Day 29: 88 Temples (none) - Uchiko

We were hustled out of the Henro hotel at 8 but the owner did want to get a picture of us in front of his sign. We will probably be on the next ad poster for the place. While the place gets points for catering to Henro, it was not high quality accomodations.

We had a very short walk today and many hours before our 3pm checkin time so we really took our time. We had a café latte comparison between 7-11 and Lawson; Lawson won by a mile. We stopped at a store called Work which had all sorts of workman gear and I got some heavy duty insoles. The ones I have are almost as beat up as the old shoes I left in the hotel trash can.

The first 5km of walk was pretty horrible. We were in big box shopping hell. Big parking lots beside a road with heavy, fast moving traffic. While we were at the Lawson we saw Alistair across the street and waved - he had been at the same hotel last night - but he ducked into the McDonald's across the street.

The next 5km was beside the same busy road but we were out of the commercial zone and into fields, farms and small collections of houses.

Finally, we cut over to a levy which looked nicer and realized we had missed a Henro sign somewhere and should have been off the main road much earlier. Unfortunately, we ended up along the main road again. Not much later the road started to look like it was turning into a freeway and I was about to stop and check the map when I spotted a Henro sign across the street.
Now we were off the road for good and the last 5km was really pleasant. We met a couple from Santa Barbara going the other direction and chatted for a while. We warned them about the road ahead and their hotel for the night. Our last hotel was their destination.

At a large pond as we watched the carp from the edge they all started coming towards us. I guess they see people standing there and the expect to be fed. I remembered we had some Calorie Mate cookies we had gotten as Osettai a few days ago. We were never going to eat them and the fish were hungry. They sure liked the Calorie Mate, I just hope it's not bad for them.
When we got to the hotel it was only 1pm and we asked to leave our packs and went out to find some lunch. We walked into a place called Mother featuring Western food but they didn't like foreigners and said no tables even though there were several empty. We went across the street and had a very nice donburi bowl.
We checked in just before 3:00 and came across the large empty parking lot. When we went out for dinner at 6:00 the parking lot was packed. Dinner was a good choice at a Korean place. We were the first customers but it was getting full by the time we left. The be bim bop was really good.



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