I've never stayed at a TI before and I have to say I am now a complete and utter fan. First of all it is a BARGAIN! for 2 people it is around 8100¥ (at least here in Tokushima). Plus you get breakfast, free internet, free land line calls in japan and occasionally free dinner (though we haven't taken them up on it). The staff is the usual very service aware Japanese, but also very friendly. I even joined the Toyoko Inn Points Club because you get to check in an hour earlier, 30% off on Sunday stays and also you get a free night for every 10. You can't beat that! The rooms are average by japanese standards and the beds are hard but comfortable. I am a complete convert. (there are also other perks of joining, like discounted car rental that we will use on the next trip).
Anyway, on Thursday we started in on the mission - the first quarter of the 88 Sacred Temple pilgrimage.
Problem 1 - the heat. Wow is it hot here! Temperatures are over 20C making it pretty hot for walking. Most of the route we will be doing is in towns or outskirts with little shade. This is going to slow us down a little and limit our distance.
So, not wanting to over do it we go out to Temple 1 and buy our pilgrim gear. Because of the heat - and the expense - we pare it back a little to just the jacket and staff. We have our own hiking hats and the thought of the bamboo hat in this heat was not at all appealing. We also had to get prayer cards, incense offerings, stamp books and I bought the great 88 Temple Route book which has detailed maps and info.
This trip I have my new iPhone with us, loaded up with a GPS app that I will use to mark the temples we visit and track our progress.
We moved on from Temple 1 to 2. Yes - it is HOT. And then from 2 to 3. We were joined on that leg by this italian guy we met a few times over the next few days.
He had done the Santiago de Compestelo (Catholic) pilgrimage last year. He's been in Japan since January doing the pilgrimage. He started, bizarrely, at Temple 36. Now, there is no rule about the order you do them in or where you start, but by any standards 36 is a strange choice. It's not even near a big city! Anyway, he found Santiago better because there was a more group atmosphere. Of course, that is kind of the point of this one - to do it on your own. It is a time for inward reflection. You could say that is a big difference between Buddhism and Catholicism. Buddhism occurs without. Catholicism occurs in church with a group.
Anyway, we parted company at Temple 3. He was moving onwards and we were done for the day. We took the train from Itano station back to Tokushima station.
We had dinner that night with David Moreton. David has written a nice guide on the pilgrimage and is somewhat of an expert on it. Also at the dinner was Don Weiss, who also has a book online about the pilgrimage. Don has done the whole thing (which is 1200 km!) twice on foot. Once forwards and once backwards. No, not back to back. What are you crazy!? Also in attendance were Sherry and Bianca. They'd just finished doing 53 of the 88 temples by rental car (which is impressive all by itself given that between them their spoken Japanese amounts to ordering sushi and their ability to read it is non-existant). American ladies in their 50s (I'm guessing) they made the dinner a hoot. Also there was Claire (another Canadian, tipping the balance! Canadians 4, Americans 3!) and two kids -Don's daughter and Claire's.
We ate and ate at an all you can eat restaurant and had a good time.
We collapsed, stuffed, back to the hotel.
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