Cycling the Shikoku no Michu 18

Day Eighteen: Home to Imabari, Temples 51 – 54




After the obligatory local bento, I headed off to temple 51, Ishiteji. A large complex of shrines, in beautiful grounds. It seems almost always to be busy with tourists and pilgrims. Near the priest’s office, I found, stuck to a post, an old photo, pre second world war, depicting two henro in traditional garb, walking. A wonderful picture.









Besides the unique and very cool covered entry avenue into the temple, where the pilgrim can buy all sorts of things, from straw sandals to prayer beads – these streets have a name, but I can’t remember what they’re called – there are lots of nice nooks and scenic spots within the temple grounds.










There is also a shrine to Japanese fallen soldiers here. I went over to take a look.













A relaxed 11 kilometre ride through Matsuyama to temple 52, Taisanji, which is tucked off to the northwest end of the city.



It is a lovely old temple on a big hill, with the mon at the bottom of the hill. There is a tea house about two thirds of the way up the half kilometre road.





Beside the gorgeous old hongan (original posts!!), there is a strange small tower off to the right with paintings all over the walls and ceiling.




















There is no priest’s office up at the temple, so a couple and I walked back down to the large, and very nice priest’s house, which seems to be where they keep their office.






Collecting my bike from the mon, where I had left it, as usual, I rode the few kilometres to Temple 53, Enmyoji. A nice, small, quiet temple.


There I met an arukihenro, from Nagano I believe. He looked to be in his mid thirties, dressed very rough, very tanned. He said this was his tenth walking pilgrimage on the circuit. He told me he had run away from his job, when on a business trip, to do this walk, back in April (!!?).


He seemed to have a few issues, but was very kind and gentle, and showed me the famous ‘hidden madonna’ in the garden, secretly worshipped by Christians in the late Kamakura, and Edo eras, when doing so was punishable by death. I hope he found a measure of peace in his walk.





Technically, I was now finished the pilgrimage, but I still needed to go back to the first temple I visited, Enmeiji in Imabari, to get my final, duplicate nokyocho. Henro are also supposed to go to Mt. Koya in Nara both before and after completing the pilgrimage, but I was not able to do that this time.


April 4, 2009.


I rode the seaside road to Imabari, rte. 96, as I have a dozen times before, cycling to Matsuyama and back. It is a lovely ride, with the ocean views, the sound of the waves, and the breeze off the water. There are a few spots where it is narrow, and a bit risky for bikes, but I just ride on the sidewalk/ bikepath on the inland side for those parts. The one spot where this is not possible is the hill just to the west of Onishi – it’s very narrow, with no shoulder, and a 2 foot deep concrete ditch with no barrier ten inches outside the white line. But this lasts only for a kilometre or so.


I stopped in Awaii, at the mall, to look in on my old schoolroom there. I had four schoolrooms that I taught in for GEOS for Children – this one was the westernmost one. I last taught here on Saturday, April 16th, four days before GEOS’ bankruptcy and this one’s immediate closure. I continued to teach until the end of June at the others. In the three months since I had been here, it looked like nothing had been touched. Everything was just sitting there.

A strange feeling came over me as I looked at it. I felt pretty bad for my students here – though I only had six or seven. They probably lost their lesson contracts with GEOS, as the Matsuyama school closed and they almost certainly wouldn’t have received refunds.

In Fuji Palty, I had a nice chat (in Japanese! Yay!) with a clerk who recognised me. She asked what I was up to, and I told her. It was nice to connect with someone in Hojo.





I arrived in Enmeiji in Imabari around 1:30, prayed, left my staff in one of the stands, got my final signature in my nokyocho, and headed down the road to SATY for some groceries.

At GEOS, I saw the other foreign teacher, Hiroki, and the new manager there. After a chat, I headed home to the Nagai’s house.



My little cat, LBK, now re-named Miiko, was very excited to see me. She had been pretty good, but seemed a bit depressed. She had run away for a few days, and was covered with fleas. I went out and got her a flea collar, and when we took her to the vet a few days later he said she was fine. The Nagais very kindly decided to keep her as their pet. A few months later my friend Akiko sent me some pictures of her and she seems to be doing well.

New Years, 2011. Taken by Akiko Tokura.


Three days later I caught the Orange ferry from Toyo overnight to Osaka, and the next day left Japan.

