April 18, 2025

Day 9: T21-T23

Last night’s dinner was better than average - and I had more than one drink for the first time in a couple of weeks, so I was feeling plenty toasty by the time I headed back to my room after dinner. This inadvertently led to me feeling, well, kind of horny for the first time since I arrived in Japan. It’s kind of a funny thing, being here; although there are definitely Japanese bears, and extremely woofy Japanese bears at that, they seem to be vanishingly rare - I haven’t seen any so far, period. However, the German bicyclist was definitely looking good after two small bottles of sake, what can I say? I live in a town where I’m surrounded by incredibly good looking men; even heading down the hill to Trader Joe’s usually means I’m gonna see some hot bears shopping for radicchio or whatever. I’ve grown used to it - and fond of it! - over the last few years. And suddenly it’s a completely woof-drought. Sigh. I suppose it’s fine; after all, you’re kinda sorta not supposed to have sex while you’re on the pilgrimage, I think, so I’m just going to pretend that them’s the rules and that I’ll stick to them.

Breakfast was an especially fine spread, complete with some tasty grilled salmon. I packed everything up - how my pack keeps getting heavier, I have no idea, but I was really feeling it this morning - and head back over to the ropeway station for the first car up. It wasn’t open yet, so I enjoyed a can of warm milk tea at a picnic bench nearby. Just before it opened, a tour bus pulled up filled with pilgrims - and a friendly pilgrim from Kyushu appeared on foot as well. I’d spend most of the day running into her on the trail or at the train station.

At the top of the ropeway, everyone save for that one woman and I headed to the temple; the two of us headed down to the trail to the next temple, T22. I had misread the elevation profile of the route, so I was once again surprised by a lot of elevation gain (two passes!) and annoyed by an endless downhill section with stairs (ouch). My feet are still bothering me, although the blisters didn’t get any worse today; I think the issue is just that these size 32 shoes (about a US 14) are narrow in a way that’s painful. I’ll tape everything up in the morning and hope for the best; the new pair of 31-wides I ordered were delivered to a hotel in Kochi this morning, but I haven’t heard back from that hotel yet if they’ll hold on to them before I arrive next week.

The first uphill led to a spot where Kobo Daishi was said to have spent one hundred days training when he was 24 - and it wasn’t at all easy to get there! It’s off the main trail a bit and reached via a series of ropes and chains…

From there, the trail was fairly well defined, but rough in places. The morning tranquility of the forest was regularly interrupted by the ropeway; it’s fine that it’s made the temple far more accessible to pilgrims, but at the same time, is part of a pilgrimage the physical challenge of completing it? I’m going back and forth myself at the moment; I had originally intended to walk every kilometer of the traditional route, but after eight full days’ walking, I’m now thinking that it makes more sense to walk where possible, but make use of ropeways, buses, trains, etc. as needed so as to enjoy a broader selection of everything this place has to offer.

About half-way to the next temple there was a comfy place to stop and rest, so I did - and then boom, another, 2nd pass hit me. Ugh. On the plus side, there were some beautiful bamboo stands along the way as well as a fun wildlife sighting:

I wasn’t able to identify that, but I’m fine with that. There are some dangerous snakes on this island and I’ll be happy if I never get any closer than I did this one time.

Eventually, I made it to Byodo-ji, temple 23 and the final stop on my walk today. My favorite thing that I saw there was a young mother with her son in tow, both dressed in pilgrim garb - cute! I also noted the first appearance of a classic backpacker type: a white woman that looked like she’d attended a Catholic school for girls in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, but who’d grown dreadlocks, was wearing a huge headband-thing, had a Peruvian knit cloth bag, a very large backpack, and what appeared to be a small stringed instrument (ukulele?) in a separate bag. Huge, new hiking boots, one traditional walking stick and one downed branch… you get the idea. On some level, I’m kind of happy that that particular traveler archetype is apparently self-sustaining; I’ve seen that type for as long as I can remember, practically all over the world, and I wish I knew what compels people to become that. But does it matter? Hell no. It’s probably no more explainable than how the rest of us end up as tradwives, leather bears, or Masons.

Having walked every kilometer from T1 to 22, I decided that that was achievement enough and that I deserved a break, so I walked another half-hour or so to the nearest train station and caught a train back to Anan, where I boarded a bus that would take me to Omatsu Daigongen, a shrine built to honor the memory of a woman who was executed along with her cat. After they died, a monster cat showed up and exacted revenge. Awesome. The friendly bus driver asked me where I was going in Japanese, I drew a blank and said “neko” (cat) and he smiled and said OK and that was that.

It was a two-hour self-induced cat-shrine stranding, but I enjoyed not walking or doing pilgrimage stuff for a while. I bought a wooden tablet and wrote a memorial for a recently departed cat, drank some iced coffee, and ambled about slowly waiting for the return bus.

The ride back was unexceptional, I made my connecting train, and shortly before arriving at Hiwasa, the hostel where I was staying sent me a WhatsApp message asking when they might expect me. 15 minutes away, thanks! The room’s comfy, the owners cooked up a fantastic chicken curry, and I’m going to go enjoy a whisky in their pub in just a few minutes after I click send.

Random notes:

A seiri-ken is a numbered ticket that you take when boarding a train or bus (not always, but often). As the train or bus makes more stops, the numbers on the ticket increase; as you disembark, there’s a large number board that shows prices that correspond to the number-ticket. So, if you board at stop 8, your ticket says 8, and the numbers go up for every additional stop - if you get off at stop 14, it might be 320 yen, or 500 if you get off at stop 18. It’s a bit tricky if you’re not used to it, but it does make good sense!

The 7-Eleven “chocolate rusks” are like partially desiccated brownies. They’re also really, really good.

Bonus picture (not a good one, but I loved this shop front):