Day 0 Coming to the end

After bringing our purchases back to our room, large enough to sleep at least 10 people, , we were directed to a small dinning room and served a meal, mainly vegetarian but with fish (which I gave to Ian). After eating we returned to our room, opened the curtains for the first time, and found a little garden with a cave and a statue of a frog.

Notice that the frog is carrying a baby frog on its back. As I recall this has some deep meaning, but it escapes me at the moment. The room contained a variety of artwork, much of it decorated with the Heart Sutra. However, my favorite was a semi-abstract statue of an Ohenro-san.


In the morning we awoke early and followed the priest through a hallway that went up the hill to the main room of the temple itself. The priest indicated two chairs in the back left corner of the room and made motions for us to sit. He then took his place at the center of the room. At this point I realized that there was another person in the room, sitting in front and to the right of the priest, who had his back to us. After some chants in a voice low enough so that we could not hear, the priest and this other person began chanting. The only thing I recognized was the Heart Sutra somewhere in the middle. The atmosphere was incredible. The lighting was a few candles, barely illuminating a statue at the front and an altar area in front of the priest. Clouds of incense smoke drifted through the air and the chanting, accompanied by the rhythmic beating of a gong, filled our ears. We were not invited to join in any way, so we just sat and took it all in.

Once the service was finished, the priest guided us back to the dinning room where he served us breakfast and then left us alone to eat. Later the woman who had served us the previous night, brought more food and then gave us settai, change purses to carry the coins that we would need at each temple. I was very surprised because these were on sale for 500 yen in the shop. After we finished the meal, we returned to our room and got ready to leave for Temple #1 where we planned to finish our shopping and begin the actual Pilgrimage.

Just a closing note: For the purposes of this blog, I am going to begin my recounting of each day at the point where we started walking. Thus, my days will begin and end around 7 or 8 in the morning.