Day 39: Konzojicho to Kotohira

November 3, 2024

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I'm sharing three more photos of the guesthouse, because it was such a funky place. Funky in a good way. About ten of us guests were sharing this little space. We had the private room, with the women's dorm to our left and men's dorm to our right. This tiny shared space was right in front of our door. We interacted with others quite a bit, and they were all fun and friendly. One older Japanese lady spoke Korean well. The owner loves to chat. Other Japaness speakers helped Robin with his language skills. All very wholesome. Everyone was respectful of the 10pm "curfew", no one hogged the showers, no shenanigans of the kind I recall from my youthful hostel experiences. Even so, two days was enough to make us weary of the hustle and bustle of the place. We will remember it as a welcome refuge from the rain, a place that didn't frown upon a couple of soaked and slightly muddied foreigners carrying all their belongings on their bikes.

It was a short hop to our next holding pattern lodging. Three of the eighty-eight Shikoku pilgrimage temples were nearby. We visited two of them simply out of curiosity. We're very glad we did.

It was a study in contrasts.

The first temple, Konzoji, was very peaceful and orderly. I'm sure this is partially because we arrived early. By the time we left, the parking lot was starting to fill up as more people filtered in.

A trio of pilgrims asked us to take their photo together. We snuck a photo of them afterwards.

Zentsuji was very festive. Rainbow colors, souvenir and snack vendors everywhere. Music and processions and dancing. I don't know whether this was a special occasion or not. Today is Culture Day, after all, but many places seem to have events that go on every weekend for a month or more.

We're not sure what was going on here, but we figure that the men and women in suits were local business leaders or something of that ilk

This group of percussionists performed at the tiny adjacent shrine, then moved down the street to drum and gong and dance some more

Our next stop was Kotohira Shrine and its famous 785 stairs. It was crowded, but not the crush we anticipated. Nor was the climb difficult at all. There are plenty of landings and walkways to break up the climb. The steps themselves are short and feel comfortable under the feet. One is easily distracted by vendors hawking their wares up to the first gate, which is almost halfway up. There are other sights, such as the stone lanterns, statues, and even a stable of horses. Why horses? Apparently gods ride horses. I'm not sure which god these horses are for, but I imagine the horses have been waiting patiently for quite some time.

This is the main shrine. There's an inner shrine that takes a while longer to reach. In retrospect, maybe we should've checked it out.

The going down part. I get vertigo just looking at this photo, but I didn't feel discomfort at all while walking. Much better than the reverse being true.

Lunch was on the late side. Two days mostly off the bike, and we're already losing our usual ravenous appetites. When visiting temples, I look for vegetarian food. This being a shrine, I had low expectations. A search revealed a place called Hemp Heart, which was within easy walking distance. I thought, what kind of hippy-dippy place is this going to be? Much to my surprise, the food was fantastic, and not gimmicky at all. Yes, there was hemp or hemp seeds or whatever in it, and yes, there was reggae playing on the stereo, but that's where it ended. No patchouli, no Tibetan prayer flags, no essential oils. Just good food at a decent price. Nice!

The weather being absolutely perfect, we chose to go for an unencumbered bike ride to finish off the day. We rode along a beautiful stream dotted with herons and turtles, then rode a mild grade up to a park housing one of the campgrounds we failed to book on this very busy holiday weekend. The park charged an admission fee to enter, and seeing as how we really just wanted to check out what we were missing at the campground, we decided it wasn't worth it, and just turned around and mostly retraced our steps. Between gravity and a tailwind, we reached our hotel in no time.

Tomorrow afternoon, the holding pattern finally ends, as we welcome Mei to the tour for the next few days. We haven't seen him in over six years. We last parted ways as he headed south into the cold rain of a Seattle early spring, bound for California and fairer skies. He eventually rode his bike to D.C., with a lot of hairy and hilarious adventures between the two Washingtons. I believe this will be his first bike tour since then.

On the advice of several Cycleblazers, we plan to ride the full Shimanami Kaido before backtracking to Omishima Island, where we will hop, skip, and jump our way to Hiroshima via the path less traveled.

Today's ride: 30 km (19 miles)
Total: 2,189 km (1,359 miles)

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