Day 15 - The Beginning

We were now about one third through our allotted time on the Pilgrimage, and we spent some time planning our the remainder of the trip.

The night before I had gone to bed and slept lightly for an hour while Ian was still up puttering around. Then almost immediately after he put out the lights, the cook's dog started barking and kept it up for over an hour. I know because I kept looking at my watch. Once the dog quieted down, I still did not sleep well - too hot, then too cold, then noticed how hard the tatami mats were. Finally just after 5 a.m. the dog started up again. This time it did not bother me because I was already up and dressed.

Breakfast was as good as the evening meal had been - lots of large platters full of delicious things as well as many small dishes for each person. After eating, we went up and got ready to leave. We were not in a hurry and were the last guests to leave. As we were putting on our shoes, the woman in charge came out and gave us each a compass on a key chain. I attached mine to my white bag but in the process pinched my finger in the buckle. I could not get my finger out until I unsnapped the buckle. It actually cut the skin but I was very discrete about it and no one noticed. After we got back to Sendai, I gave the compass to my friend Ken. According to the Pilgrimage tradition I get a huge amount of merit for giving away a gift that I like. Actually this applies to any gift, so lots of things circulate in Japan.

We left the temple on the west side of the grounds, having entered on the east, and discovered a large group of small statues, each carefully labeled with the name of the person represented.

We were soon down off the mountain and again walking a long the shore, when we encountered this rather strange looking tree.
A little further on, we entered a built up area and discovered an orchard. Notice that the fruit is individually protected with a paper bag and the the orchard is in a small open space between two houses.
The next picture shows the paper bags a little better and also shows how there was all sorts of junk piled up between the trees. This is typical of farms in Japan, maybe everywhere, I don't know.

Our path passed through an area with some nice old houses. The area must have been fairly prosperous at one time, but now because of the bad economy, it is beginning to get run down in places. It looked like some people were still doing well but that others had fallen on hard times.