Steps: 18.979 ( 15,3 km)
Temples: 1 + 2 + 3
A lovely 10 hour nap later we woke up to another day of blue skies in Osaka. After wandering around for an hour in the enormous Osaka station we finally managed to find a bus headed to Naruto-Nishi which is less than one km from temple 1.
At temple 1, we got our walking sticks, an updated version of the Shikoku route guide (aka the Shikoku bible) and a bunch of osame-fuda.
Osame fuda are little paper slips that you write your name on and leave at each temple to prove you were there. The story goes that Emon was following Kobo Daishi around the island, always missing him by a little, and so he started leaving osame fuda with his name on, so that Kobo Daishi would see them when he came back around. Don’t know if they ever found each other …
Continuing on to temples 2 and 3 we slowly got a handle on some of the many rituals, such as never stepping on the threshold when entering a temple (disrespectful), never lighting your candles with someone else’s (transfers their bad luck to you) and always lifting our staffs when walking over a bridge (in case Kobo Daishi is napping underneath). We are nowhere near doing everything that the book says (we’re not reciting any sutras for instance) but we tried to show respect and a little gratitude every time. Simply touching hands, bowing and saying “thank you” can be a very meaningful gesture.
We’d originally planned to reach temple 4 and 5 as well, but as soon as the sun went down we quickly discovered just how cold it gets here at night, so instead we decided to head to the Henro house we’d booked for the night near temple 5. We’ll do a little backtracking tomorrow to reach temple 4, and continue on from there.
Now we’ve landed at the charming Morimoto henro house where we’ve got a big room all to ourselves, warm sencha tea and a nice warm bath. All is well and we’re excited for a new day tomorrow, where we’ll get to see some temples we’ve never seen before (we visited temples 1-5 the last time we were here)
