Thursday, October 13, 2016 – Temple 28 (Dainichiji), Temple 29 (Kokubunji) & Temple 30 (Zenrakuji)

Since it was going to be a long walking day we decided on an early start at 6 am. As we were leaving there was a beautiful sunrise. .

The plan was once we made it to the hotel, Bob would head off to find the closest 7-eleven in Kochi, so he could withdraw his daily visa cash advance, since his debit card was still not working.
On the way to Temple 28, I admired some of the local architecture, like a giraffe on a post to a bridge and an Iris design on a bridge fence railing.

As  we walked along, we came across ACT Land, which was like an amusement park.

There was an interesting sculpture and I even discovered Marilyn Monroe had joined me on my pilgrimage.

When we arrived at Temple 28, I noticed some of the colorful strings of orgami peace cranes hanging in front of the Temple. I thought I would take a few photos to share.

Here is a link that explains the custom:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_thousand_origami_cranes

The leaves are starting to slowly turn color. Here is a tree at Temple 28 that has just started to turn..

And a few last photos of some statues at Temple 28.

There was a beautiful moss garden on the way to the stamp office.

On the way to Remember 29 and 30 I took some photos of flowers along the way. Guess the theme of this pilgrimage will be flowers and statues.

Along the way I came across this single pink lilly growing alongside the road and I had to take a picture.

As we walked thru the many rice fields and farms, we came across a huge greenhouse growing orchids. I thought Masa would be impressed. I tried my best to take a couple pictures.

Here are a few more pictures of some of the statues at Temple 29 & 30 wearing bright color bibs.

As we got close to Temple 29, there was this excited Bob, who saw a 7-eleven sign that was not in the Route Guide book. I swear he was doing the happy dance. He was able to draw his maximum visa cash advance and came out grinning from ear to ear. Now he didn’t need to make a side trip at the end of the day.

At Temple 30 there were lots of bus groups which I like how they all chant together. Some time I just stand behind them and chant along with them the Heart Sutra.

Here is one of the groups I chanted with. There was a little old lady who started to cough and stepped back from the group. I kept an eye on her to make sure she was ok. I went upjb and gave her a candy to see if that would help and a ohenro crest. She was very eased.

Finally a couple more pictures of Temple 30 statues.

As we were leaving this older man came up and gave us a small plastic bag with a 500 yen coin in it and said osettai. He asked where we were from. We said Canada and thanked him with a Canadian flag pin.

Another great day on the ohenro trail. It.was mainly cloudy with sunny breaks. There was a cool breeze which made it just right for walking.

We met a nice ohenro from Tokyo, who had live in Toronto for awhile. She was only going to be doing it for a few days at a time, whenever she could get the time off work.

Tomorrow will be another 20 km + day, so hopefully we can make it ok. So far, so good, no blisters. The one on the side of my heel has disappeared.