May 23, 2025

Day 44: Komatsucho Akao-Saijō

Right! So yesterday’s newsletter didn’t happen for two reasons: no keyboard and virtually no Wi-Fi. The first was by design; the second was because the hotel I stayed at was moderately crappy. But let me see if my poor old brain can remember how yesterday started out…

Right! So: Shikishima ryokan. When I checked in, they took a picture of me that makes me look tall because, well, I am tall. The innkeeper also mentioned something about my neighbors being French, but I didn’t see them until I got up in the middle of the night to take a leak, at which point some random French woman decided she needed to come over and use the toilet as well. Good thing I was wearing a yukata! Huh, that was random. Breakfast was disappointing compared to dinner; I made myself an instant coffee and had a pre-packaged, shelf stable piece of bread of some kind - not amazing. My original plan was to dawdle; there were two bekkaku temples between Shikishima and the onsen hotel I had booked, and the distance wasn’t great; again, this was a weird scheduling artifact that had to do with the trade fair in Imabari jacking up prices. But the more I looked at the weather, the more I realized that I needed to find a better plan. I had scheduled two nights in Saijo in hopes of climbing Mount Ishizuchi, but Saturday was looking to be incredibly rainy all day, so a terrible day for any outdoors activities. That left Thursday and Friday open, with five temples to visit, one of them at the top of what’s said to be the most difficult hike on the pilgrimage, and all of them not close enough, I thought, to be able to visit them all in a single day. Plus, I did need to get to that onsen hotel as (again) the trade fair meant lodging was scarce around here and I couldn’t rebook.

The ryokan was only a couple of minutes’ walk from a train station, which made skipping the two bekkaku temples easy (no real reason to go to them, plus lots of road walking). It looked like visibility might be okay up on the mountain, but it was hard to tell. To get there, you can either walk all the way up (the summit is at 1,982 meters), or take some kind of public transportation to one of two main trailheads. On this side of the mountain, that means a bus to a ropeway to a lift to a very steep trail with chain sections or lengthy detours. In short, it’s not a trivial hike. The bus doesn’t run often; as I was riding the train into Saijo, the biggest town in these parts, I was mentally running through all possible options and decided that it would work if I took the 2nd of 4 buses up, just had a look at the shrine and views from above the ropeway and lift, and then came down on the 3rd bus to take another bus to the onsen hotel, inconveniently located for public transit but reasonably well located for the start of the strenuous hike to T60.

At Saijo station, I didn’t see any coin lockers, but the friendly guy who was just opening the tourist information office explained where they were. It would be 500 yen for one that would fit my pack; I didn’t have coins, having used them all to buy the trains. I thought that maybe sticking a 1,000 yen note into the Coke machine next to the lockers and then canceling the transaction might give me change; it did not. What it did do was cost me 1,000 yen + illuminate the ‘this machine cannot accept banknotes’ light. Oops. (The QR code for refunds worked, but you need a Japanese phone number to go that route. Ah well.) Thankfully, the JR station agent traded me coins for another 1,000 bill, and I started repacking my bags… but damn, I kept waffling. Was this really the right thing to be doing? Did I want to wait 90 plus minutes for a bus? I must’ve stood there for a good long while with my crap partially in a locker while failing to make any kind of decision. I was also briefly distracted by a handsome bicyclist getting ready to head out with his friends - first proper beard I’d seen since Imabari. Woof. And then I thought, huh, well, given that I need to get to my hotel, which is to the west of T61, and that T61 through T64 are essentially in a straight line running West to East between the train station and my hotel - and given that the trail up to T60 kind of starts near my hotel, heads south, and then back up to T61/T62, which are near a train station… well… why not do this backwards? I mean, there’s no rule that you need to do this in order (just as there’s no rule that you need to hike every step between the temples), so OK, yeah, that makes sense. I finished repacking: my big pack (and big hat!) stayed at the station, and my small day pack came with me with just the basics: passport, water bottle, hiking poles, gloves, rain jacket, pilgrimage gear. Oh, and snacks. Gotta have snacks.

