Following Botchan's clock and Matsuyama's udon, Matt and I visited the 51st pilgrim's temple. There were so many people walking the pilgrimage when we were there. I really enjoyed this temple because it's tranquil, and spacious. I also respect the pilgrims we saw, because they looked sincere, and were not in other visitors' way when in the temple.
Here is a shot of the gate, if you look closer, you can see it is guarded by two giant straw pilgrim's shoes!
This is a flight of stairs that the pilgrims have to walk to complete this temple. Steep roads like these are very typical on the pilgrimage.
Beside the temple, there is a little shrine housing 88 blessed cloaks that a monk collected on his pilgrimage in the 1970s. You can really see the age on some of these and some are quite worn from visitors' rubbing. Man, what an experience!
Here is a little anecdote Matt and I encountered while visiting Ishite Temple (the 51st pilgrim's temple). As we were almost finished with our visit, a scrubby looking, middle-aged man approached us and offered a ride to the next temple. The entire road trip, even though the old man rambled on the history of the pilgrimage and his personal experience on it, Matt and I were both very uncomfortable because his car was very messy and everything smelled. When we finally arrived, just as I predicted, the bastard wanted gas money. Matt and I just stuffed in some small dollars and go off as quick as we could. Even til this day, I cannot believe we followed him because he really looked suspicious. I guess I thought people who walked the pilgrimage wouldn't be too bad and also my dear honey was with me, he could take down that old dude in no time. I am sorry Matt that you had to go through this with me. Ok, a shot of the 52nd temple.
When we go back in the city, we were both exhausted from the encounter, so decided to enjoy the nice, hot foot hot spring! ah... what a relief....
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