Thursday, November 15th, 2001
These log entries cover the days between the completion of my Aki Meguri and my departure for America.
The Shikoku Pilgrimage
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A good day, and as always, a few surprises.
You probably know that I stayed at the Koyasan Youth Hostel before. And I knew that it had a temple's name. Well, this morning I discovered that one of the rooms is actually still an active hondo! You enter what seems to be a guest room, look to the right, and you're looking in at an altar and honzon. A nice surprise.
The Okunoin (one more time)
One difference--when I went to have my book signed and stamped, they did something I had read about: the man in the stamp office turned to the page that was signed before, and merely added red stamps--no black ink was added. If you make the pilgrimage numerous times, you just keep getting more red, no black.
I thought this was pretty cool--until the guy charged me the same 300 yen as if he had signed it! Hey, shouldn't it be cheaper when they do less work?
Returning to the center of town, I browsed the shops. The only things that attracted me were two books. One is called Kukai: Major Works and the other is on Shingon and the Daishi by a guy Statler refers to as "the Daishi's modern biographer." I had the books in my hands when I realized that both had been published in the U.S., and would be much cheaper to buy (as well as easier to transport!) when I get home next month.
So I had my last bowl of sansai (mountain vegetable) noodles and walked back to get my bags from the Youth Hostel. The late morning air had that kind of crisp cold that makes you know that if any precipitation occurs, it's gonna be snow. So the hot noodles were especially satisfying.
I took the express train into Namba station, had a late lunch, and did some e-mailing (as well as posting the second half of yesterday's homepage).
Then I caught a train to Tsu--Japan's shortest city name, it can be written with only one phonetic character--where I was met by my friends the Imamuras.
The Imamura's Home, Mie
In July I walked the Chichibu 34 Kannon pilgrimage. I have now completed all four of Japan's major pilgrimages (the Saigoku [Kansai] 33, the Bando [Kanto] 33, the Chichibu 34, and the Shikoku 88). Although I had stamp books signed for each of the courses, the Chichibu one was the only one where I had a kakejiku, or hanging scroll, signed.
This is a work of art unto itself; I was glad to pay the initial 22,000 yen for the hand-painted scroll, plus 500 yen for each of the 34 signatures. (That's 39,000 yen--around $325--to save you the effort.) I was shocked to discover afterward, though, that it would be another 60,000 or more to have the scroll properly mounted!
So I called my friend (and former student) Mariko to ask her advice, since I knew that she studied the painting of such scrolls. She contacted her teacher, then called me to tell me that her teacher knew an expert who could do it right for a decent price. So I turned the unmounted scroll over to Mariko in Tokyo last August, and tonight after dinner, I saw it (or "her"--Kannon-sama) for the first time.
Tomorrow: my triumphal re-entry to Tokyo. As there's a small tequila bash planned for tomorrow night (my first drink since the Sayonara Party on September 2nd) I probably won't be writing tomorrow!
In fact, it will probably be days before I have much to say beyond the boring details of re-adjustment. So please be patient, and check in sometime in the next few days.
This pilgrimage is over--but others are about to begin, both literally and figuratively.
[After arriving in Tokyo, I went into veg mode. Watched a lot of movies on Sim & Yumi's TV, rarely went out to meet my friends. Sorted through the stuff I had left behind, that hadn't been shipped before the Meguri, trying to decide what to take back to the states. Two weeks after the grand return, I went into approach mode: The Farewell Parties.]
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Posted October 19, 2019
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