With Ritsurin park done it was time to return to the pilgrimage for a brief period and visit one of the two bekkaku temples I would need to revisit. I decided to do the 4th first as it's far away and coming from Nagasaki will take time so better to do the closer one then. Not even sure COULD I get to 4th in time.
BTW there was typhoon coming up so my Nagasaki plan was looking bit shaky. I would need to check on evening how the train prediction is. If trains don't run next day I would need to cancel up first night. One point of worry was hotel fees. I might end up paying for 2 hotels at the time. Hotel terms clearly indicated this late cancel would be full fee but maybe it doesn't apply in case of a typhoon preventing me! We'll see.
Anyway Bekkaku temple 4 Saba Daishi Honbō (or Yasakaji as it's official name knows) is located far on south between temples 23 and 24. I visited this last year early april with lovely spring weather. Would be quite a change for this year.
The trip is about 70km per direction and would be done by train without changes on the route so I had just to hop to the train. As it was early school childrens were out in the force so train was rather crowded which is how I ended up sitting with 2 other foreigners so after a while I joined with their conversation. There went my plan of reading book through the trip ;-) Anyway turns out that the elderly fellow lived in Tokushima running private english teaching lessons(surprise surprise) and was here due to his kids from his marriage which had ended but he had been unwilling to leave kids without him which kept him living here. Other fellow was traveling around Japan and had been going through Kanagawa and Tokushima prefecture and was stopping today at Hiwasa visiting the castle and temple 23. Unsurprisingly with me being in pilgrim outfit they(particularly the tourist) were curious enough about my pilgrimage so I spent time describing what it's about, where I had been and highlights about various places.
The elderly fellow dropped off first and at the Hiwasa the traveller dropped as well. I had huge sense of dejavu/nostalgy looking at the Hiwasa castle and the temple #23 I had seen last year(though castle only from distance).
From here it still took a while but last year it took me over a day! But eventually reached Sabase station which is right next door to the temple.
All in all I did quick version of prayers and only got the rosary ball. I had considered taking 2nd stamp but then I would have first 4 extra. And if I ever do this thing AGAIN I would have 3 stamps for first 4...I decided to ignore stamp this time.
As I was leaving elderly pair gave me drinks as osettai. It also started to rain though VERY briefly so didn't get much of a wet before reaching back to the train station.
This ad for some reason cracked me up. Japanese version of "join the army!" (well self-defence force as it's called here).
Took me a while to get back with train. By now weather forecast was indicating typhoon coming right here and checking train station indicated that tomorrows trains would be cancelled. So much for Nagasaki for tomorrow...I called the hotel and explained the situation but didn't cancel the 2nd night. Still the concert to see and I'm sure I can see something else in time. Plans got bit screwed but apart from bit weird flipping back and forth it's still doable. Lots of sitting in trains ahead though.
On the evening I had spotted "onsen"(though public bath would be more accurate term. Though onsen technically refers to place with natural hot water so assuming this place has that it IS actually onsen even if small one) nearby my hotel so I decided to pay a visit. Now otherwise this would have been completely unremarkable trip(it was just very basic bath. Nothing particularly good or bad). However it did have something I had never seen before. Electric bath! I found out about it putting my leg into the bath. I suddenly started to feel weird tingling. For a brief moment I worried about heart attack or something but then realized it's not that serious. Still puzzled on why my leg is so weird I looked around when I saw on wall text 電気風呂. Electric bath. Light bulp lighted up as I realized what was going on. This bath had electric current going through(not everywhere. It's very weak and effect wasn't notable much away from the source of current) the water. Well other quests didn't seem to be worried so I decided to try it. Have to say it felt peculiar having my muscles twitch on their own. Current wasn't steady but instead had random patterns so sometimes it went off and my arm relaxed, then it came on and my arm basically locked into one piece. Very weird experience. Later read it's supposed to have healing effect for muscle pains etc. Don't know about that. Oh and obviously avoid if you have heart issues let alone if you have pacemaker!
29.07.2018
Super quiet day. Due to typhoon trains stopped so didn't have much ways to go anywhere. Much to my surprise however typhoon pretty much ignored Tokushima. It went juuuust north enough I didn't see any sign of it(stopped trains excluded) except for slightly wet roads. Guess it rained on night but when I woke it was already sunny clear day with no wind.
Anyway with outside being hot and not much to do this day I spent mostly reading.
On the evening I took walk to another onsen(and this one was lot bigger though more pricey). Walking there wind had picked up a bit which was nice as it made heat much more bearable.
Shortest route according to google map led me through these super tiny paths between homes. Surprised google map even tracks these tiny alleys.
This onsen(Aratae hot spring) was very nice. Spent quite a bit of time there soaking up. All in all uneventful except for staff that were searching around as one unfortunate customer had managed to lose his key to locker. Wonder what's the procedure/fees for replacing one? It's pretty hard to find it from baths if it fell as most were on various colours(like milky white) so couldn't see bottom so it's either search by hand every square inch or drain bath away if you want to find it.
Tomorrow trip to Nagasaki. Very short trip. Day after that back to Tokushima...
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