Day Thirteen: Truckdrivin’ Temple Priest, Walking Monk and Lamborghini Boy; Temples 35 – 37
Weather: very hot and sunny.
This turned out to be one of the most memorable days of my trip. In the morning, before leaving temple 34, I put a new set of brake pads on the front wheel of my bike. The old ones, like those on my rear wheel, were worn almost down to the metal, well over their wear limits, and had been noticeably less efficient in the few days previous. It felt good to have the increased control over the bike back – I felt sure there were lots more hills to come!
A nice 10 kilometre ride through the fields and clusters of houses to temple 35, Kyotakiji. I stopped at a store for some bento and a coffee for breakfast; ate it on a bench in the parking lot, and continued on. Kyotakiji is a bit of a climb for the last bit, but has a very interesting hidden shrine.
In the main courtyard, near the parked fire truck, there is a 3 metre statue (Kwannon?) on a stone plinth, itself perhaps 3 metres tall and about two metres wide, with a narrow door in the front of it. Inside the plinth, there are two very narrow stairways, the one on the left descending, the rightward one ascending, around a wide central column. I descended slowly into the pitch blackness about a half turn, and ended standing in a space under the centre of the pillar. I couldn’t see anything, and did not feel like exploring by touch, so went back up, and, ascending on the right side about a half turn, suddenly came to a small shrine built into the central column, very faintly lit by candles.
It was quite surprising, and lovely. I stayed briefly, made a small prayor, and left.
The temple is serene, has an old mon down the hill, a big priest’s house, and a wonderful view down the valley. A very nice place.
The view.
The ride to 36 was longer than expected, got lost once, but found it eventually, more or less on schedule. I rode over the Usa o-hashi bridge on the bike path/sidewalk. It’s not so wide, but preferable to the road. The bridge is pretty high. Shoryuji is very nice, not so close to the road.
There I saw…Lamborghini Guy with his obaachan. I smiled to see him, and he seemed more relaxed as well. Funny I should meet them, I should have thought they’d be in Matsuyama by now…
Leaving temple 36, I had a longish ride ahead to (58.5 km.) to the next temple, Iwamotoji, and a choice. I could go back over the bridge and left along the coast, or continue up along the Yokonami Skyline route 15 or so km. to where both roads rejoined to head south and west down the peninsula towards its tip. Reason forsaking me (why do I never learn?) I chose to ride the skyline route, completely forgetting, or more likely ignoring, the obvious – skyline routes climb tortuously to a ridge, wind up and down, and up and down some more, and some more, then drop precipitously back down to something that looks more like a normal road. I keep forgetting this. I proceeded to get lots of good exercise going up, up and so on.
Kokoro no Akari: the mothership has landed.
The views were wonderful though.
I also noticed lots of cats hanging out at the rest stops. Someone feeds them, as evidenced by some empty cat-food cans. Someone else obviously dumps them here, as there are no houses nearby for them to have come from… I also saw two dead cats, both white, one a kitten, run over.
Eventually, around 4:30, I arrived at temple 37, Iwamotoji, a wondrously compact, well laid out temple, with 575 paintings, painted by many different people of all sorts of things, including a portrait of Marilyn Monroe (!) on the temple ceiling. All were painted 30 years ago, in 1980 or so. Some kind of project or contest, I would guess.
I went and got my nokyocho, the temple seal in my pilgrimage logbook, then returned to my bike and prepared to hunt for a hotel. An older woman in a track suit came up to me and started talking to me.
Iwamotoji; the ceiling of the main shrine.She asked me if I had a place to stay. I said no, not yet, but I would find a hotel, perhaps. She bluntly informed me there were no hotels in this town. I asked if the temple still offered shukubo (there is a large building which was, supposedly, available for henro to stay at, for a fee). She told me it was closed, whether for the summer, or permanently, she did not clarify.
She spoke in a very blunt, straightforward way, uncharacteristic of my experience in Japan, especially in speaking with older women. She sounded like a truckdriver, except all the truckdrivers I’d spoken to (not that many) were much more diffident.
Anyway, she said they had some sort of other shukubo and insisted I go back to the office and register. This sounded more fun than looking for a hotel – so I followed her, and watched her tell the priest to get out the book (!) This was when I realized she was not quite as she appeared. I signed the book and she took me by the arm and, after I had collected my bike, we started walking down the small street along the front of the temple property.
While in the temple, I had noticed a handful of men in suits, obviously from a bank or, more likely, the city office, way higher up management types, wandering around with clipboards. In the small parking lot, two of them were getting into their car, a nice Mercedes coupe, as we walked by. She asked them if they had what they needed, and they practically snapped to attention, saying yes, yes, thank you….somehow managing to look like little boys. That was when I decided she was the head priest.
We walked towards a small house on the corner…then past it, to another, empty, parking lot. She led me to a two-car garage, heaved open the sliding door, steel screaming, and showed me my room. A concrete floor, a table and old couch, a couple of chairs, a stack of two by fours with some cardboard on top. Overhead, a fluorescent tube. She said something like ‘this is it’ in Japanese, and asked if it was ok. I laughed and said sure! She seemed a bit surprised, looked me in the eyes, and asked again. It seemed like some kind of test, but I thought, hey, it’s free! She pointed out the temple washroom nearby, with water, which she claimed was ok to drink. She also pointed out that there was an open shelter up the hill a bit behind the washroom where I could stay, but that it was full of mosquitoes…I thanked her, and she left in peace.
An hour later, having searched out a local combini and some bento, as well as a box of cookies I felt I’d earned today, I pulled up the screeching door to find a middle aged orotund man sitting at the table, smoking a cigarette. He was dressed in a sweatsuit combo looking much the worse for wear, but with a cheerful grin said Konnichiwa!
I returned the greeting, and over the next half hour learned he was a walking pilgrim, and had completed the entire circuit 55 times (!!!). Whoah. That’s a serious amount of walking. He was a full time arukihenro. He had nothing, it seemed, but the knapsack on his back. He had just walked 40 km. this day, and was cheerfully examining his feet for blisters.
Feeling guilty, I asked him if he had any food. He laughed and said yes! And showed me two large onigiri (rice balls) with tofu wrappers. That was his dinner, after walking 40km! I offered him some cookies, and he took a couple.
It was getting smoky in the garage, and after he found out I didn’t smoke, suggested gently that I might wish to put up my tent in the vacant spot up the hill. I accepted his gracious suggestion (I would not have been so comfortable in the smoky garage) and headed out to set up my tent. There was a young man, his walking companion, camping in the shelter.
I had a lovely night, my first in my new tent. It turned out there was a train line twenty metres up the hill, though.
