Trip to Yokomineji, one of the 88 Temples, and BBQ!

So, fall has come to Ehime, and that means explosions of beautifully colored leaves in the mountain woods around my town. Even better than just going on a leaf-viewing excursion, today's adventure features a trip to one of the temples that I promise you'll get sick of me writing about that's on the 88-temple tour of Shikoku. We started by heading off in separate cars with our English speaking club of our town, going through the foothills near our town and passing a lovely dam that was visible from the highway. Even though I'm kind of ambivalent about dams in general, I do have to admit the deep blue-green of the water contrasted nicely to the changing leaves. At the rest stop,our English speaking club tour guides explained to us one by one about the pilgrimage, the articles of clothing worn, and the temple. Here's some photos of us watching the explanation, and I even got to deck myself out pilgrim-style.Also included are photos of the rest stop, including old working wooden stove (it smelled so old-timey by the stove, i felt like i was in a japanese edition of a laura ingalls wilder book! lol!)




















Finally, after a very long and winding (yuk) drive up to the parking lot, we headed down the path to the temple itself. This is the bell tower that you go to ring the bell before beginning your prayers. We got to watch them going up and reciting the sutra in unison, and went through the motions of ringing the gong and putting our lit candles and incense by the temple halls. We even got our special commemorative books signed by the temple priests!
After that outing, we got to make the small hike back up to the car, then split to go eat some barbeque at one of our hosts' houses. After cutting up some of the veggies and throwing everything on the grill, we got to cozy up to the fire and eat a delicious, freshly picked feast of veggies and a nice helping of beef. Nothing could have topped off the day better!
And that was my trip... probably the most interesting part was having a chance to view my entire town from the summit of the mountain that the temple was on. It all looked so small and far away! I think it's amazing how a different world can be a ten minute drive, but you can go halfway around the world and cook a meal together and it's the same as having a cookout down home. Go figure, huh?

Well, next up: Monday's Kimono party! Can't wait. =)