Day 1...yikes it's hot!

The first day is over and it could have been worse, but I thank god it wasn't because it was bad enough as it was. We only walked 10 miles by the map, although Emi's pedometer indicated 13 miles. But hey, who's counting.

The outstanding theme for the day was...HOT. It was about about 85 degrees and slightly humid. Emi and I died. just withered away. “Where's the fog? Where's the fog?" we mumbled as we stumbled our way from one temple to another. It was tough. We drank as much as we could, but we couldn't eat. After a wonderful breakfast at 7am, we didn't eat again until 2pm. There wasn't any food around to buy, beg, or steal. By 2pm we weren't even hungry, for we had gone past the hunger stage and were close to passing out from the lack of food and fluids.

Through it all we survived and made it to temple 7, Jurakuji (Temple of 10 pleasures...your choice.). We are staying for the night. We stayed here 7 years ago, but now they have a new building. Everything is so fancy compared to the last time. At that time we slept on tatami and bathed in the community furo. We even have a private bath in our room, the toilet being western with a built in ass washer. Kakkoii. The meal was vegetarian and good. We ate until we were stuffed, but it's not going to equal the calories that we spent during the day.

Because my camera battery died, I had to use the flip video camera to take pictures of the temples. It's a good thing that we have back-ups. We will be psyching ourselves up for tomorrow. It's going to be 14 miles. I'm tired just walking 10 miles. Hope it's not so hot!