28th Dec – Day 52, Temple 39 (Enkouji)

It was a good sleep and as always I woke up only after the alarm had snoozed many times. Today it was 4 times! I bid the owner farewell and left at 7:30am exactly! The morning was refreshing. The temperature was around 2 degree but it wasn’t that cold. And I had a good walk all the way until I had forgotten to stop for the hour break! When I was almost at the temple, I went for a toilet break at the train station. I saw a guy in the toilet and after my session, he was still there waiting for me! He wanted to give me the pamphlet on some Christianity. I just took it and thanked him.

Half an hour later, I reached the temple which was inside some residential area. After that, I continued to Temple 40’s direction along a jungle path. Had not been on the jungle path for so long and just a little slope, I had already complaining to myself! When in doubt, I usually check my compass to make sure I was in the right direction. This time, it showed South-East!! Which was exactly the opposite of what I expected!! Luckily there was a sign soon enough, pointing to Temple 40, to pacify me! Soon, I reached the main road, Route 56, and passing through the town into the city centre. There were many lorries and trucks along the road, making the air not very fresh!

When I was at the town centre, I went to the post office to send a postcard. The stamp for international was only 20yen differences from the local! Then, I passed by a restaurant and checked out the price. I had a set lunch for 840yen, and it was heavenly! The meat was great and the rice was special. I got to play cooking too!

After the meal, I thought I had some time to spare and looked for internet access. Found one to check my messages. And that was when I got some bad news. A few days ago, I heard a school mate was diagnosed with lung cancer! Today, my friends told me he could be at 3rd stage! My mood was different for the rest of the day. I wondered why such things happened to people like us. We were only 35 years old! I prayed he would get well soon!

It was getting late. I bought my dinner for tonight and breakfast at a supermarket before moving on around 1:30pm. I hit straight to some steep slope! Followed by uphill of 100m height and down again for several kilometers until I came to the final 1km stretch of constant upslope to 387m above sea level! After not going through slope for a while, it was pretty harsh to me! I was sweated all over! Before that, I even lost my way and went up a tough hike for 5 minutes, just to realize I was going to someone’s else plantation! After more than one and half hours, I eventually reached the peak of Matsuo-toge Pass and had my tea break.

Barely 15minutes, it was getting very cold and I had to start moving again. There was one point where I met two contradicting signs again. I wasn’t really sure where I was in the map, but it seemed more likely the one going straight. Perhaps, both ways would meet up again further ahead! Next, it was another 45 minutes walk until I reached my destination to finish off the day, at the onsen. I checked out the toilet close by and the handicapped toilet was decent enough, although not as big as what I had in previous days. Left my things and went to the onsen for my hot bath. Had my bread and can food there as well. The can meat was quite “terrible” after what I had for lunch this afternoon. Decided to keep the other one instead until I had a hot instant noodle to mix with. Luckily there was my favourite milk to cheer me up.

I finally remembered and called home. Mom wasn’t much surprised I didn’t call home for so long! But I was glad the aunts kept her accompanied. Didn’t even realize I was already backed at Ehime prefecture until I saw the public phone book!! I had in fact crossed over from Kochi-ken at the Matsuo-toge Pass!! I had left Kochi-ken for good and walked through all the prefectures!!!! Around 9pm, the onsen was closing and I went back to my “Toilet Hotel” and knocked off around 10:30pm. I could hear the fierce roaring of wind outside. Glad this toilet was very well located and sheltered from the ferocious wind!

Today was the 4th last day where I clocked 27.9km closer.