Preparation

 The flights have been booked for the next great adventure!  This time it's off to the island of Shikoku in Japan for a 1200km walk around the island visiting 88 famous Buddhist temples.  This pilgrimage is 1300 years old.

I'm not going to re-write the Wikipedia page for you so you can get all the background here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikoku_Pilgrimage

Here is the plan ... Mike, my friend since university and featured in the cycling blogs, and I will try to drag our deteriorating bodies around Shikoku for 52 days and visit the 88 Temples.  Yes, we will wear the funny outfits you see in the pictures.


Temple number 1 in Shikoku is a few hours by bus from the Osaka airport (KIX) which conveniently gives me a direct flight from San Francisco.  The logistics of this one are pretty easy.  Japan is very easy to travel around.  I have quite a bit of Japan experience and Mike has even more.  He also has a wife with an extensive personal network in the Kobe area.  Mike's Japanese is also not horrible (mine is beyond horrible).

We will leave a few things in Kobe, like extra shoes, which can be sent to us by courier.  Japan has an extensive, cheap and convenient courier network.  Most Japanese routinely forward luggage to their next hotel.  On the long distance trains most Japanese carry only a day bag and have everything couriered to their destination.  Mostly foreigners are the ones lugging big bags around.

Mike and I will meet at KIX, travel to Kobe, overnight in Kobe, catch the bus in the morning and hit the first temple before lunch.

Here are some pictures I "borrowed" from https://shikoku-tourism.com/en/shikoku-henro/shikoku-henro




A lot of the walk is along the perimeter coastal road which is paved and quite flat.  Apparently, the traffic can be a bit heavy as well.  To make this part go a little faster we considered taking inline skates, but the logistics, extra weight - skates weigh 5kg! - and the fact neither of us are the skaters we used to be - we became afraid of dying during training - this idea got dropped.  It might make sense for some, though, as by my inspection of the maps and GPS tracks probably 80% of the route is easily skate-able.  If you can skate at a slow 12km/hr for an hour each day you get an extra 8km/day which really pushes up your daily average distance.

1200km over our 52 day works out to about 25km per day if you throw in a few rest days.  Based on my Camino de Santigo rates this should be doable if Mike can get enough KT Tape for his knee.  It will be 400km further than the Camino but it is generally flatter with fewer long climbs and descents.

While there is a lot of flat road, most of the temples are built up high.  Almost all have a steep 1-3km climb.  Finding GPS tracks for the 88 Temples was a little hard.  Tech hasn't quite reached this walk as much as some others.  The best GPS files I found were on WikiLoc.

We will stay in whatever Pilgrim accommodation is available.  There are a large number of hotels and more traditional guesthouses along the route.  In Japan it is customary to book your rooms a head of time.  That is not so necessary for the business hotels but is in the guesthouses where they will purchase food for meals.  That means we will need a next day target each day.  This should never be a problem if the infrastructure is half as good in Shikoku as the rest of Japan I've been to.  We should always be able to take a bus/train/taxi for any necessary adjustments.

If you are wondering about the costs, I'm thinking it will be between 80-120$US/day.  The US dollar is very strong right now compared to the Yen which is good for me.  Currently 1$US=147¥.  Prices I see online are about 7000¥ for a room with meal which puts the cost on the lower end.  My $80-120 estimate is probably really much higher than the actual cost.  Playing with some cost calculators on henro.org the cost may be almost half that.  Travelling in Japan and Europe is much, much cheaper than travelling in North America right now.

Here are some of the online resources I've used:

I like to travel as light as possible and really want to make sure I actually need everything I bring.  "Nice to haves" usually end up being extra weight you never use.  To justify something that is not used everyday you should be looking at catastrophic failure without it.  I am using a 24L Osprey Stratos which helps keep the weight down.  My packing list will be almost the same as for the Camino (https://walk-caminodesantiago.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-next-adventure.html) minus a few items.  The towel and sleeping bag liner will not be needed; these will be provided at all accommodation in Japan and they are bulk I'm glad to get rid of.  I also will not take the money belt which was a useless choice on the Camino and I probably should have thrown it away.  I also won't take a water bottle - you end up buying so many containers it makes more sense to reuse those and water bottles are a pain on the plane as carry-on.  I'll be taking an extra pair of hiking socks just to have more in the rotation and since there is a lot of lounging around on the floor: a pair of sweat pants.  I won't need the bathing suit either.  I'm not going to bother with the GoPro either; I just to take enough video to bother.  The toiletries will be a little lighter as well - they get surprisingly bulky.  As do glasses which I plan to consolidate into a single case.

If it turns out I need a warmer jacket or something there are plenty of opportunities to buy them along the way.  For me getting a big enough size is the problem in Japan.  

After a lot of research on phone SIMs for Japan, it turns out that the tourist SIMs you can pick up everywhere in Japan are not a very good deal.  Ordering from Amazon.us will get you 30GB/6months for $40 or 15GB/6months for $30.  


My training has consisted of daily walks out my front door.  Usually I have no real route in mind and when I see something I haven't noticed before I go that way.  San Francisco is great for walking randomly like this and I seem to discover something new each day.  










Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 51: 88 Temples - Kyoto

Image
I slept all the way to 6:30am!  After going to bed before 9 and waking up at 5 for so long it was nice to sleep in.  I had a pretty lazy time to check out at 10.  Fortunately, the hotel has a coffee space they let you sit and drink coffee as long as you like.  They also have baggage storage which I took advantage of while having lunch with Mike.  He brought my backup stuff bag. My body enjoyed the rest but was also kind of restless.  I could almost feel things healing. I met Mike, his son and daughter-in-law for some very good ramen and fried rice.  We then went for coffee at a Blue Bottle cafe. The next two nights will be spent in Kyoto, the city of my ancestors.  I was last in Kyoto in 2015 with Laurie and the boys for three nights.  I have less planned and less energy this time. The 14:07 was 3 minutes late.  It was a special rapid service train with very few stops to Kyoto.  I was in Kyoto in ...
Read more

Day 1: 88 Temples: Donari (1-7)

Image
I had a pretty good sleep for first night in country.  I woke with my alarm at 5:30 and before the bus at 7:00 we went to the Lawson next door for some surprisingly good chicken nuggets and coffee for breakfast. At the bus the driver noted to us our assigned seats even though the bus was only 25% occupied.  We sat in them.  It was a nice hour and 40 minute ride.  We crossed the bridge into Shikoku and saw the famous whirlpools in the straight below.  At the Naruto Nishi freeway rest area we got out and had a short 1km walk to the first temple.  Our route from KIX was pretty good.  We took the bus to Sannomiya Station in Kobe (¥2000) where we stayed the night, got sorted and had dinner - all within about 50 meters of the two bus stops.  In the morning we got an early bus (¥3500) and were fumbling around the first temple by 9:30....
Read more