whelk? tiny baby squid? milt? and is Google Translate bullshitting me or is that actually whale? - and it was good. Local chicken, tempura-style. That kind of thing. Obviously not the same at all as that amazing dinner back in Kochi, but still a praiseworthy meal; I kept myself in check and just had a small bottle of sake, but oh man, I am absolutely beat after that. It’s nice to be back in my room, futon on the tatami floor, typing this while listening to the waves break against the shore just outside my windows. Bliss.
Random notes:
Pro tip: if you see something called Coca-Cola Plus, think twice before buying and/or drinking that. Turns out it’s filled with some weird indigestible fiber supplement - and it has an unpredictable laxative effect. I spent quite a bit of time cleaning up after that bottle of Coke Plus yesterday, yikes.
I saw something advertised as Tortilla With Taco Meat at Family Mart today; kids, it looks like Mexican food has arrived in Japan. I’m a little trepidatious but also willing to try that out once I get tired of rice balls. Speaking of which, Family Mart is pulling a Tesco’s Finest kinda thing at the moment and selling luxury rice balls, which are pretty awesome - double the price of the regular ones, but stuffed with a huge piece of salmon or (the best one ever!) something like fish cakes? I should’ve taken a picture of the label but I was way too occupied wolfing it down.
Bonus picture: a little light vandalism for your amusement!
