Day 4...Temple 17

You know the saying, “I can't believe I ate the whole thing.” Well I can't believe we ate, I mean walked 18 miles today, and need I say it was another hot day. Tonight, we are staying at a businessman's hotel, which means we have to go out to eat, but it was just down on the ground floor from the hotel. It was a izakaya eatery, small plates of almost everything. We had a large bottle of beer, and I had a sochu and bottle of sake, plus steak tofu, rice omlette, yakitori, beef sticks, and horenso sarada, all for some $35.oo including tip; I joke for there is no tipping in Japan, yippy yai yah cowboy. Yasui desu nee.

Tomorrow we are going to go easy. We plan only to walk to one temple, 16.8 KM away. Easy is all relative.

Oh, I must tell you of the one downer that has come our way. While we were at the last temple Emi discovered her walking stick (tsue) was gone. At first we assumed that someone had taken it by mistake for no one takes things in Japan and certainly not from an henro. Henros, including us, leaves their belongings unattended all the time. But we were shocked to see Emi's tsue in the hands of two fellow henros who had been walking in front of us for some time. I might have said something to them, but fortunately we were in a taxi at the time heading for our hotel. I don't know what I would have said to them. My first inclination was to strike out, but that is so against the whole purpose of our trip, and then I wanted to give my other tsue to them in an act of compassion, for between the two they only had one, but I couldn't do it without wanting to make them feel bad for their crime. My heart was not pure. There is a good chance that we will see them again. I don't know what to do. Kawahatsu sensei, if you were here I would ask your advice. Should I say, "I forgive you," or just kick them in their ass?