1368 steps

Last weekend I took a long planned trip to Shikoku. Shikoku is the large island south of Himeji where I started the pilgrimage circuit last month. The reason for last weekend’s trip though was to climb the 1368 steps to Kompira-san!
We started the weekend by taking the train over a long suspension bridge to Marugame. It was a rainy day, so we decided to visit a small uchiwa museum. Uchiwa are non-folding fans which Marugame is famous for making. They’re paddle shaped and made of bamboo with paper glued over the tines to create a fan. It was quite interesting seeing the steps involved, watching the video and demonstrations.
After hiding out from the rain as long as possible, we went on to Marugame Castle. The castle’s position is impressive, on top of a steep hill in the middle of town. We climbed the muddy hill and were less than impressed with the three-story castle (considering we see the six-story Himeji Castle everyday), but we dutifully entered and took our photos.
Having exhausted the short list of sites in Marugame, we got back on the train to Kanon-ji and Jinne-in, where two more of the temples of the 88 temples in the pilgrimage circuit are. But first we climbed the stairs to a shrine, practicing for the next day.

At the temples I posed next to the monk figures and got my temple seal book stamped (5 down, 83 temples to go!)

Then we got on the train to Kotohira where we checked into our very nice hotel. We wandered out to look for some dinner, and after nearly an hour of wandering around a very dark and quiet town, we finally found a little restaurant right next door to our hotel (we had assumed it was a bar when we first passed it). After almost ordering the curry and rice, we had a great spaghetti dinner (I spied the small container of parmesan cheese and knew there must be some pasta on the menu!) and then went back to our hotel to take a bath in the Japanese style bathroom.
In the morning, we went back to the little restaurant for a breakfast of a cold ham sandwich, hard boiled egg, salad and coffee (that was the set breakfast), then we made our way to the 1368 steps leading to Kompira-san.

We could have paid about $65 to be carried up the steps in one of these contraptions!

(A pilgrim on a smoke break)

(the main gate at 365 steps)

There were many shops selling all sorts of souvenirs but we took our guidebook's advice and didn’t buy anything on the way up! The climb wasn’t too bad. The main shrine complex was 785 steps up, then we continued on to the inner shrine, another 583 steps. While we wanted to be able to say we had climbed all 1368 steps, we agreed that the inner shrine wasn’t really worth the extra effort –it was small and the view was much the same as it was at the major shrine.
We descended, bought our souvenirs, including omiyage (snacks for co-workers), ordered the spaghetti again at our new favorite restaurant, then left Kotohira.
Since it was still early afternoon, we stopped at Zentsu-ji, the site of the largest of the 88 temples on the circuit. The temple complex was surrounded with some very interesting statues in all sorts of interesting poses.

I didn't wear my pilgrim vest, but conveniently, there were these cut out figures, so you can see how I might look in the pilgrim costume (although I hope my ears don't stick out quite so much in real life!)

I got my temple seal book stamped, and we ending our temple visit by walking through a pitch dark tunnel. Zentsu-ji is also famous as the place were square watermelons were invented, but we didn't see any of those.

We got on the train for a very complicated and confusing ride back to Himeji (just when I thought I had the train system all figured!)