September 21

September 21st

Another hot day walking along the coast in Kochi Prefecture. Our bodies are holding up, barely. Emi's blisters are getting better, but she may becoming down with a cold. We can only hope and pray for the best. Surprisingly my heat rash that was slowly spreading across my body like urban sprawl has gone the way of the wild salmon, slowly disappearing, but like the salmon it may rebound. Replacing the rash I now have 2 blisters on my right foot. Our bodies are plagued with a series of pain and ailments. Emi ignores them while it causes me to worry, never knowing if any one of the pains will lead to something more serious. I don't want to be like that bridge in Minneapolis, working until it didn't.

I am finding Japan to be a conglomeration of noises, most exotic to my ear. The mundane noise is the obnoxious sound of the vehicles when we are walking on the roads. “Cars are cars all over the world, engine in the front, trunk in the back,” as Paul Simon sang. But walking in the mountains there are moments when the chorus of birds make us feel as if we in an aviary. One of only two birds that I do recognize is the Japanese dove. It sounds like ours but it has a distinct Japanese accent, and then there is the Tombi that has a typical bird of prey cry. The insects are the outstanding noise maker. If you've ever seen a Kurosawa movie, the sounds that you hear are real; it is not made up, not a Martin Denny effect, and often it is loud, the volume turned up. And there are the flying bugs the size of small hummingbirds that dive at you for fun or for spite. They sound like a squadron of mosquitoes, and of course they're here too with their malevolent buzz, usually next to your ear. The most interesting sound is an insect that sounds like a bell. At first I'd think that it was a fellow henro close behind me for most of them carry a bell with them, but whenever I turned around, no one was there. Then, especially when I was so fatigued that I was close to hallucinating, I imagined that it was Kobodishi by my side. Then I figured that it had to be an insect, but I still prefer to think that it is Kobodaishi close to me.