The first order of the day was to fill the water bottle; Saijo is famous for having amazing spring water. Unlike, say, Perrier, France, the natural spring water here is still good and clean and doesn’t require treatment; there was a map at the train station showing where public water taps could be found, so I went to one that was vaguely in the right direction. Just as I finished filling my bottle, a woman rocked up in a Prius and filled some bottles too - and yeah, it’s tasty water. There was a 7-Eleven next door - who doesn’t need more snacks? And maybe some more cash? I also thought I’d try a red bean pasta and margarine hot dog bun-looking thing - hrm, okay, that isn’t amazing. And then I got myself on the correct path to get to T64, Maegami-ji. It was all road walking today & the weather was warm and muggy, still humid from yesterday’s rain. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it also wasn’t refreshing.

Way back in the medium planning stages of all of this, I had once thought I’d stay at a Shinto shrine next to T64 and take a bus up to Mount Ishizuchi; it was pleasurable for me to pass that bus stop opposite a Family Mart and verify that I’d gotten the schedules and logistics correct for that - but I needed the Family Mart more, the toilet specifically, and wound buying an Earl Grey tea bun thing afterwards for good measure. So: plenty of snacks.

I think the best way I could describe T64 was that it reminded me of a summer camp in the Sierra Nevada somehow. There were trees, running water, and a nicely Californian sense of ease. Given that it wasn’t exactly raining, I figured it’d be okay to take my gear out of my dry bag and get in character; it was nicely atmospheric there.

I imagine that you might be able to see Mount Ishizuchi back there somewhere, but not today. (Or today, while I’m writing this. In theory I should be able to see it from my hotel room, but it’s still overcast and foggy up there.) I was down to one single candle, so restocked here & then headed next door to a giant Shinto shrine that appears to kinda sorta be home base for people that worship Mount Ishizuchi, or the kami that live up there, or something. I don’t know. Not being entirely certain about photography protocol at the shrine, I didn’t get any pictures of it - but it felt larger than any Shingon temple I’ve seen on this trip, with a large hotel-like section, lots of offices, and all kinds of specialized business areas (e.g., part of the complex was designed for new car blessing ceremonies specifically). So instead of a cool picture of a bitchen shrine, you get today’s Weird Wildlife Sighting instead:

I kept heading west & came to Kichijo-ji, T63 eventually. The path had turned off of the main road and onto side roads some time back; this was somewhat better in that I wasn’t being passed by trucks, but also somewhat worse because old, crappy roads tend to have sharp bits of gravel that are painful to walk on. It wasn’t easy for me to find the entrance there; I spotted a tour bus of pilgrims and hoped I could tailgate them in, but they were headed back to their bus. As luck would have it, the main entrance was closed as they were repouring some concrete, but it was fine; I eventually spotted a small sign and found my way in. This place reminded me of another temple all the way back in Kochi in that its front gates opened directly onto a busy road; not at all tranquil. And really not much at all to the place, save for some very nattily dressed dude (pilgrim? monk? influencer? Hard to say) Creating Content with some guy with a very fancy camera. It was a little odd watching that - but ehhh. They seemed to be really into it. Much to my surprise and delight, the woman who stamped my book etc. gave me an origami crane stamped ‘63’ as well as a snack - yay, more snacks to add to the bag!

The next temple was only 1500 meters to the west; I was getting hungry, and there were a few small restaurants here next to the station - that’s right, this temple felt like it was almost part of the train station (it had been moved when the railway line was built, I’m guessing just enough to get it out of the way). I had other plans, though, so kept going. Now, I have to admit, I kind of loved Hoju-ji, T62. There really wasn’t much of it at all; the temple office was in what looked like a donga, or maybe a temporary building & the Daishi hall kind of felt like a Studio Shed type pop-up cabin, but with vending machines inside of it? Pretty cool, though; I was feeling splurge-y so had to buy the 1,000 yen incense (verdict: maybe smells good when burnt? It’s supposed to be magical or something. Will annoy Dan with it later when I’m home.) and sadly did not buy a souvenir towel (but should have). This office also had a friendly woman doing the stamp-work - and after she was done, she handed me a clipboard with a survey to complete for foreign visitors. Tough one; it could’ve been better constructed, I think, because it was all ‘choose 1 only’ and not, say, ‘stack rank these things if they apply; if they don’t, don’t assign it a number’. You know: nature, spirituality, physical challenge etc. in response to ‘so why are you doing this?’ It didn’t take long to complete - and then she gave me a small pin as a thank-you.

