Two pilgrims down already … and two versions of this day! ✌️

Maike:

This morning we said goodbye to our hiker friend Kyra, she is leaving Shikoku and will continue travelling to other places in Japan 🇯🇵

Tani, Bruno and me continued to temple 31 but my left foot wasn’t too happy about this so I decided to take a bus to our hostel 😿 I did a quick stop in Kochi and found a new friend: a Japanese old man who sat next to me in the cafe 👴 Don’t ask me how but we ended up talking about parrot videos on Twitter, Elon Musk, ABBA and his favourite YouTube singer 👩‍🎤 I’m very glad I learned some Japanese before (and that Google Translate exists hehe). In the end he brought me some bread and chocolate as an osettai (See picture red bag) 🎁

Bruno:

This morning we said goodbye to Kyra — she had decided not to continue the pilgrimage with us and explore other parts of Japan instead. Her presence will be missed 😢

After walking to temple 31 (where we met Natsuko once more), Maike decided to take the bus straight to the next accommodation, skipping temples 32, 33 and 34. This has always been our rule number one for this pilgrimage: health comes first.

I decided to keep walking (with Tani and Natsuko) and had a pleasant day. It was sunny and warm, unlike the past two days. Besides visiting the temples, taking one ferry ⛴️ and receiving cookies as osettai, not much happened during the walk.

I arrived at our hostel almost at 6pm and was happy to see Maike in good mood 💃We had dinner with our american roommate and decided to change our plans for the next days. But to know more, you have to check our polar steps tomorrow 😉