The Pilgrim’s Walk

The long flight from San Francisco to Tokyo followed by a long ride in the Shinkansen brought me to the Okayama train station. The Shinkansen is usually fast and reliable but today it had something they announced as "invasion on the tracks". This resulted in a 45-minute delay.

At Okayama, I took an express train to come to the Itano train station which is closest to the first Shikoku temple out of the 88 on this pilgrimage.

The Jetlag and the long journey so far had had its toll. I was averse to walking the 3 miles from the train station to the first temple of the pilgrimage named Ryozen-ji temple. Conveniently, there was a taxicab right outside the train station, which brought me to the first temple in about seven minutes.

The temple was beautiful inside and out. There was Koi in the pond, many people praying and one could offer candles, which came in two sizes costing ¥100 or ¥300. I saw many pilgrims beginning their journey here.

I was too hungry and found a restaurant about one minute walk from the temple, which was a Japanese restaurant offering all types of foods including Italian. Pre-Covid, I'm sure there were many tourists who would stop by in this restaurant.

The lunch special had shrimp, chicken and fish was about $10 and, in my opinion, a good deal. I met an Australian couple who had started walking pre Covid and rushed back home to avoid being locked out of Australia. They returned two months ago and did the 1300 km long journey and enjoyed the lunch special at this restaurant today.

After the meal, I treated myself to a dessert. At the prospect of starting to walk on this trek, I proceeded to treat myself to a second dessert. At this point, I had no desire to walk, however, looking at my freestyle libre read out of my current blood sugar level of 254, I decided that I have to get up and start walking.

The walk was pleasant. The countryside of Japan was beautiful. The breeze and the 65° temperature all made the walk so pleasant that I only realized I had gone half mile beyond the Gokuraku-ji temple that I was headed to.

This temple had even more natural beauty. There were many Buddha statues, a beautiful bamboo garden, a huge very old bell with dragon carvings, and a steep staircase leading to the main temple.

The door to the sanctum was closed, but I could still take a picture that showed very similar decoration and pattern like the Ryozen-ji temple. There was massive bell with dragon carvings on it.

it was fantastic to see people of all walks of life following their spiritual quest.

After this was the 3 km walk to Konsen-ji Temple, which is the number 3 in the list.

Just outside the temple were so many tourists buses. hundreds of Japanese tourists were also visiting at the same time, and it was great to see them. They were led by someone who was praying, and the others were praying after him.

After having walked about 20 km for the day, I finally reached the ryokan that I was staying for the night. The owner was very helpful and directed me to the nearest soba noodle place which was a five minute walk away providing a delicious meal. I was ready to call it a night.