11th Dec – Day 35, Temple 23 (Yakuooji)

Woke up at 3am and thought it was already 6! Guillaume was early and left around 7 while I was still having my breakfast. I moved on half an hour later. The morning was pretty cold. My fingers and feet were freezing. But they felt better soon after I started walking.

The next temple was 21km away and it was basically just following the main road. But I had a very difficult morning! I was like climbing the hill, wanting to rest after every other 10minutes! Soon I saw a vending machine but it was still 10:30am only. Decided to take the break and had my tea break as well. After the munch, I felt much better off and managed to carry on with the walk more comfortably. An hour passed and I stopped for a minute break as usual and not long later, the temple was just another 15minutes away since I saw the zenninyado (free lodging) as shown on the map. It was actually a bus that was turned into a sleeping place! I met a cyclist o-henro-san who spent the night there. We walked to the temple together and met Guillaume 800m ahead at the convenient store!

After the prayer, Guillaume and I went to the check out at the restaurant as mentioned in the guide for the free lodging location. On the way, we saw coin laundry and an onsen!! This place was perfect! There were also 2 convenient stores and a supermarket around with a Michi-no-eki (rest area) too! The restaurant’s owner pointed us to the remodeled bus that we saw earlier on our way to the temple. There was even free dinner sent to us at our lodging! We met the cyclist o-henro-san again at the Michi-no-eki and he offered us some drink and recommended the free foot onsen at the rest area. We declined him nicely because we were both starving and wanted to have our lunch badly! We tried the Okuomiyaki at a restaurant and it was wonderful!

After that, we headed to our lodging to keep our stuffs before we set off for our next mission. Guillaume went to the post office and I did my laundry. We planned to meet at 4pm at the onsen, but my laundry took longer than an hour! I rushed to meet Guillaume and dropped my jacket on the way again!! Very luckily, I remembered about it this time and turned back to look for it, which was just outside the onsen entrance where I met Guillaume. I invited him to enjoy the bath first while I try to tell the owner if we could have our dinner at the restaurant instead. Unfortunately, we couldn’t. Guillaume left the onsen early. I stayed for about 45 minutes to have the sauna as well. When I was about to leave, I realized the onsen had coin laundry services as well, and was even cheaper! Since a few of my socks were still soggy, I had to dry them one more round. While waiting, I went to the supermarket to get my breakfast and some supper since I thought the o-bento dinner set provided might not be sufficient.

Hungry and tired, I had a difficult walk carrying my clothing back to the lodging which was 1.3km away. Usually, this distance would be an easy task, but I didn’t know my clothing could be so damn heavy!! Finally, I reached and Guillaume was waiting for me to have dinner together!!! I felt very sorry and apologized to keep him waiting. We were both shocked to see our bento set! The serving was so huge with many different types of food!! For the first time, I could not finish my meal! Guillaume couldn’t finish his too. The food would be even much better if they were still hot. I apologized to Guillaume again for having to bear a cold dinner with me!

Very soon after meal, Guillaume went to bed. I checked out for water and found it just outside the “bus”, but unfortunately, the nearest toilet was 800m away at the convenient store!! I updated my blog and wanted to go back to the town centre to look for internet access, but I was pretty exhausted. Wanted to have my supper and finish off the bento, but I was still very full! Nothing much else to do, I went to sleep at 9:30pm.

Today was a straight forward 20.7km from Temple 22 to Temple 23. I had 19 days left according to the schedule!