Now, if you’ll forgive me, I was about to do something slightly cringe. As you might have gathered from previous posts, I’m a fan of Montbell, the Japanese outdoor outfitter. They have nice designs, their stuff holds up well - I’m literally hiking this pilgrimage in Montbell socks I bought in Tokyo a decade ago, for example - and they also seem to be getting into the ‘here’s an exclusive thing only sold at this one store’ game even more lately. The stores in Kochi prefecture had Kochi-specific shirts - same for Ehime - and the Nakamura store even had one T-shirt that no other store had. The pilgrimage guidebook showed that there was something called Montbell Outdoor Ishizuchi Oasis or something up the hill from here - but what was that exactly? Well, turns out it’s something like a family campground, but next to a busy expressway. It took some time to get up there, but yes, they did have one T-shirt sold nowhere else. Much like the Ehime/Ishizuchi/Comic Sans shirt, it was hideous, so I didn’t get one. But I did get a boxed lunch with a lot of eel, yum, and some cold tea, so I took my shoes off in the sun to try to dry my socks a bit, and enjoyed my meal.

The distance between T62 and T61 was even shorter, but of course coming back down the hill took some time, and then I once again had trouble finding my way into the complex. I first suspected I might be getting near the temple when something that looked like an avant-garde mausoleum popped up - or was that an apartment building? It had a feel of a Big Sur “Zen-inspired retreat” to me - modern, cold, dark, and also hella cool. And then finally I got in after walking around the block and yes, that was presumably the temple office. The temple itself was Kaaba-esque, a giant block of dark concrete hulking in the forest built in 1976. Unfortunately, however, they’re finishing construction on a bunch of newly-built, but traditionally designed and constructed buildings next to it that kind of ruin the ensemble. Oh well!

Nothing about this place was normal. I loved it. The two walking sticks are in a traditional holder; that’s not unusual, but everything else sure is! The hexagonal candleholder has a sand-trough around it for incense. And there aren’t separate main and Kobo Daishi halls: it’s all upstairs, accessed via giant staircases on either side. The temple reminded me a lot of the church in Mexico City with the Virgin de Guadalupe: unapologetically modern.

But yeah, okay, enough about that. It was getting towards the end of the day, I was tired, and I started the tedious roadwalk to my accommodations. Thankfully, just before I got there, there was a Family Mart, so I treated myself to an Earl Grey Afternoon Tea smoothie and relaxed a bit before finishing up the walk. This was an onsen with a three-story hotel on top of it; the overall vibe was very Days Inn Glendale to me. There was an enormous, tacky gift shop, a sad looking cafeteria, and terrible Wi-Fi. I did use the onsen, which was mercifully empty as I got there right before all of the package tourist pilgrim buses started arriving. It was not great - the, uh, green stuff growing on the inside of the glass wasn’t great. Algae? I’m not sure. But whatever, warm water is a good thing indeed. Eventually, it was time for dinner, which was okay to middling. I could’ve done without the fried oysters, but I was hungry. And damn, they know how to soak pilgrims for beer, which was easily 200 yen more than it should’ve been. At least room was Western style that night, albeit as hard as a futon on a floor & with neighbors easily heard through the walls.

Breakfast the next morning wasn’t much better, although it was more elaborate than most, with a small kettle of tea (I think) on top of a Sterno-esque burning fuel pellet so that I could pour it over sashimi and rice. That was actually pretty tasty, but it also almost instantly gave me stomach cramps, which thankfully subsided once I headed up to my room and got rid of all of that bad food. Sigh. Anyhow: I turned in my key, walked past the same Family Mart, decided I didn’t need anything as I hadn’t eaten any of the snacks from yesterday, and then turned right to start heading up the mountain.

That trail didn’t look too bad on paper: about 7 kilometers on a road, then 2,200 meters on a trail. At the end of the road there was a lovely rest area complete with spring water (I drank as much as I could - it was delicious) and nice, clean toilets. From there, it felt like it was almost all stairs to the top. Yokomine-ji, T60, is at 750 meters elevation; the other temple are in the teens. That’s a big elevation gain, about 2500 feet, and yeah, I felt that. The weather was cool and very, very damp; trees were still shedding moisture from rain that’d fallen 24 hours ago, and it took a lot of patience and effort to not slip on anything. But I made it up the hill just fine; I did have to stop for nearly 30 seconds at one point to catch my breath, but on the whole I felt fit.

