30th Dec – Day 54, Uwajima City (Uwajima Youth Hostel)

The night wasn’t that bad. It was cold but I seemed to have a good rest. In fact, I woke up at 1am, thinking it was already bright! Started my walk around 7:05am but it was still pretty dimmed like it was only 6:15am a month ago! There were many vending machines along the way, but I managed to resist the urge of having my coffee! Thought I could outclass my mind and walked without one the whole morning. In the end, I was still the loser and had one around 9am!! It got colder now, but half an hour later, it became better. Around 10am, it became colder again. I stopped for my tea break at a convenient store.

Had been seeing a lot of open burning around. Some were used to fertilize the soil, some for other reasons. I wondered why the Japanese did not invent some machine to suck the smoke into a container and then recycle them!!

Very soon, it began to drizzle and quickly developed into heavy rain. I had to stop outside someone’s house to change my shoe! Walked for another two and half hours and my knees couldn’t go further anymore. So, I had my lunch at an Udon restaurant. Nothing fancy. Should had moved slightly further up to try the Joyfull restaurant that I’d always been seeing around. Looked like Udon always made my eyes heavy. Almost dozed off in my seat. After 45 minutes, I dragged myself to move on. The rain was again making me very reluctant to sleep out. So, I decided to call up a few Business Hotels. Earlier, I had tried one but it was too expensive and the Youth Hostel’s number was not valid. Before I checked on those business hotels, I had a look at my Lonely Planet and saw the recommended Youth Hostel as well. Tried that number and it worked! For only 2100yen with free internet, I couldn’t find a better reason to decline, although it was rather out of the way!

While I was browsing the Lonely Planet, I happened to notice this famous sex museum at Uwajima! I thought ever since I was on this pilgrimage, I had been missing a number of chances to visit great sight-seeing places around. And why not going to an interesting sex museum instead!! Since I was already here, I thought I may as well paid the visit first instead of travelling more than 10km back to this city again if I planned to complete my pilgrimage tomorrow. And that was how my last day was pushed forward to next year, on New Year day!!

Since I would pass by the junction to the Youth Hostel before reaching Bangai 6, I decided to call it a day and headed down to the lodging instead. The way to the Youth Hostel was pretty tricky. There were so many twists and turns. It was like a maze, and even cutting through a shrine! But, I must compliment the map for being so accurate on those small paths. After some help from the locals on the direction, I managed to find the place. There was even an interesting sign which indicated the distance was about 600 steps more!! And I was really there at the 597th step!

The owner was on his way out soon, and so I quickly borrowed a bicycle from him to go downtown to get my food! Thought of having my dose of McPork and Big Mac first, but the route back to the hostel was too confusing, especially more in the dark! So, I just rode and found a huge supermarket, Sunshine, to get my stuff! I got so many things that I could have a picnic! The supermarket was very crowded like there was a sale! Rushed back to the hostel on time before it got dark!

Had my shower. Did my laundry. Ate my dinner. And it was “wow” time!! Going online!!!! But, somehow I just could not upload my photos to my blog!! And the machine was crawling… I was really exhausted as well and the plan to visit the sex museum kind of screwing up my schedule’s tomorrow! The TV was showing a live Japanese music award program and one of the winners was a group with easily 20 people!! I wondered how much winning would be left divided among them! Or maybe my eyes were too weary and saw double figures!

Eventually I gave up at 11pm and went to bed, trying to get my daily 7 hours of sleep.