April 17
Today is the day that we plan on returning to Temple 1 where we started on Feb. 23. It has been an incredible journey. Our hosts were in the kitchen preparing for a 7:00 breakfast. We had an hour before eating so they suggested that we should go see the street art down by the water front. That was a great suggestion! It was a calm, beautiful morning.
The boats wee rocking gently with the movement of the tide. The wind of yesterday was gone.
As we walked toward the water we began seeing the colorful artwork of the town of Hiketa. It was on seawalls.
As well as a lot of walls.
We were impressed with the well done artistry.
Everywhere we looked we saw more!
It was a good way to start the morning.
I think we could have meandered the streets more finding more art work, but it was time to go have breakfast.
We are enjoying the portion style dishes of Japan and hope to incorporate that style when we return to the states.
We said good-by to our hosts and their robot child Mochi.
We walked down the street until we saw the sign for the trail that would take us once more away from the coast and up over a mountain pass. The sun has taken away the cool of the morning and for every step that we take up the sweat drops off of our faces. We think that this is one of the hottest days that we have hiked. At one point there is a sign for the observatory, but the day is now overcast and any view would be obscured so we by pass it and soon start the trail down. The trail is steep in places and we carefully use our trekking poles and staff, we don’t want to fall down the last day. We check out the flower arrangement in one of the houses’s yards that we pass.
More interesting rice fields are in our view as we check out the different stages of growing.
There is a lot of work involved in growing rice.
We come upon the road which brings us out to Kosen-ji Temple 3
We walk by the gate still trying to deal with the reality that we are just about done.
On our way to our destination, a man walks up and hands us some bottled water. In our best Japanese we say arigato gozaimasus. We have learned a few phrases since our Pilgrimage began. We arrive to Ryozenji, Temple 1 and immediately see Takumi. He had been looking for us and was hoping that we hadn’t gotten lost. He wanted us to meet a woman at the temple who was visiting, which we did. He kept saying these were my friends that I was looking for. In a deja vu of our start we met a couple of women who were just starting out. It reminded us of the day that we started and had met a man who had just finished. The circle continues. We did our last rituals, washing our hands, ringing the bell, lighting the candles, mediating and putting our name slips in the box. The ritual comes automatic now as we have done it so many times. May Peace Prevail will always be in our mind. We take our book to be signed signally that we have completed the circle.
This pilgrimage has come to an end.
Before we catch the train back to Tokushima, Takumi wanted to show us the German Bando Prisoner -of-war camp near temple 1. He will drive us there, but first he wants to treat us to some fresh strawberries.
It was easy to eat the whole container. They were so good!
The German House Museum
During World War 1 about 5000 German soldiers were catptured by the Japanese. A thousand of them were sent to this area and a prisoner of war camp was established. Due to the highly humane administration , these prisoner were able to live freely as much as possible. They formed chorus and band groups which would give concerts at regular intervals. At one concert they gave the entire performance of Beethovens’ No.9 Choral This was the first time it was given in Japan. Towns people would often greet the prisoners on the streets with respect. The prisoners shared their knowledge in many different area. There were lots of displays, but unfortunately the information was in Japanese. We definitely got the feeling that these prisoners were well cared for.
By this time fatigue was setting in and we asked Takumi to just drop us off at the train station and we would catch the train to Tokushima where we had gotten a hotel room. Takumi wants to show us his museum tomorrow so will plan on picking us up at 10;00am at our hotel.
We are so relaxed on the train heading back, unlike that first day when we had so many unknowns going thru our heads. We selected a hotel that was in the train station so we had a very short walk to it. We got our room and took a break before heading to get things we had left at the PAQ hostel. We had stayed there when we arrived and had left some luggage there and needed to retrieve it. We had given them the notice of our arrival several days ago so they could get our luggage out of storage. When we went to pick it up, they realized that it was still in storage, but they would send someone to get it. No worries we have nothing on our agenda. It was nice just to sit in their lobby and wait. The luggage was found and we were soon walking back to our room. The smell of fresh bagels had us stopping to get some for our dinner.
It is starting to hit us that our planning for this part of the journey is over.
Accommdation JR Clement Hotel
Miles walked 12