March 20

We stayed dry in the dressing room at the campground. The wind woke us up last night so it was great to be indoors. No one came to the campground last night.

We were hiking by 6, with the goal of visiting Temple 39. It was a chilly morning as we had gone up to a higher elevation since the coast. It was about 7:30 when we happened to walk past a residence that had a lot of displays including a large water wheel. We stopped to take a photo when we noticed a man at the top of the stairs outside a small building.

The building is the red one in the distance.

He was waving frantically at us. We weren’t sure if he wanted us to come in, or keep going. He wanted us to come in! He ran down the stairs motioning to come in the yard. He spoke a little English, but mainly it was pointing. We began slowly walking around his yard marveling at all the detailed scenarios .

Some of them even had moving parts. There were tables with elephants as the focus.

There were dog tables similar to the elephant table, At one point he motioned for us to follow him around the house. He pointed to a water fall and called it Niagara Falls.

There was even a snowman and a tiger you could ride.

Eventually he showed us a circular maze that he wanted us to follow him

I think if we would have stayed the whole day, we would have only seen half of the displays.

After we finished going through the maze, we continued to follow him up the stairs to his Tea House.

It ws a great view to look down on all of his displays. The next question was what would you like to drink? I am thinking hot tea? green or black? Not exactly. The words out of his mouth were beer, whiskey, scotch or brandy. Mind you it is 7:30 in the morning. Don was game to have a drink. I was game to have hot water! He poured Don some Brandy with large circular ice cubes.

He told Don that he could sign his name on the bottle and when he returns here, he can finish it. We had lots of interesting conversation and he showed us articles about himself and the grounds.

We even watched a TV show that was all about the show visiting the property, At the end of the show a thumbs up or thumbs down was given about the visit. He got a big thumbs up. He told us that when the former prime minister visits his tea house, they often drink for 6 hours. I think he was disappointed when we said we needed to start walking again,

He walked us down to the road and Don mentioned that this was a great day to celebrates Donnas’s Birthday. Today is the 20th in Japan, but in the USA it is the 19th. He stops then says wait here. He runs back to his tea house and returns with a bottle of champagne, that he gives to me.

Hope we can find some friends to share this tonight.

After several hours of being entertained, it is time to be on the move. We walk past an impressive stone wall surrounding a field.

Got to experience more Bamboo forests.

Walking thru a small town we saw a fish market selling the types of fish that we have eaten at guest houses.

Would be interesting to see how this type of fish is prepared.

Finally we saw the goal of the day, Enkoji.(39)

One story that goes with this temple is that of the turtle that brought a bell on its back here.

We are reminded to pray for peace when we see this monument.

Some temple hondos.

We see our Japanese friend Shinshi, that we walked with before temple 37

Sounds like he is almost done with his pilgrimage. There is a good chance we won’t see him again.

We head into the town of Sukumo and find our hotel for the night. According to the guide book we have gone half the distance of the route. we are definitely feeling more comfortable traveling in Japan and the rituals of the temples. When we are signing in we see Renee. We told her of the champagne gift and invite her to our room to share it later. We meet after dinner and have a nice birthday celebration drink.

Accommodation Avan Business Hotel

Miles hiked 16