Walking between #17 and #16 we met an older man and a college student. Ian walked and talked with the student and I with the older man. The man acted a bit strange. For example, I had a map and was able to follow the roads exactly, but he would not accept this and asked someone at each corner which way we should go. He also ignored the sign posts, but as we saw in the last entry, he may have been on to something there. Mostly he talked and I listen, but his conversation was very disjointed and I frequently had no idea what he was talking about - and it was not a language problem. The one thing that became very clear was that his legs ached terrible and they still had to walk about 18 kilometers to Temple #18 near which they had a reservation. We finally got to a place where they had to go left but we turned right toward Temple #16.
If my calculations and memory are correct, this is the gate at Temple #16. It was right on the road and quite small compared to most of the others. Also as with all of the temples from #17 to #13, it was old looking and not at all commercial. The priest who wrote the calligraphy in our book wrote slower than anyone I have ever seen. Japanese calligraphy is usually done with fairly rapid strokes, but he carefully drew each stroke - in slow motion.
As we walked between #16 and #15, we found this very picturesque pump house. I could not tell if it was still functional, but at one time it must have been useful, considering how flat the land was in this area.
As you can see, it had started raining by the time we got to Temple #15. However, Ohenro-san are not deterred by the weather, especially a light rain like this one.
We continued the easy walk and reach Temple #14. Our one problem was that we could find no restaurants or stores, so we were unable to get anything to eat.
No comments:
Post a Comment