Ruth: I am determined to be as polite as I can be in Japan, but slipper etiquette continues to trip me up. At a minimum there are three different types of slippers at our lodging each night, and one place had five! Yes, that’s right, five. There were the hallway slippers, the outside slippers, the bathroom slippers, the concrete floor before the bathroom stall slippers, ...
Ruth: I have it easier than all the other henros on the route. Well, perhaps not the ones in the tour buses. I am sitting in my camp chair at a high viewpoint overlooking the mountains and the sea, waiting for Gordon to catch up. Lots of time to finish up my painting of a turtle. We stayed in Hiwasa last night, and although the ...
Gordon: Yesterday I finished my walk at Temple 21. Located at the top of a mountain, it is known as the “Western Kōya-san” because of its similarity to the UNESCO designated monastic community near Ōsaka. It is possibly the most beautiful temple we have visited, with magnificent cedars and numerous temples constructed at various levels along a ridge. After our visit to the temple we ...
Ruth: Each morning we put on our white jackets and become two of the many Henros (pilgrims) making their way to the temples. Most henros are Japanese, who primarily make the journey by car or by tour bus. We are part of the pulse of those walking the route. Like the Camino, we are often meeting some of the same people at the temples and ...
Ruth: It’s strange to be on day five and be exactly where we started: in downtown Tokushima. The first 17 temples are in and around Tokushima, so we have slowly been circling around the surrounding foothills. It seems important to write something about what not to pack for the Shikoku pilgrimage. My friend Mary told me in advance that I wouldn’t need to bring much ...
Ruth: Today might just be my favourite birthday and it isn’t even noon yet. Not the manic, hyper-happy of some birthdays when I was young, but a warm contentment and wonder as I slowly pedal through beautiful mountain scenery between temple 12 and 13. Word of my birthday got out early at temple 12, where I was given a birthday present from a Japanese henro ...
Gordon: An elevation profile of the Shikoku pilgrimage looks like the ECG of the last few moments of a person’s life: mostly flat, but with random spasmodic spikes. In pilgrim parlance these climbs are known as “henro korogashi”: “where a pilgrim falls down”. Today, I braved the first of these climbs to go from Temple 11 to 12. I had walked 55 kms in ...
Ruth: We diligently recite the Heart Sutra at every temple. Our guide book provides the Sutra in phonetic Japanese, but I think I stand a better chance of enlightenment if I at least know what I am saying. Knowing, does not, however, mean understanding. After 11 tries it’s still not clear. We brought with us a a recent English translation of the Sutra written by ...
Gordon: We had beautiful weather for our first day on the Shikoku 88 Temple pilgrimage. We made our way to Temple 1 under our own power, adding about 14 kms to the distance of about 13 kms from Temple 1 to Temple 5. With 83 more temples to visit our appreciation of them may diminish, but we enjoyed the first five a great deal. They ...
Waiting for the train with my bike in its suitcase. Ruth: Our travel day from our guest house near Kansai airport to Shikoku was seamless and surprisingly easy. Our host dropped us back at the Ozaki train station where we bought a combination train and ferry ticket to Tokushima. I spent the two hour ferry ride talking to a lovely lady in a combination of ...