Steps: 20.518 (17,5km)
Temples: 19
They say you can’t buy happiness but this morning at temple 19 we decided to try anyway. Most temples sell an assortment of little charms and when we found some paper knots that promised happiness for the small price of only 200¥ we couldn’t resist.
It seemed to work because so far we have had the most wonderful day. We are moving into more rural areas again and I can feel my blood pressure lowering with every turn away from the big roads.
Since tomorrow is another day of 25km+ crossing three mountain tops in a row (🥵) we planned for a shorter distance today which gave us ample time to stop whenever chance allowed.
Jonas’s inability to resist a cute cat let us to the first of such chance encounters, with the owners, who invited us in for tea and a chat. They were so incredibly nice, giving us drinks and candy for the road plus a string to tie Jonas’s new hat to his backpack because it keeps blowing off in the wind.
It’s impressive how far you can get with smiles and hand gestures (and google translate certainly doesn’t hurt either) and we are constantly taken aback by the hospitality of everyone we meet.
When we sat down at a designated henrō rest stop next to a restaurant it also didn’t take more than 2 minutes for one of the waiters to bring us free tea, water and sweets 🌸
We ended the day with a trip to the local Hina doll museum, where we learned that the tradition of washing dolls out to sea to drive out evil spirits at the beginning of March dates back almost a thousand years! (Though the festival has a less somber character these days)
Tonight we are sleeping at a very unique minshoku (small inn) where the owner has built everything himself, including the bath, the in-room fireplace and the Shakuhachi flute he plays right out in front. (Side note: I have never seen Japanese sheet music before, so never considered that you read it from the top right – how cool is that?!)
Tomorrow we’re waking up early to tackle temples 20, 21 and 22, so fingers crossed we won’t be kept awake by nightmares of Chinese dolls 😅🤞