Cycling the Shikoku no Michu 17

Day Seventeen: A logging truck, a long downhill, Matsuyama; Temples 44 – 50


My host seemed much happier, and friendlier, in the morning. A nice breakfast, rice and fish, and two fried eggs! Perfect. I even had a coffee. Only ¥5200 ($52), for a nice, comfortable, quiet traditional room, and breakfast. I recommend Yasuragi no Yado Denko.






Temple 44, Daihoji, is not a kilometre from the minshuku; backtracking 500 metres, I popped up Rte. 12 a few hundred metres as it rises up the mountain to the east of town, then cut right along it on a small city road for perhaps three hundred more. Then I had to wind my way through a neighborhood a bit for another hundred metres before finding it.









Retracing my path to Rte. 12, I climbed up for a couple of kilometres to a small, dank, narrow, much too long tunnel. My mapbook calls it the Tonomido. Luckily there wasn’t much traffic. Checking behind me, and the small round bright hole at the other end, I started in.

It’s one of those tunnels with about 14 inches between the car lane and the wall. No sidewalk. Bits of this and that scattered about (hadn’t been cleaned in a while), some-times seeping water. My tent and foamie on the back of the bike are about 1 metre wide, so they stick out about 14 inches on either side of the rack. On these tunnels I ride on the white line or just inside the lane to the right of it, with my bar ends clearing the wall by perhaps 6 inches. Two way traffic will force me onto the white line, but this is a bit risky as there is water, and sometimes garbage, or sticks and so on, collected there. And occasionally the camping stuff will brush the wall, sending me off balance.

This tunnel was fine, until I reached about the half way mark. The acoustics were very bad, as they sometimes are, and I could tell that a large truck had entered behind me. The sound quickly rose to an ugly, roaring crescendo, then got louder still. This continued for far too long (maybe twenty seconds) when, as it seemed I must surely be run down in the gutter by this monstrous apparition, I heard the enormous sharp exhalations of air brakes released, twice, it felt like about 2 feet behind me, almost causing me to jump right off the bike. Only knowing that if I were to do that, or swerve into the wall, it would possibly send me under the truck and result in grievous injury or death kept me fighting for control of the bike. A foot away from my right elbow, swept past…a fully loaded logging truck. No sweepers, or hanging branches, thank goodness.

I was never so happy to get out of a tunnel as that one. Stopped for a well-earned break, and to adjust my knickers.

With this behind me, however, the road widened, gained a spacious sidewalk, and became a nice ride up and down, mostly down, through a small mountain valley, past the Kogen Golf Club, a few interesting onsen/spas (I’d check these out if walking), Koiwaya Rock, a national scenic spot, and a small bridge…not shrine, exactly, but...spot.



It seems that people here just like it under bridges. I like it too, so was happy to explore.



It’s only seven or eight kilometres on the map, but seemed to take some time to get from the Tonomido to the parking lot of Temple 45, Iwayaji. Iwayaji is a cliff temple, and in this case is built up the mountain perhaps three quarters of a kilometre from the parking lot.


There is a wide, and very pretty trail up through the beautiful and well maintained old growth forest owned by the temple. I think it took perhaps half an hour to walk up there.




A number of o-jiso-sama markers along the way commemorate those who have died here…this was one of, if not the most remote of all the temples on the circuit before the days of highways and cars. Just below the temple is a shrine and large collection of these markers.





I found a very old mon at the back of the temple for arukihenro. Of course, everyone is an arukihenro here, but this is where the old trail from Kuma, over the mountain, comes out.


















A small group of shrines.



The priest there was young, in his late twenties, I would guess. As he was signing my nokyocho with the temple kanji, I heard an infant in the next room. He smiled at my raised eyebrows. This would be a challenging place to bring up a baby. There seems to be no road, so supplies would have to be either walked up, or brought up in what looks like a four by five foot cable car that runs through the trees.





A long, hot uphill slog back to the tunnel and down into Kuma, followed by a longer slog up into the Misaka Toge pass and a crazy 13 kilometre ride down route 33 to Matsuyama. There’s a sign saying not to take your bike down here, which I ignored. I tried to be cautious, however, as there’s lots of traffic, lots of trucks, and they’re hard to control on grades like this. I didn’t want to make anyone angry or get turned into road pizza.

