It was a beautiful Sunday morning as we started another day of the pilgrimage. Ian and I met at the wickets for the Sendai train station and then went down onto the platform to wait for the next train south. We were going to visit three temples in Fukushima Prefecture. The train arrived (see picture) and we boarded the express train.
Three quarters of an hour or so later we arrived at Fukushima city and transferred to a local line which would take us Izaka Onsen (onsen means hot spring in Japanese) from where we would start our walk. As we sped along, the mountains to the west played peek-a-boo between the buildings.
We were on the first train in the morning and the two cars were completely empty, except for us, the driver and a conductor from whom we bought our tickets.
As we got nearer to Izaka Onsen, a few people got on and off the train, but there were never more than a handful on the train at any one time. It took about half an hour to reach the end of the line. We left the station (see the picture) and looked around, trying to find the road that we should take to reach Temple #11.
We easily determined which road to take. It was the main road through town. The picture shows Ian in his bright red Gortex raincoat. The weather was perfect so he did not really need it, but he often wears it as the outside layer of clothes when we walk. We were quite surprised because almost nothing was open. The cherry blossoms were almost out, making it the season when people love to go to onsen towns, but there were few people around and even fewer who seemed to be tourists.
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