お山へ

Today was a good day, it was also long and tiring!

We left our lodging, Fureai no Sato early, and climbed to Bekakku 3, Jigen-ji. It was at 560m in the mountains, and just above the snow line - it began to snow lightly as we climbed. I think that we were the first ones there.

Then we walked all of the way back on ourselves, stopping by Fureai no Sato for a cup of tea and some mikan, before retracing our steps the day before for 5km before climbing up to Temple 20, Kalinin-ji. This was a beautiful temple with a motif of white cranes. Here we heard a man playing a ceremonial conch!

Down from 480m to just above sea level in the valley, then another climb immediately to 500m - lots of ascent today! At the top of this second mountain was Temple 21, Tairyū-ji. The temple grounds are surrounded by enormous trees, the guidebook suggests that this creates a mystic atmosphere. It was a special place, and the climb had made it more so. There were only a handful of people there, and the temple workers left by car soon after we did. Long walk down for us though! I fell asleep almost straight after dinner at 7pm.

Today we walked about 15 miles and climbed about 5000 feet.