Day 16 -

After the exhausting climb and the rest at the coffee shop, we reached the temple itself.
At first it was very unimpressive, just a large open area between white walls. The flowering trees were in bloom, though, so it was very pretty.
However, as we continued further into the grounds, we came upon a group of buildings. Ian is wearing a mask because he has an alergy to cedar pollen.
We stopped at one of the buildings and got our books stamped and then continued deeper into the grounds. At the end of the area, where the hills came together and formed a small valley, we discovered a flight of stairs.

The area around the stairs was beautifully landscaped and contained a number of small statues and shrines. This is a place to leave lighted candles.
We went up the stairs and at the top received a surprise, which I will tell you about in my next post.

Day 16 - Ever upward

As I said the mountain trail was really steep. Going up it was the only time I saw Ian huffing and puffing. I huffed and puffed quite regularly. About three quarters of the way up we met an Australian man who was traveling with a Japanese man and a Korean woman. They had stayed in the same lodge as we had, but they had not gotten meals and we never saw them. We had heard about them, however, from the owners. It turned out that they had heard about us, so it was almost like meeting old friends.
While we were talking, a Japanese pilgrim came up and stopped to join in. He wanted his picture taken too, so Ian grabbed my camera again, and took the following picture.
Just below the temple grounds there was a parking lot with a gift shop. They had coffee so we, of course, stopped for a cup. They also ice cream whose flavor was called "Ryoma no Umi". Ryoma is a famous Japanese historical figure who helped get the Emperor back into power, if I remember correctly. "Umi" means ocean. I had no idea what flavor that made the ice cream. After eating it, I still did not know. Maybe it was just salt flavor. In any case it was strange.

After resting we headed up into the temple grounds. There were two flights of stairs. The one on the right went to a Shinto shrine and the one of the left led to the main gate of the temple.
The guardian kings in the spaces on each side of the gate were quite impressive. They were so well kept up that I suspect that they were new.

Day 16 - Toward Temple # 27

There is only one trail up to Temple #27. It is a single paved road most of the way, however, just before reaching the temple it branches into a paved road and the Henro Trail. So halfway intelligent Pilgrims we decided to leave our packs at the lodge and pick them up again on the way back. At first there were farm houses and and other buildings.

The temple is on the top of this 430 meter mountain. The trail from our lodge (at sea level) was about 6 kilometers.
We found this interesting marker stone, showing the way for Pilgrims to go.
On the map it looked like we were going to have a slow easy climb up the paved road and then a steep climb up the trail for the last kilometer or so. Looks are deceiving and the road turned out to be really steep. Every hundred meters of so, I had to stop to catch my breath. The scenery was beautiful, though, as you can see from the next two photos.

Day 15 - Wrapping things up

Some interesting things happened during the rest of the day, but I did not take pictures.

Just before I reach the place where I was supposed to meet Ian, three nasty looking guys went by on Harleys. They looked liked like Hells Angels. I was a bit worried when I saw them because people like that sometimes like to harass foreigners, and we were in an area with almost no houses. They came roaring up and slowed down! Now I was worried. However, I relaxed when each one in turn, without stopping, gave me a full formal bow.

Less than a kilometer down the road, I saw the place where Ian and I planned to meet - a bus stop with a covered shelter. It was getting very warm, about 20 degrees C, so the shade was welcome. As I walked up, I could see Ian arrive. We rested a bit and had a drink, the last of what we had been carrying.

We started off together and soon discovered a large coffee shop / restaurant. We had coffee and pancakes. When we went to pay, the waiter brought us to frozen cans of tea, telling us they were settai that we would appreciate them a little further down the road.

We continued down the road when a car pulled up and the driver stopped and gave us 1,000 yen. He then drove up the road a ways, made a U-turn and came back in our direction. He obviously had seen us and went out of his way to give us settai.

We stopped at a convenience store and bought food for the next day's lunch. I ate an ice cream cone while we rested before continuing.

We arrived at the lodge around 4 p.m. after going about 26 kilometers. We bathed, blogged, watched sumo on TV and then ate. I went to bed as soon after supper as I had finish writing in my diary and preparing my gear for the next day's walk.