One Night In Kanjizai-ji

After a great night's sleep, we woke to very cloudy (but not raining) skies. I seriously want to be a weather forecaster in Shikoku. A drunken dart thrower would get it right more often. The hotel provided breakfast, so we went, with some trepidation, down to the cafe area they had and gave them our meal vouchers and got

Wait, no fish?

a small, but nice meal. I can't drink the miso soup they make in Shikoku. They must use an entire bonito for "flavoring", but the rest of the meal was good, even the baby hot dogs that pass for breakfast "sausage".

Then we were off to the cycle shop (sans trailers, which we locked up at the hotel) hoping this small town had a decent bicycle guy. Boy, did they!

Yamamoto, at your service!

So, we get there and the grandfather who can barely hear is sitting in the back, reading a paper. Sumi almost had to walk into the office and yell to get his attention. Shortly thereafter, the grandson came down and we explained what we needed. He brought out the proper brake pads (thank God!) and proceeded to start working on Sumi's bike. While he was working, a young family came in with a flat tire and the grandfather set to work finding the leak and patching it for them ($10), a woman came in with her very elderly mother and the grandson brought out a walker(!) and was showing them the work he did on the brakes. Yes, Japanese walkers have brakes, wheels and baskets. They seemed happy. Later another guy came up with a flat. The guy took about an hour to do both bikes, but he didn't just replace the pads. He tightened all the brake cables, oiled them all, recalibrated the gears and shifters, oiled them, as well, tightened the brake levers and a few spokes on Sumi's front wheel. He did a full tune up and more AND replaced all four brake pads. Parts included, $30 per bike. I want a Yamamoto Service in Milwaukee. He was awesome. They didn't have an extra tube for our strange little bikes, but I'd have been surprised if he did. While he was working, Sumi found her next bike

I love the handlebar "bag" and bell.

So, off we went with new brakes that actually stopped our bikes. We picked up our trailers and proceeded to ride the shortest and most difficult route of the trip, to Ainan. This was a costal route, which usually meant less severe climbs. This was an exception and then some. The grade was a sustained 8% at times and climbed on and off for almost 5k, the last 1k being the steepest. We walked that last 1k almost entirely, pushing our 60# of bike and trailer up almost the entire way. I reflected that every time we wanted to see some beautiful vista, it usually required us to spend a good hour killing ourselves getting up a mountain. This was no exception.

Around one corner was a small graveyard. Probably for those who didn't make it up the hill.

Overcast, but not raining. 

OK, see all the road winding around down there? Yeah.

A secluded beach in one of the valleys. The house on the bluff probably owns it and the little beach shack in the foreground.

After the last, killer climb was almost 5k of downhill, some of it as steep as the uphill. With so many switchbacks and only one lane almost the whole way, we had to take it slow instead of cut loose and enjoy the ride down, but it was quite a relief. When we hit the bottom we stopped at an intersection that turned out to be some poor woman's driveway that we were blocking. She stopped and spoke with us for a minute about where we came from and where we were going (she agreed where we came from was pretty steep) and went inside. While we were figuring out where to go next, she came out with two big, fresh Yuzu and told us "Ganbatte"! What are Yuzu, you ask?

These are Yuzu. 80% Grapefruit, 20% Orange, grown here in Shikoku, used for many things, including fueling poor, tired cyclists,

We found a shop with a vending machine and a place to sit down and dove in. We decided to be a little different in our drink choices this time

Fruity Vegetable. Tastes as advertised. Fruity, with some vegetable.

Made In Shikoku Hachimitsu Yuzu! Erm, 1% juice. Tasted like it, too.

So, refreshed and somewhat sticky from the yuzu (no water faucet to be found), we set off for the last, mostly flat, leg to Ainan, where we were going to stay at one of the temples along the henro path, Kanjizai-ji. Along the slightly busier road we turned on to were several tunnels, including some Bike Only tunnels

I love these things!

Finding the temple was pretty easy, thankfully, so once we were there, Sumi did her pilgrim thing and we were shown to the henro quarters, which were nicer than most hotels we stayed at and we had the all to ourselves! A very large Japanese style room usually used for six to eight people for the two of us.

Pilgrim at the gate! This pilgrim is too embarrassed to ring the bell, though.

Frog temple this time. Each of the 88 temples have their own unique emphasis.

First of the eight Indian statues that flank the henro temple

Second half

Great clock in the washroom of the temple

View outside our window of the temple grounds

There was no food at this particular temple (sometimes they provide shoujin ryouri, a vegetarian meal that the Buddhist monks eat. It is amazingly good) so we were on our own. Down the street a little way was a Japanese family restaurant. These resemble a Denny's in the States and are popular in more rural areas. This one was called Joyfull.

Now, being Japanese, there are certain differences. There is the usual Drink Bar that they advertise. All you can drink hot and cold beverages. Most of them are usual fare, soda, juice, coffee, hot cocoa, tea, etc. The food is usually a "Japanized" western menu, where things aren't quite what you'd expect, but close. Sumi had a spaghetti, which was fairly good and I had a baked penne dish, which also was all right. Expectations being low, we weren't disappointed with the food.

One unique feature of Joyfull that we hadn't seen anywhere else was the Soup Bar. Now, I know what you're thinking, a salad bar-type buffet with soup. No no no, that would make too much sense. THIS soup bar is right next to the drink bar and, unless you looked carefully, you would mistake it for more drinks. That's because you DRINK soup in Japan. What they had was a dispenser and some mugs (no spoons) that some odd watery, liquidy soupy stuff would squirt into. There were three choices: Corn Soup (corn chowder), Beef Soup (beef broth) and Cream Chowder (clam chowder without the clams, cause clams would be, you know, chunky). As unappetizing as it looked, we HAD to try it. Here is what it looked like

(will be uploaded when we have better internet. Please stand by...)

It was actually not bad.

So, full on questionable fare, we walked back to the temple and retired. Sumi passed out immediately (she's quite good at that) and I worked on the blog offline (no internet at the temple, go figure). There was some sort of school sporting event at the nearby high school, and from the high vantage point of the temple, I could hear the cheering (organized, of course) and the occasional city loudspeaker system announcement about the event would echo across the valley in a rather spectacular way for several seconds. It was as if the whole town were at the event, except us, and that very well may have been the case.

Tomorrow is the last cycling day of our trip (boo!) as we return to the comatose city of Uwajima to see if it has awoken and to get ready for the cross-country bus/ferry trip back to Tokyo over the next few days.