The highway dropped me out at the base of the mountain one valley west from temples 46 and 47, so I took the first available city road east, through the Athletic Park, to rte. 194, then back up towards the mountain a couple of kilometres to get to them.

I bumped into 47, Yasakaji, first, but continued up to temple 46, Joruruji. Along the way I found this water drainage making a very strange sound.





I also saw a peculiar stone waymarker for walking henro.







Temple 46, Joruriji, was quite different: small, and the interior of the compound was more or less completely treed and planted, a kind of forested garden. Winding paths led to different shrines and points of interest. The priest was very kind and offered me ice water. The picture of the turtles at the top of the post comes from here.







A strange shrine (dinner plates?).





This stone looks rather like a Metal Slime from Dragon Warrior, a very popular early nineties NES game...

















Temple 47, Yasukaji.




There are some interesting paintings in the hongan.





Yasukaji has a wonderful old garden, quite wild looking, full of old stones. It also has some Kamakura era stone pagodas.















I continued down rte 194 and within about 800 metres came to a strange, small-ish complex with a big stone statue out front, of Kobo-daishi. No mon, so it wasn’t a Buddhist temple…maybe. Intrigued, I went in and did my prayors anyway, and, thinking this must be another bangai temple, went to see the priest. There were two nice, big cats in his office. He signed my nokyocho, and I asked him haltingly, what this place was. I couldn’t understand his answer, so, thanking him, left. As I was standing outside packing my stuff to ride off, he ran out with an A3 sized colour Xerox, pointing to one of the entries and telling me this was it. I thanked him, glanced down at the paper (in English!) and immediately realized I was at a special place; the temple dedicated to Kukai’s first supplicants, Emonsaburo Kawano.




It’s called Monjuin, and is, indeed a bangai temple. Emonsaburo was a wealthy man who refused to fill Kukai’s rice bowl when he asked for dinner. Like all mendicant monks, he begged for his food. Emonsaburo refused repeatedly (for a week) to feed Kukai, and finally smashed his begging bowl into eight pieces. Kobodaishi left, cursing him.

Emonsaburo had eight children; all died. He realized his error, began wearing white clothes (the color of death, and the color of the clothing of all henro since), and spent the next eight years walking the temple circuit, looking or Kukai to ask his forgiveness. He even walked it backwards (harder) and finally met the saint as he was dying on the trail. This is the site of his house. Subarashi! I still have this paper; it’s invaluable if you wish to visit all the bangai temples. I don’t know where it’s available as I have only seen it at this temple.



Popping half a kilometre east to rte. 207, and continuing north four kilometres or so brought me to temple 48, Sairingi.





Sairingi is one of those temples that are very open, showing lots of sandy ground, with pine trees. I like the style. I met two arukihenro here, young men, who seemed a bit taken aback with my limited Japanese, and interest in talking to them. I wished them well and pressed on.








Jodoji, temple 49, is just 3 km. north and a bit west, off rte. 334. There are lots of onsen in the neighborhood.





I saw another 'haiku postbox' at some other temple, but I can't remember which one. Where do the haiku go?













Temple 50, Hantaji, is 1.5 kilometres north, just behind a reservoir. A bit tricky to find in the maze of neighborhood streets. I saw a young henro travelling by car here, whom I had also seen at temples 48 and 49.







Hantaji has a nice view of Matsuyama. As I was leaving, I noticed the two arukihenro from Sairingi, jogging in at 4:40. A taxi load of obaachan, a mum and a boy arrived and they rushed in, performed their ablutions, visited the priest, and spun off again in a cloud of dust, all in about ten minutes. I supposed they might be trying to knock off Ishiteji, temple 51, by five. I wished them luck.




That finished my temple hopping for the day; I also headed over to the Dogo area, home of Ishiteji, and the fabulous Dogo Onsen, and found my hotel for the night, a very nice, small business hotel with friendly staff, called Business Hotel Sakura. It is wonderful that practically everywhere on this trip, I was able to find cheap, clean, friendly hotels without reservations. Possibly in the winter henro season this might not be the case, but in the summer it was.




Only three more temples in Matsuyama, and the temple I started at, Enmeiji, in Imabari to visit and I will have completed the circuit. Just in time, too. My sunburn is starting to worry me. Tomorrow!

Totoro, I believe.