2029-04-14: Day 31 – Temple 88

Today was the trek to Temple 88. The final temple of the pilgrimage. After a nice breakfast at 6 am, chatting with other ohenros, I headed out around 7 am, before the forecasted rain was suppose to start at 8 am. I enjoyed taking my time looking at the gardens and flowers along the way.In the gardens, I see many daicon still in the ground with the tops cut off. A while back I asked and was told they cut the tops off to stop it from growing and leave it in the ground. Daicon is like a radish and you find it in many dishes in Japan, pickled, and shredded under sashami we can eat raw. Here is a picture of it in the garden with the daicon with the tops cut off.As I was walking Naba (my Japanese twaiwanese friend, who I found out today, is actually called Masa), caught up to me, so we walked together to the Henro museum to get our certificate and pin. Here is his picture and my picture:We are now proud ohenro-sans. At the museum they have a nice Shikoku island model with all the temples.Since it started to rain, I contemplated on taking the community bus to Temple 88, but decided to walk with Masa instead. It was a nice walk up the mountain road route. We were advised because of the rain to not do the mountain climb in the rain. Along the way we stopped at a nice rest stop for a break.We were lucky, it never really rained, only small drops every once in awhile.When we arrived at Temple 88, we met up with ohenros from France/ Hong Kong and Denmark. We went to the local restaurant by the temple for a congratulatory lunch.I had a nice katsudon meal, which is breaded pork deep fried, with egg on rice.It was a nice feeling to share one’s experiences over lunch and achieving our pilgrimage goal.I liked the many statues that were for sale in the restaurant shop.As we headed off to the minshuku it started to rain harder. Kobo Daishi was definitely with us during our walk today. So glad the rain held off til we were finished.At the minshuku, I was able to do laundry, take a nice bath and have a nice dinner with special red bean rice, as our congratulatory dinner. It was nice spending time with ohenro friends. Marie-Claude from Montreal was able to join us.Again I enjoyed Marie-Claude’s story about getting lost and hitch hiking. An older man stopped and ended up driving her to the temple. We laughed over her story and how the Shikoku experience affects us.Tomorrow the minshuku owner will drive us to the bus stop, which will take us to the train station, where we will head back to Tokushima.