Day 35: 88 Temples (54-59) - Imabari

From Matsuyama we took the 7:23 train to Onishi for about a 50km cheat.  The walk along the coast looked pretty but it also looked like there would be a lot of car noise.  This was later confirmed by Alistair.

From Onishi the first temple was 4km but we though that was not far enough and added a kilometer by walking past it.

After walking through a lot of cemeteries we were in Imabari.  Temple 55 was in the city but we were fooled when we entered by the Shinto shrine next door.

Not far from Temple 55 was our hotel for the night.  We stopped in and left our packs.  I left my pack and used my day pack, Mike left the heavy contents of his.  Not having that pack weight felt great.

We walked out of town and things started to get suburban with rice fields.  Temple 56 had parking lot on the main road and the actual temple was a row of houses off the main road.  We were ready to eat our lunch - karaage from last night - but it didn't seem appropriate to eat at the temple.  We went down to the parking lot and sat on a low wall.  While we were eating a woman parked and walked over to us before going to the temple.  She gave us Osettai of some hand warmer packets and ¥1000.

By Temple 57 the ratio of farms to houses had tipped to the farm side.  Leaving 57 there was some construction and we were to follow an altered walking path.  On the map it looked like we had two choices but as we started down one I heard "Hey, you!".  Another obviously experienced Japanese Henro was telling us not to go that way and follow the detour signs.

Temple 58 was up a hill.  At first the road was not so steep but it became very steep.  Then we saw the temple gate and a very steep climb to the temple.  58 had a low key charm.

Leaving 58 I descended to the gate faster than Mike and waited at a Henro hut for him.  As I waited Alistair stopped for a chat on the way to 58.

We walked back to an suburban environment for the journey to Temple 59.  We were in a bit if a rush and made a point of beating out a group of chanting Henro to the office for our stamps.  We wanted to get a train back to our hotel but we didn't have enough time to make it.  Google said the next best alternative was a bus from right outside the temple.  As we sat at the bus stop we saw Alistair.  He was heading back to Imabari near the train station so we would try to get together for dinner.

Today was a tiring day.  I felt a little off my game and made some poor decisions and was reacting slower to things.

We wanted a break from fish so we were looking for a tonkatsu place.  There was a place next to Alistair's hotel.