Day 33: 88 Temples (46-48) - Matsuyama

The weather was much improved from yesterday.  It was cool enough for a Marino wool undershirt but I  did not need my jacket.

We met Claude leaving town. One thing we observed several times today were former gas stations converted to funeral memorial sales.  I guess that's an indication where things are going here.  Since it's hard to talk with 3, I walked ahead.  Mike lost Claude to a woman offering coffee Osettai.

As we climbed on the road out of town we started to encounter snow on the ground.

After walking in 5cm deep snow for a few kilometers I waited for Mike at a Henro hut where two Henro were just crawling out of their sleeping bags.  It must have been cold here last night.  The Henro huts are really gazebos.  They keep you dry and offer a little shelter from the wind but you are outside and snow on the ground tells you it was not warm.

Mike and I continued up the mountain on the road.  While there was a sidewalk it had 5-7cm of snow on it so we walked on the road which was clear.  We passed a ski resort. Fortunately there was very little traffic.

At the pass we diverted to a trail and started to decend.  The trail had 7cm of snow on it.  It was a steep and long descent.  We both walked at our own pace.  Not too long after we got below the snow there was a Henro hut where I waited for Mike.

The trail soon turned into a narrow farming road and we passed some farms that had seen better days.  One had really creepy dolls out for scarecrows ... scared me.  We saw a murder hornet eating a persimmon.  A guy in the road said we had to stop and have tea and cookies.  Some older women started bringing us tea and persimmons and made us eat cookies.  This was some sort of Henro association rest stop.  As we were getting ready to leave, Claude, our Taiwan friend whose name is also Leo, and one of the sleeping Henro walked up.  The ladies attention turned to them and we said our thank you's and goodbyes.

The farms turned into houses and soon we were in the outskirts of Matsuyama.  It became spring-like. There were two temples - 46 and 47 - within one kilometer.  46 was the nicer one and 47 was the more polished one.

I liked 46 much more.  At the steps of 46 we had a comical episode with a Henro couple.  I took their picture with her camera and she insisted on returning the favor.  Mike's camera would not work for her and it took half a dozen attempts to get one picture.  She was going back and forth across the road to have Mike reset for a photo.

The next 4km to Temple 48 was a little hard.  We were both hurting.  It was 3pm and we hadn't had any lunch.  Finally we came to the first conbini of the day and had a late lunch.  The FamilyMart food made a big difference.

After 48 we walked a couple of km to the train station and bought our tickets to Matsuyama City.  On the train we realized we needed to go one stop further and when we turned our tickets in we had to do a fare adjustment of ¥20.  I'm not completely sure the ticket collector appreciated our honesty as he had to go off and make change.

Walking to the hotel we were happy to see there were many good looking restaurants in the area.  That's not a big surprise as we are right beside the main train station.  One in particular looked good and when the clerk at the hotel also recommended it, we were sold.

Good dinner.  It has been a long time since I've seen smoking in a restaurant.  I'm also in a smoking room at the hotel.  I wasn't paying close enough attention when I made the booking.