2nd Jan – Mission 1 (Bangai 7)

Finally I woke up not having to rush! Honda-san and I went to get our breakfast at Lawson and had it back at the Bangai. Shortly after, Honda-san left to continue his pilgrimage. I finished off my bread and started cracking my head on the next trip to Kawanoe! Didn't know Bangai 14 was about 100km away! Anyway, the mission that I was mentioning and hinting during my early part of the pilgrimage was to get back to the places where I had forgotten about the osame-fuda (nameslip)! Today I was going to Bangai 7, and Bangai 14 was the other. The latter was rather tricky because taking the public transport there would defeat the purposes of the o-settai I received from the temple. And so hitch hiking was the only option but I didn't know how difficult it would be and I had not done it before. The other solution was the easy way out. Forgot about it altogether!

Today was more straight-forward. I took a train from where I stopped last evening to the station Iyo-Hirano, nearest to Bangai 7. I was very lucky to come to the station just 7min before the train arrived at 10:27am! If I would miss this, I would have to walk all the way to my destination! The next scheduled train was at 1pm!! It was a short ride. I reached Iyo-Hirano. Next, I had to find a place to keep my backpack before I hiked up to the temple. Checked out the train station but there wasn’t a good spot. Remembered the grocery shop I passed by previously and wanted to try that, but it was closed for New Year! Thinking I couldn’t possibly carry 20kg up the hill to 800m asl again, I hid it at a corner and left a note as usual!

And so, I started testing my luck on my first hitch hiking attempt!! I walked and turned around occasionally to look out for cars passing by. I pointed my thumb towards the direction they were going. The 3rd car actually stopped!! But he wasn’t going very far. Another car stopped but he was just checking. I turned to a small road. Bad move! I saw a couple of cars and missed the chances. Back to the main road, number 7th and 8th drove passed me. Suddenly, I had a wifi access. I sent a Yak message to my fellow buddies. Then, the 9th car stopped!!! They were two old ladies. I showed them my best smile. They were probably trying to test and make sure I wasn’t some sicko serial killer, before picking me up!!! On the way, I realized they were actually going to the temple too!!! I was overjoyed!! I always believe when the heart is true, things will go your way to help you!! And we should always try to do something sincerely and not just because we wanted something else in return!

There were many people at the temple today! Japanese goes to the temple for praying during New Year. I saw the temple staff again. Passed him the name slips I owed them. We chatted. They took my pictures, but somehow I didn’t take their!! One of the old man even filmed me using his video camera! I went to have my Udon for lunch and met the lady boss. She remembered me before I needed to explain. I passed her the nameslip. She gave me another package of rice as o-settai. I returned with another slip. After a short stay, I bid them farewell and headed back.

I took the same jungle path I came up from two months ago. Walking along the main road would be too far if I failed to get hitch-hiked. I noticed people left things behind along the trail too. I saw a glove and a folded sock on the way down. As soon as the jungle path met the road again, I tried my luck on hitch hiking again. After a successful first attempt, I was more confident. Not many cars were going down. 1st car, no good. 2nd car, no good. 3rd car, no good. By now, I had walked an hour plus. Stopped to take a break and had the rice from the restaurant lady’s boss. I was really a sucker not even knowing their names!!

Then I came down to the main road again. Saw a car and a youngster. He was going down the way!!! I was so glad I didn’t have to walk further! Save a few more kilometers! He was picking up his friend. And his friend was wondering who was this alien in the car!

When I was at the station, I missed the train by just 10min. The next one was 1.5hours later!! I decided to walk to the next two stations which I supposed there should have more trains! In the end, I took the same train it would be from the original location, Iyo-Hirano! And I was so proud of myself to walk 54min for saving 10yen on the train ride!!!!! Anyway, it was all worth it because I saw, not one, but two Miss Japan beauty contestants, working at the train control station together! Of course not true la. But if I were the judge, they would have gone into the Finals!

I reached Bangai 8 lodging again, and got the permission to stay another night. Had my bath at the ofuro nearby and then a simple dinner at the restaurant with the wifi access. I could not wait for supper at the Mac and dropped dead on the bed at 10pm!!