3rd Nov – 9th day at farm, tiring day!

I could not decide, if I should I get the walking stick as well for the pilgrimage? The guide recommended at least this and the stamp book. Since my backpack was heavy, I was hoping to have 2 free hands all the time. And, I wouldn’t want other to recognize me just for the o-settai (gifts to henro who did the pilgrimage). I read a henro’s story that, while he was walking along the road, suddenly a car stopped and the guy got off and give him 10,000 yen as o-settai!! I realized sleeping out was almost impossible with this kind of weather. Probably wasted almost 2kg of my baggage, on the tent. Now, I wonder if I can survive the rest of the days with the money I’d budgeted.

This morning was so cold, but by late morning, it was very sunny and actually hot! Could wear a t-shirt, in fact. The newspaper has a lot of red suns all round the different cities. Today was a public holiday in Japan. Some dance festival, Aiko-san said (found out from lonely planet that it’s called Culture Day). Yuhei-san must be working late again on the rice cakes last night. He seemed just woke up when I came over. Aiko-san made us some fried rice cake, and it was very nice to go with soy sauce! =]

Today was a tiring day. I guess there was a lot of squatting. The whole morning was weeding, and I’d finally completed the half of the onion patch! I liked lunch a lot today. Sardine mixed with vegetables and egg plant (I could not spell “brinjals”) Yummy! Must try it back home! After lunch, we went for vegetables collection. Yuhei-san was looking at the order sheet, and picked the different vegetables. Chinese cabbage, small pak-choy, kangkung, two kinds of radish and also pumpkins, and many others that I don’t know the name!! By the time we knocked off, my back was screaming and my eyes could hardly open. I thought I went out to make a call, outside the cake shop, to the accommodation at Unomachi (the place where I’m going to start my pilgrimage at temple 43), before dinner. Unfortunately, I remembered wrongly, and there was no public phone outside. The walk in the cold was in vain.

Surprisingly, dinner was obento today (lunch/dinner set box). I thought the family would not eat bento or outside food. Anyway, it was good. There were prawn, chicken, beef, fish balls, potato salad, fried noodle, rice and a slice of orange, all in the bento set!! Yuhei-san looked very tired, but he went back to work right after dinner! To pack up the vegetables for sale tomorrow.

I was too tired to do anything at night. I took a short rest on my bed, and then finished up Don Weiss’s book on his pilgrimage, but still slept at 10:30pm.