24th Nov – Day 18, Bangai 18 (Kaiganji), Temple 72 to 75 (Mandaraji, Shusshakaji, Kouyamaji, Zentsuuji)

Being organized was just not me. You need to know where you keep your stuff well. Hajime-san woke up the same time as me although I heard he said 9am last night. He was ready and moved on first since we were going separate way again. I started off around 7:52am to Bangai 18. The jungle trail reminded me of walking on those rocks when climbing Mt Fuji.

At the oddest place, I met an old woman. She was on her way down too. I greeted her. She took out some sweet but put them back in the bag and gave me the whole lot. I gave her my name slip. I noticed she had a huge knife. Commando type. I wondered if she was a gore killer around the area! Her eyes were slightly slanted and she was covering her mouth all the time when she talked. Maybe she was chewing some human fleshes!! I guessed I didn't had enough sleep last night.

Took half an hour more to reach the temple as I initially thought. My toes started to hurt again. At the temple, I got into a maze finding the Daishi hall. Usually there were a Main hall and a Daishi hall. I asked the staff and it was actually somewhere else! On my way to Temple 72, I was already very tired. Every steps hurt. Missed my raisin bun. Haven't seen it for a while. Very soon, my wish was granted. Reached a convenient store for a stop to rest my toe and saw the raisin bun although it was not the same brand!! Then I saw something else better. Bun in really nice butter!! The tea break relieved me for a while. I asked the staff if there was any coin laundry nearby. There was really one, but 800m out of the way! I walked towards it for a few steps but turned back and decided to move on instead.

With the Nikko, I was just half the normal speed I had been previously. Felt frustrated and painful. I regretted not going to the laundry earlier! Temple 72 was supposed to be very nearby according to the distance but it seemed so far. Finally I was there and then moved on to Temple 73 which was just 500m away. At Temple 73, Kobo Daishi showed me the light! I saw his statue and noticed the sandal he wore, and thought of wearing one myself too! And so, I quickly changed and walked on my sandal for the remaining 4.3km. I couldn’t walk too fast, but definitely faster and my toes were also not squeezed like sardine in my Nikko.

At Temple 74, the lady who gave me the stamp was really fast too. Maybe even faster that the guy at Temple 66. Today, I noticed those people again, who helped to collect the stamps in big bulk. It was like the travel agency, hiring those temporary staff to apply for bulk visa at the embassy!

It was a great relief to finish for the day at Temple 75. The temple staff was very kind to walk me to the free lodging when I couldn’t understand her direction. She also took time to ask around where was the nearest coin laundry and closing time for post office! I realized different post office had different closing hours later! So, she brought me to this place which was huge and the staff there said I could only check in at 3pm! I thought “wow”! Free lodging also needed to check-in! I waited and when it was about time, I was just asked to fill in a simple form and showed a map to the actual place where I would be sleeping! I wondered how different it was to “check-in” 15 minutes earlier!

I was struggling with the key to the gate, but realized it was not locked anyway. Went in and opened the side glass door. It wasn’t locked too. Later, I found out the key was for the front door further up in front of the gate. The lodging was nothing special, with no heater! There also wasn’t any bath facility as the guide mentioned. But, the place was big with 2 stories.

I left my stuff and went to look for food and coin laundry. The restaurants were either closed or not opened yet. Ended up in a convenient store again! By now, I had already tried almost all the different bento sets there. Basically, the bento sets were mostly the same for all the convenient stores. After my late lunch, I found out the coin laundry was just behind the convenient store. As expected, it was really a small one with no shoe cleaner! I asked if there was any other coin laundry around but the store attendant just conveniently said that was the only one. So, I tried to wash my shoe on the basin and dump it into the dryer for 200 yen. I waited 30minutes and fully utilized the time to write my name slips and planned my trip. Once the dryer stopped, I was so grateful that my New Balance was dry again! I tied the shoelace back to it and found out one was missing! It had dropped through the small holes inside the dryer!! I panicked! I used a couple of chopsticks to scope it up like playing those soft toy grabbing machines! With much patience and a little push using my pen, I was grateful again that I managed to retrieve the shoelace! Went to the Marunaka supermarket to get my breakfast and passed by a nice and big coin laundry with SHOE cleaner!!!

Backed to my lodging and cleaned up. Did some update of my blog and realized it was already 8pm! Quickly went out to look for dinner but all were closed by now!! Looked like bento set for dinner again! On the way to the convenient store, I walked pass a restaurant which was still opened but it was not Udon and I refused to go in!! Maybe I was addicted to convenient store food already!

The store attendant was pretty tonight! Somehow my dinner tasted nicer! Couldn’t get enough and had another bowl of instant Udon! When I was about to finish, I wanted to pour away some of the soup and ate the remains in the bowl, but the attendant saw me near the toilet and took my bowl to throw it away for me. I couldn’t refuse. At the convenient store, I already heard people greeting each other Merry Christmas!!! And the same Christmas songs were repeating everywhere around the convenient stores in Japan! I couldn’t endure anymore and left to find the free wifi area that I had spotted earlier this afternoon. Uploaded my overdue 6 days blogs and couldn’t bear the cold outside anymore! I recalled Hajime-san told me that tonight would be exceptionally cold. It was indeed. Made you very down. Reached my lodging, packed up a bit and slept around 11pm.

Today, I merely walked 12.3km due to the toe constraint!