Steps: 8.939 (5,6km)
Temples: 75
Tonight we are spending our first night at a temple. A few of the temples along the route offer housing to pilgrims, but it was only recently that we discovered how to book these (it’s exactly like a hotel btw – you just call them).
Temple 75 is the birthplace of Kobo Daishi and hence one of the more culturally important temples on the pilgrimage. For that same reason the temple grounds are very large, and we where quite happy that we chose this day not to walk because it meant we had plenty of time to stroll around among the different sites and not hurry our way through it.
Under the main hall you can pay to walk through a long, dark tunnel (Kaidan Meguri) which runs right underneath the place where Kōbō Daishi was born (fellow Danes might remember it from the tv show Bertelsen på Shikoku 88).
You navigate by letting your left hand slide along the wall and while walking through the darkness you are meant to reflect upon yourself and also have a chance to connect with Kōbō Daishi.
We didn’t have quite the same religious experience as Bertelsen though, since much of our concentration went to making sure we weren’t walking into each other or anyone else 😅 I guess privacy in the temples is one of the perks of being a tv star …
We also spent the day doing a little bit of planning ahead and started to realize just how close we actually are to finishing (how did that happen?!)
I made two hotel reservations in Japanese all by myself (!!!) and we now have places to sleep all the way up to temple 88 (I’m quite sure this would blow one-and-a-half-month-ago-Isa’s mind)
Jonas is feeling a little better but still not completely healthy, so while he was napping at the temple I went out and grabbed everything from the pharmacy that had a picture of a throat or a nose on it 😂
We still might have to play a little train-Tetris again tomorrow depending on how he’s feeling, but we’ll see how it goes.
Finally, while we might not have had a religious experience at the Kaidan Meguri we had a very special moment later in the evening when we came back from dinner to find the now empty temples grounds bathed in beautiful sunset lighting.
