this Body itself

Today was a good day, today we started our Henro pilgrimage.

At the first temple, Ryōzen-ji, we visited the temple shop and got everything we would need for the pilgrimage. We are wearing traditional pilgrim attire - a white vest (hakui), stole (wagesa), sedge hat (sugegasa), bag (zudabukuro, for carrying pilgrimage book, incense, candles, nameslips etc), and staff (kongōzue). We also bought a pilgrimage book (nōkyōchō) for collecting a stamp from each temple and a scroll for the same (nōkyōjiku).

Honestly, it felt like I was wearing too much at first and felt a bit claustrophobic, but now (writing after a few days), I feel I have got used to everything and it all feels very useful.

After visiting the rest of Temple 1, we walked a short distance to Gokuraku-ji (no.2) where there were beautiful plum trees just about to come into blossom and an old lady offered us some oranges (which was lovely although they were so bitter!).

Konsen-ji (no.3) - there is said to be a well here, that if you can see your reflection, then you will live to 92 years old (if you don’t you will die within 3 months) - we both did!

Dainichi-ji (no.4) was a beautiful temple and felt quite secluded, it had a lovely quiet atmosphere.

Jizō-ji (no.5) felt like a large, rich temple. There was a wonderful ginkgo tree in the grounds which is 800 years old, and I wished I could see its yellow autumn leaves.

Taisan-ji (bekkaku 1) - this was up a 450m hill, and near the bottom a man coming down told us that it would take too long to get there (as the temple office closed at 5pm) so we should wait until tomorrow. But we were determined, so we set off, I was puffing after Chris all the way up! It was so beautiful, golden hour. Chris went ahead up the last few slights of steps up to the main gate and straight to the temple office - he got there just as the lady was driving away! She kindly got out of her car to give us the temple stamp in our book. We were so grateful!

It was dark by the time we reached our hotel, and we decided that tomorrow we would keep a better eye on time, though we were very satisfied with the day!

Today we walked about 12 miles.