Thinking Allowed: Day 85-87: Koshien to Marugame

Day 85: Koshien to Kobe

Hours walked: 8:30-1:30

Distance walked: 18 km

Cumulative: 1,861 km

Another shorter day today as we made it to Kobe. We got up super-early, but then the “smart lock” on our Airbnb door didn’t work, so we spent a frustrating 40 minutes trying to lock up. In the end, Tamar found a lock box, deduced its combination, escape-room-style, and there was the key!

We had another easy day of walking with perfect cloudy weather. Levi saw lots of trains, romped around a playground, then slept the second half of our journey. We started reading Hatchet out loud, which a grade 7 class actually gave us on our walk across the US years ago, and Tova and Zadie are absolutely riveted; the others all listened too, even though they’ve read it. Sophia started reading Sophie’s World, and blazed through 20% in a few hours of walk-reading.

We stopped in at two bakeries, since we’re always hungry. Both had delicious bread; for some reason Kobe’s bakeries are heavily German-influenced. The last kilometre wove through crowded arcades full of tourists; then we had a late lunch of udon at Hanamaru, and were already done for the day!

Tamar and Aurora visited a temple from the year 210(!), and then we parents went out for a date night at a vegetarian izakaya while the girls made pasta. It was lovely to just sit and chat over croquettes and salad for a change, then stroll through Kobe’s busy alleys at night. We picked up some super cute Halloween buns, then rejoined the girls to put them to bed ahead of an early ferry wakeup tomorrow.

Halloween goodies, plus Darwin the penguin

Look at those bug-eyes!

Still in good shape for being so ancient

Day 86: Kobe to Ichinomiya

Hours walked: 6:30-5:00 (with a big ferry ride in the middle)

Distance walked: 15 km

Cumulative: 1,876 km

We left Honshu today! A very early wake up, and soon we were walking through the quiet Sunday-morning streets of Kobe, marveling that this huge island is finally behind us.

The ferry was super nice; Levi absolutely loved it, to the point where today may literally have been one of the best days of her life so far. She capered around on decks, in the play area, ravaging her sisters’ poker game, and just had a ball for 4 1/2 hours. We passed Shodo Island, which was enticingly mountainous and rugged; maybe someday…

Reaching Takamatsu in early afternoon, we grabbed lunch at a Lawson, dropped off some backpacks at our guesthouse for the night, and set off to squeeze in some kilometres before nightfall. Before long, we reached Ritsurin Garden, one of Japan’s loveliest gardens from the early Edo Period. We decided to delay the walk and explore it, and good thing we did: there were exquisite koi ponds, intricately-wrought trees, hand-designed stone formations, and a cute little tea house where a beautiful woman in a gorgeous golden silk kimono struggled to eat a green soft-serve ice cream cone. We could easily have spent three hours wandering its paths, but didn’t have time.

Our hearts filled with peace and harmony, we continued on to join the 88 Temples Walk. Within minutes; we met a nice Danish hiker at a picturesque temple - a sign of things to come! He welcomed us to the trail, then we finished up the day on nice small roads, feeling good about the start of Shikoku. We got Hanamaru udon for dinner, and so to bed.

The ferry had dress-up clothes, but nearly capsized due to excess cuteness

Hikers ahoy!

Five sisters enjoying the ride

Tova’s artistic shot of the koi

The gardens had so many lovely ponds

Day 87: Ichinomiya to Marugame

Hours walked: 8:00-4:00

Distance walked: 28 km

Cumulative: 1,904 km

We discovered on waking that last nights laundry was still sodden - so Jakob busted out to a 24-hour laundromat for emergency drying while the others packed up. Then we set out in light rain; Tova was in shorts and a sweater, because that’s just who she is, so an elderly gardener scurried out and tried to give us three umbrellas! We bowed and thanked him until he agreed to just give us one, which Tova happily huddled under as she walked.

Today was our first full day on the 88 Temples walk, and it was great. We saw three beautiful temple complexes - Goshoji, Tennoji and

Sanuki Kokubunji - and otherwise wound our way along a series of small semi-rural roads in lovely country. The last temple had a vast underground chamber with thousands of Buddha statuettes - it was eerily silent and glimmered with gold in the dark.

Tova found a jade stone on the ground and it is now one of her Three Found Treasures (along with a garnet she mined in Austria and a silver ring she found climbing a wall in Seoul). We see a lot of hikers, all with conical hats and stout walking sticks. The girls always want to bong the bells at the temples but we haven’t let them yet; other visitors do, so it’s probably just a matter of time.

We had Indian food for dinner (decent) and then turned in early, tired out from our first long day in awhile. It was a good one!