Day 21: T36-B5
I woke up super early this morning and was surprised to see that it was already getting light outside even though it wasn’t quite 5 am. Dawn’s rosy fingers were creeping in across the bay; the backlit palm tree in front of the hotel gave it all a very Californian air. I’d asked to move my breakfast to 8 am last night, so I didn’t have anywhere to be for a couple of hours; if I had had more energy, I would’ve headed back up to the temple and gone a bit further to see its okonuin temple, but I was pretty wiped out from the long day before, so I snoozed a bit more, eventually realizing that I needed to get going, so packed everything up and headed down to breakfast just before 8.
Surprisingly, this was the first buffet-style breakfast I’d seen in Japan this time; given the minimal number of guests at the hotel, that made sense, I guess. Although I’m not a coffee drinker, I definitely abused the coffee making machine and had a lot of caffe lattes - not bad, best available thing if builder’s tea isn’t. The breakfast itself was fairly pedestrian; nothing stood out, the salmon was cold and slightly unappealing, but whatever, the view outside made up for it. I headed back up to the room, fetched my pack, and started the flat 4 km walk to the ferry.
As luck would have it, all of that caffeine hit my system head-on. Although I already used the toilet in my room, I was struck by a sense of urgency right as I was coming into town - but thankfully there was a building advertising toilets right there. Of course, the power was somehow out, so the door wouldn’t open automatically, but they’d also neglected to lock it, so it wasn’t too hard to slide open. After destroying that washroom - I don’t know if you’ve ever seen TEEN TITANS GO! TO THE MOVIES, but the single funniest thing I’ve ever seen is a bit in that movie where the Teen Titans keep pooping in a prop toilet on a movie set (“do not go in there” being one of my favorite lines ever), and that kept springing to mind this morning. Even worse, right as I got to the ferry, round 3 was already in a mood to get going - and the toilet at the ferry terminal was locked, but thank God one of the people working there let me in because oh man, that was not headed in a pleasant direction. (And damn it, yet another squat toilet with no room for anyone over six feet tall, but somehow I made that work).
As 10 AM drew nearer, more people showed up for the ferry, all of them pilgrims. The Czech woman, the Belgian cub, and two Japanese women all got on the boat and off we went for the hour-long cruise to the trailhead for today’s hike. Amusingly, both of the Europeans had stayed at a small hostel near the ferry terminal; the owners showed up right before we took off with a huge Bluetooth speaker blasting “Africa” (yes, the Toto banger) and unfurled huge Czech and Belgian flags to wish their guests safe travels. Pretty crazy! Then, Katy Perry’s “Firework” kicked in, I decided to Google the lyrics, and I serenaded everyone with the worst karaoke I think anyone’s ever heard in Shikoku. What can I say? It just wasn’t cringe enough so I did my best to really make it happen.
Today’s walk was going to be about 12 kilometers, so relatively easy. The two Europeans and I took off together; it was perfect walking weather and fine company. There wasn’t much to report today - another snake sighting, two very low passes, one cat, and then the last few kilometers were all road walking, but the bits in the forest were very fine indeed, so they canceled each other out. The Belgian was once again having issues with his pack causing shoulder pain; I agreed to go on ahead and hope he’d catch up, but he found a way to detour to a train station and cut the walk short, which he did, so the last I saw of him was presumably watching that train pass me by just before lunch…
As much as I would’ve loved to’ve sampled the local ramen specialty, I was a little bit too late for any of those restaurants, but there was a Mos Burger right in front of me, so I did what any red-blooded American would do: I ate a burger for lunch. There were zero other customers, but the three employees were happy to find me an English menu and cook a damn fine burger and fries from scratch. Delicious, but damn, so far the two fast-food burgers I’ve had have been swimming in sauce, which is kind of gross. Don’t get me wrong, though - that was a decent burger with Hokkaido cheese and I really enjoyed it.
Just a couple more k and I was at my hotel, but the automated check-in machine didn’t recognize my name or my phone number and it was over an hour before anyone would be on-site to help - but hey, it was only another two minutes’ walk to bekkaku temple 5, Daizen-ji, so I figured that would be a good use of my time. Unusually, B5 is a relatively modern construction that was carried out in the middle of a small city, so its layout is unlike anywhere else; the temple office is at the base of the hill and around the corner, the main hall is up at the top of the hill, and there are a lot of steep stairs down to the Daishi hall, which is also down at the bottom of the hill. Strangest of all, there’s a tiny funicular sort of thing that will spare you the hassle of walking up there, which I was happy to check out for only 500 yen:
You’ll note another pilgrim headed down from the main hall on the right there - his adorable dog was wearing pilgrim’s clothing as well. So cute! Anyhow, I went through the rituals here as well, but as I don’t have a stamp book for the other 20 temples, I didn’t get a stamp here. Afterwards, I headed back over to the hotel and hung out. It’s kind of a funny setup; there’s what I assume is the original hotel (kind of run-down, unappealing, and unsavory) and then a newly constructed annex across the parking lot from it (modern, clean, attractive). Eventually, some old dude came out of a room in the old hotel and yelled at me PLEASE TO WAIT while he came downstairs, rummaged around in the old office, and did some stuff in the annex. Eventually, he motioned for me to come into the old office; he photocopied my passport (as is normal here) and then made me read and promise to have understood some translated sheets he produced (uh, okay, don’t worry, dude, I am definitely checking out before 10 am and I have no intent of smoking in the room, thanks). In just a few more minutes I was in my hyper-clean, newly-built business hotel room and very happy to get out of my clothes so that I could have a look at what the actual fuck was going on with my junk, ouch. Turns out somehow I’d managed to get a heat rash or something similarly nasty going on down there, with a scary bright-red color, way too much moisture, and general uncomfort. Yikes. Anyhow, I googled “diaper rash ointment in Japan”, figured out what it’s called, and headed to a drugstore across the street and actually managed to ask where that stuff was. Yay, basic Japanese skills! Anyhow, I bought some, put it on, and holy fuck it burned more than I could’ve imagined, so I’m just going to carefully wash the affected area, let it dry overnight, and hope for the best.
There was also a supermarket and a restaurant across the street, so I bought a canned highball and a beer (for after dinner) as well as a couple of snacks for tomorrow (barley tea, some weird “functional foods” that I think are supposed to help digestion) before settling down to a decent katsudon for dinner (breaded pork cutlet served over rice with onion and egg, my favorite comfort food here). Six bucks for that, would you believe? And then okay, I also bought a red-bean-and-cream pancake-thing at the drugstore, went home, ate that, drank the alcohol and now it’s bedtime.
Random notes: Passed a bar (?) called Grizzly earlier on today. In my imagination, it’s a seedy biker bar that gets its business from motorcycle enthusiasts who ride the newly-constructed road along the coastline from T32 to town, but for all I know it’s actually run by a Joe Cocker otaku with a penchant for melon soda and Doritos. Guess I’ll never find out!
The new new new shoes showed up today - and it turns out Asics shoes are incredibly weirdly sized. The 32 4E shoes that arrived are marked as US 15 wide, EU 51 wide, which is really something else again, far bigger than I wanted. And you know what? They might be comfortable! I think I’ll give them a shot tomorrow and see how they go…