I don’t have much to say about T60 other than I didn’t see very much of it because it was shrouded in fog the whole time that I was there. The most amusing thing was a Japan Post employee stepping in to the temple office while a monk was stamping my book - there’s now a small road that reaches the temple, so I assume he’d driven an electric scooter up there. (Cars aren’t allowed; there’s a toll road and paid parking, though, that gets you fairly close, albeit at a steep price, no pun intended.)

Now, the only thing I had to do was to get back down again, which is way more terrifying that getting up, at least for me - and especially after it’s rained. That took a long, exhausting time; there were two trails down from which to choose, one to T61 and one signed T62/JR; I chose the latter, figuring it’d get me closer to the train station. That was slow going!

Just before the turnoff to the Montbell Ishizuchi Oasis, there was this thing:

And then eventually, finally, there was a train station next to the charming T62. When I’d passed by the day before, some folks came out of the train station and immediately went into a very cool looking restaurant called 10taro - so I figured I’d do the same. I’m shy to a fault & I don’t love not being able to speak the language, but I was hungry. No English menu, no English spoken, but damn it, we made it work. The lunch menu was complicated: a number of mains from which to choose, and then 3 side dishes of your choice, plus soup, but with 1 thing of your choice in it (!). I recognized ‘breaded pork cutlet’ and went with that, asked the waitress to choose any 3 sides for me, and opted for eggplant with basil in my miso soup. And damn that was good - just an incredibly good lunch.

Yes, traditionally Japanese, but only just. I especially loved the pumpkin salad, but all of it absolutely hit the spot. I paid, used Google Translate to thank the staff, and headed off to catch my train; a few steps out of the establishment, though, and the waitress rain outside to give me a piece of candy and a huge smile. Just lovely people.

The train ride back to Iyo-Saijo station was short; I arrived ten minutes before check-in time, but staff offered me a seat, a plug for my phone, and a cup of tea. This is clearly a slightly dated, older business hotel, but with a nicely refreshed lobby and incredible staff. Ten minutes later, they came over and got me, checked me in, and explained where the laundry, bath, etc. were. When I came downstairs to get my laundry started and my bath, the staff ran over with an extra-large pair of pajamas in a plastic bag because they were concerned the usual size wouldn’t fit me (spot on!). And now it’s 7 pm, I am in need of supper and a highball or two; I am bathed, all of my clothes are clean, and I’m frankly kind of achy after that climb today.

Tomorrow is a rain day, so there’s nothing on the agenda. And then Sunday, well, I don’t know. It’s either me climbing Ishizuchi, or maybe just going up to the shrine on the mountain - or paying attention to the weather report, if still foggy/overcast, and giving up on all that. Yes, it’s the biggest mountain in western Japan and yes, it’s a holy mountain as well, but right now I gotta see a Family Mart more than I need to see that, I guess!

Random notes: Almost took a leak in public again today but damn it, a pilgrim showed up AGAIN right as I was about to do that. I think it’s a sign I should never, ever consider doing that again.

I forget why I was hanging around a Family Mart waiting for something yesterday, but I finally took the time to inspect their clothing aisle. They have cute towels… as well as Netflix branded underwear for some reason. Not sure what’s up with that.

There are only 10 hiking days left on this trip. 10! That’s crazy. Good thing I’ll likely have the next two days off, though: I apparently have a subdural hematoma (thanks, Dad, for diagnosing that) that’s slightly painful to walk on and I could use a break. As fun as this has been - still is, actually, as I loved parts of today - I think my 55-year old body is slowly giving me the finger here.

There seems to be a subtle thing that premium branded Japanese alcohol drink cans do that I think is pretty swell: if you have, say, a can of Asahi Dry or a Suntory highball, note that the can itself is textured or embossed. It just feels classy. I mean, spendy. Either way, I like it.

I’m trying, but failing, to figure out a way to finish this pilgrimage a day or two sooner so that I can spend a little bit of time in Osaka. All of this nature is really making me miss city life - and dang it, a little tiny bit of shopping would be nice too :)