So I’m not sure why I thought Day One was significantly longer than all the rest. It’s somewhat longer, but not THAT much different. Not realizing my mistake, I decided to take a detour and add even more steps to my day!!! Hahahah, stupid idea!!

But backing up to the beginning, first a few photos from my accommodation for the night, Soraumi Guest House. With individual rooms but a shared area for dinner, it’s a place to build community for travelers. But that night I was the only traveler. Also my host and the cook. I got to practice some Japanese and eat some super-delicious Japanese home style cooking. The host is a monk and has hiked the pilgrimage over eighty times.

Oh!!! Somehow I forgot to mention, it was raining! All day! Raining. Sweet.

First stop, Temple #83. It was fine, nothing super-notable except for this modern building added among the more traditional.

My accommodation didn’t come with breakfast, so I took my time looking for a breakfast spot. Takamatsu is known for udon, which I leaned is a breakfast food. I found a place that opened at nine and timed my walk to get there about when it opened. There were a few folks lined up outside when I arrived, and lots more waiting in their cars (rain). Lucky for me the doors opened moments later, and I got my place in the queue.

It was cafeteria style, as I was waiting to get to the front, I asked the nice lady behind me what she would recommend. She said she’d never been there before, but said she’d suggest the kake udon. Sounds great!

You get your bowl of udon, and then heat it up yourself in a vat of hot water. Then add your own dashi, green onion, and tempura crumb toppings.

The tempura was fish cake and egg…I wasn’t expecting the egg.

Then I set off for Ritsurin Garden. The walk there was pretty rough. Kinda suburb sprawl-y, narrow streets with cars whizzing by, and I wasn’t really on the pilgrim path. And rain, rain, rain.

As you can see, the garden is very lovely. But about halfway though it dawned on me how much more I had to walk. Like, kinda a lot more, with a hill at the end the same height as day one’s stairmaster challenge. But I felt like, having come all this way, I should see the garden. So I walked around some more.

Stopped to feed the koi. The feeding frenzy is a little disturbing, so here’s a video before the craziness.

A moment to pause and discuss my rain gear. I’ve carried it along on past hiking trips, but I’ve gotten lucky and have barely had to use it. This was the first real field test.

For most of the day I just used a small collapsible umbrella. My shoes have gore-tex. Then all my stuff is inside a dry bag in my backpack. Worst case, my clothes and accessories are still all dry.

Honestly it worked pretty well. After 4-5 hours, holding the umbrella gets to be a drag. And I can’t use the hiking poles (and have to carry them). It wouldn’t work so well if it was windy. But I was mostly dry.

After the garden I made my way back to the pilgrimage trail. And man, the boring suburban-ness continued. Of course the rain made it worse.

Walking walking walking and my spirits were flagging. It also didn’t help that I saw zero pilgrims and zero pilgrim signs marking the trail. I tried to be grateful for things. It wasn’t windy. The temperature was actually perfect. My rain system was working pretty well.

I needed to find something for lunch, and what to my wondering eyes should appear…? Conveyor belt sushi!

Okay, the sushi was honestly bad. But the quiet of my little sushi booth…something easy to order and relatively familiar…beer delivered on a conveyor belt. It helped my spirits a bit.

And good thing, cause they were about to be crushed by strip malls and bland mid-rises.

On and on and on it went, trudging through the rain along a commercial Japanese four-lane highway.

Eventually it was time to turn off the main road (thank god) and make my way up the last climb. To my hotel, somewhere up in this mist.

To make it up the steep slope, I decided I wanted my hiking poles. So it was time for my back-up rain system: the ponch.

It’s hard to not feel ridiculous in a bright orange poncho, but I was beyond shame. I stopped for a long rest at a rest hut, then donned my big flappy tarp. Thank goodness I couldn’t see myself in full, just my top third in selfie format.

Some kind of tie would have been a good idea. I made do with my phone charging cable.

Up, up, up. There was another person walking up the hill for a lot of the way; it was nice to have a bit of company.

Made it to the top! Honestly not that bad, maybe made better since the end was near.

I sooooo wanted to head directly to my hotel. But there was Temple 84 standing in between me and a hot bath. Technically I could backtrack tomorrow…but I REALLY had no desire to backtrack. So 84 it was!

This temple had something I’d never seen before, giant tanuki statues.

Ah yes. The Yashima Tasaburo Badger, the “god of peaceful families, marriages and the restaurant business.”

That’s all for now, folks.