Day 13: 88 Temples (28) - Kochi

Last night when we got to the Ryokan, the host was a young guy who didn't look very Japanese.  His mother was Spanish and his parents had met in Spain.


After dinner we wanted a conbini to get some stuff for breakfast but went to a liquor store for a few supplies.  In the morning I wanted coffee and walked outside.  Looking to my left 50m away at the beep-beep-beep intersection was a Family Mart conbini.  They had good coffee and I brought some back.  I noticed the had a banner for the Go-Go promotion we had a book of tickets we got from the Ryokan.


After packing up we stopped at Family Mart 50m into the day's walk and used some for a ¥500 discount each.  We still had 9 ¥500 tickets each.  We could only use them for another 20km.


Walking today started out on a very busy road with lots of traffic in both directions.  There were also a lot of kids on their way to school.  It wasn't great walking but we were kind of resigned to it.  About 2km in there was an arrow to a bike path.  We had not seen any Henro directions in a long time but figured what was good for bikes would be better than the busy road we were on no matter how long it lasted.


The bike path was a joy and except for missing all the conbinis and a stretch on the main road for construction of an elevated freeway, it was great.


Soon we saw a Henro walking towards us.  We stopped for a chat.  Our new friend was a Henro Ambassador named Mitchell (his American name).  He had worked for a number of years in the US for his company YKK.  YKK makes most of the zippers in the world.  He had lived in Cleveland, Chicago, other places in the MidWest and Atlanta.  He called several places for me to try to get reservations for next Friday.  Friday is the start of a holiday weekend and most things were booked.  We finally got a fancy hotel in a row I will need to train to.


We gave him 2 of our Go Go ticket books.  10 ¥500 tickets will get a lot of conbini food.  I am still looking for someone going the other direction to give my 4 remaining tickets to.


Today we walked about 11km and the took the train near Temple 28.  We the walked 2km to 28 and back to the train station.  We took the train into Kochi.


Tomorrow Mike heads back to Toronto for his mother's funeral and I will pick up the trail at Temple 29.  I am staying in the Kochi Comfort Hotel two nights so I need to take public transit out in the morning, back in the evening and out again in the morning.


After cleaning up we headed out to the covered mall street.  Most Japanese cities have them.  Lots of shops and restaurants.  We went into a place and had a beer and fried chicken with some spicy sauce.


We then went looking for a sushi restaurant and got kicked out of two ... full (eye roll).   We went to a less fancy place and they gave us an English menu which we discarded and started ordering from the sushi chef.  The sushi was pretty good.  The price by San Francisco standards was really cheap ... we had toro nigiri for about $3/piece.


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