29th Nov – Day 23, Temple 86 to 87 (Shidoji, Nagaoji)

It was so cold last night I wondered if I had slept at all! My feet were frozen. I was so glad I bought my glove again yesterday afternoon, or else my fingers would be frozen too! Had to wake up an hour earlier, though I thought I could rest longer since I needed to do laundry and wouldn’t be able to walk much today. Started off around 7:50am and reached Temple 86 in half an hour. They had the cleanliest toilet so far!

There happened to have a Mac Donald just outside the temple! Since I did not have a proper breakfast after just 3 heavenly raisin butter buns, and the vending machine were all coffee and yakult drink, although I thought they had milk for my cereal, I went in for my second visits in 2 days! Not that I was a fan! After a great burger and coffee with hash brown, I found the coin laundry from the staff. So glad my favourite supermarket seemed to be following me wherever I went to. I did the pant-changing stun again, but this time was behind the camera! While waiting for my laundry, I got my extra socks and snacks. Also had my green tea ice cream which I had missed a couple of days ago.

Just when I was ready to go again, it was already 11:35am. So, I thought I may as well have my lunch there since I saw the famous “Sanuki Udon” sign again at one restaurant. It turned out to be just any other Udon restaurant! I asked if there was Sanuki Udon. The chef acknowledged and then introduced a couple of famous Udon dishes. Later, I found out from Yumi-chan that “Sanuki” was actually the old Prefecture name for Kagawa. Hence, all Udon restaurants at Kagawa Prefecture were “Sanuki Udon”! And I thought it was a special way to make the Udon. I wanted to get some Udon in nice packaging as souvenir but I still had 40 days or so to carry them!

Started walking at 12pm, but I was too full again! I guessed I rested too long as well. I had only 3 more hours planned for the day before I reached another Michi-no-eki (A rest hut like the one I had last night) to spend my night. Regretted I took such a heavy lunch. Felt very sleepy too. Walked half an hour and just managed to cover 1km, half the distance I usually did! Then, I stopped by a vending machine to get an energy drink and was deciding between “wild charge” or “powerful energy”! I went for the “charge” and wow, immediately I was not sleepy anymore. But my stomach was just too full to walk any faster. I took a break hoping to get back to normal, but it didn’t help much. I burped out all my Udon and it tasted yucky!! I probably would not be eating Udon for the next few meals. And vowed not to have such heavy lunch anymore!

Hadn’t turn on my iTune for a long time. Had a couple of songs and then I saw someone coming out from the car and walked towards me. I thought it couldn’t be Melvin Choy at this part of the world!! It was Hajime-chan!! He followed my trail and gave me a surprise!! Since I was just 1km away from Temple 87, I asked him to wait for me to complete that before we go. And so, the next 15minutes walk was the happiest so far. After my prayer, Hajime-chan showed me the correct order instead, which was to purify, then followed by burning the incense first. Next was placing the name slip, throw in the donation, ring the bell (if any) and lastly do the praying. (If you noticed, I started to use “chan” now, because Japanese uses “chan” for friends, since “san” is too formal.)

Hajime-chan saved me from my tiring day. We went to pick Yumi-chan next at somewhere along the way to Bangai 20. She was going to finish her pilgrimage tomorrow! During the car ride, I was too tired and dozed off a few times. Hajime-chan brought us to his house at Yashima town and offered us to stay with him for the night! I was so grateful to him. They mentioned the news said that today would be the coldest day of the year! I couldn’t afford another night like the previous one.

Hajime-chan has a love for caps and hats! He said he had 100’s of them and sometimes he could buy 10 in a single day!! He said he was a collector.

After shower, we went to his old yakidori restaurant for dinner and drink. The meal was really fantastic! We ate so much. There were many superb yakidori and even the sashimi was wonderful, although I seldom take raw. I especially like one dish created by Hajime-chan called Zurikaraponsu (or Zuripon in short). It’s chicken in some sauces with radish and dashes of lemon! It was heavenly great! They said only Kagawa Prefecture had it now. And of course, how could we not have beer with yakidori!! I had two drafts and sipped a couple of sake and Chinese white wine (from the next table) and started to dizzy. I guessed I was really tired. We finished off with a bowl of brilliant Udon soup! (Who said Udon tasted yucky?!) During the dinner, almost all the staffs there came to chat with us, and of course, the new owner, who sat and drank with us too. When we tried to offer a seat for one of the other staff instead of squatting while talking to us, Hajime-chan actually stopped that. All the staffs there respected him well.

Then, Hajime-chan brought us to meet his friends at his restaurant by a cab. The starting fare was 620yen! His friend, Koji-chan, was the chef. We also met Koichi-chan and Shinsuke-chan, and Ai-chan (One of the girl who came to meet Hajime-chan for Udon a few days ago) was there as well. We stayed for a short while, but Hajime-chan already had 3 drinks! Japanese are really good drinker. Yumi-chan was a pretty fast drinker too! We chatted and laughed. Koichi-chan even did a performance for us which was pretty funny, although I didn’t know what it meant. Koji-chan was just about to offer me some porn magazine to enjoy along the trail, when Yumi-chan suddenly came in! We pretended it was some other magazine instead!

After an hour or so, we left since it was already 10pm and we were exhausted and also needed to get back to our trail again. We thanked them for the wonderful time and bid them farewell. Hajime-chan’s house was just a 10minutes walk away! Yumi-chan knocked off immediately. I showed Hajime-chan some pictures on my computer for a short while and went to bed at 11pm.

Today was probably the slackest day with just 9.6km, but it was the best day of my pilgrimage so far! I also found out my name in Japanese was “Yoshise”! I like my Japanese name =]