Because the cherry trees were truly in full bloom, the grounds were beautiful. This is one of the small outbuildings with flowering trees in front of it.
Some pilgrims chanting the Heart Sutra.
The bell tower. The way the access to the tower was arranged it did not seem to invite people to ring the bell, so we did not.
Ian and I had been around the grounds and while there was certainly much we could learn, we had seen everything. Just as we started back toward the main gate, a young woman approached us. She had a camera and asked in English if she could take our picture. We said, "Of course," and as she took a series of pictures, she explained that she had just gotten the camera and was trying it out. She was an amateur photographer and was taking a course. She had purchased the camera for the class. While she was doing this, three other young women - by young I mean 2os and 30s - came up and introduced themselves in Japanese as friends of the first woman, but they did not speak English. We ended up talking with them for about an hour. We gave the photographer our names and addresses and about a week after we got back she sent us prints of some of the pictures she took. Finally it was time to leave and they called a taxi for us and we left by going back out through the main gate (the next picture). The four of them came out with us and waiting until we were safely on our way.
Our plan was to take a taxi to the station and then a train to our hotel. Then in the morning we would return by train and taxi, so that we could walk to the next temple.
The station was called Gomen, which was kind of funny, because the name (the pronunciation, but not the kanji) means something like excuse me. It was even funnier then we discovered that they had written the name on the station wall in hirogana , a phonetic script. You can see the name followed by the kanji for station on the wall on the left.
At the station we bought tickets and asked about the train schedule. They gave us the wrong information but shortly after came over and corrected it. We ended up waiting on
It was crowded so we stood on the platform with our packs on and waited for the train to arrive. We wanted to be sure to get into the car early so that we could get seats. When the train arrived, the conductor said that we had to use the door at the other end of the train, which put us almost at the end of the line. We got on and did find seats but at opposite ends of the car.We arrived at Kochi Station and found it to be brand new, with portions still under construction.
The hotel was nearby and had a discount for Henro Pilgrims. We checked in and then went to an izakaya, a Japanese style bar and restaurant, next door. Tomorrow would be our last day on the road and we would return to Sendai on the following day.
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