Sidetracked

October 14

I didn't write yesterday, because I was just too tired. We walked from Matsuyama to the outskirts of Imabari, some 18.5 miles. It was a long walk and the last 2 hours was excruciating. Yeah I know you've heard that before but this was worst because I caught a stomach bug and it didn't make things any easier. I want to let it go free but it's clinging on for the time being (pun,pun). Further, whether part of my illness or not, my Achilles tendon started to hurt and continued to the end to make life miserable. My pace slowed to the point snails began to pass me. Emi even offered to call a taxi but by this time my mind had ceased functioning and all I could think of was to finish. Very dumb.

During the day two random act of kindness lifted my spirits but unfortunately couldn't carry me on my journey. A lady came out of her house to give us a bag of home made mochi and later at a temple an older woman all bent over with osteoporosis walked over to where we were eating kakigori (shave ice) to hand us a bag of candy. Shinsetsu,na? The candy was so strange, hard sweet coating with an ume center (ume=shin fan mui).

Today we started off in the rain, but after a few hours and two temples, decided to call it a day. We have just under 2 weeks to go, and must be conservative. If I don't get well, the trip will be over, so we are going to a hotel for me to rest. Bummer. I did think that in 7 weeks something would, could happened to our health, but it's lousy anyway.

I can't wait for this trek, adventure to end so that I can look back and kind of laugh about it. Tolkien writes about adventure. He says that adventure is not something you seek; it comes to you when it is the least expected and when you are in it, it is not a thing to be enjoyed, the outcome unknown and possibly undesirable. It is just something that is happening to you out of your control. I am so tired right now and I want this adventure to end. I want to go back to my warm secure hobbit home and write my memoirs. This experience will not ever happened again, because I don't think that I can do it physically. I know that there are older henros that do it over and over again. I see them ever now and then but I am not like them; I'm normal with a body that gets tired. But I will never forget this saga. It has changed me, but not to the point that I can't return to my former life, unlike Frodo. I anxiously look forward to returning home.

To change the subject, Arnold Schwartznagger must have been talking about the teenage boys of Japan when he used the term girly man. There is a scary trend of boys getting facial makeovers making them look like girly men in my humble opinion. Their hair is often tinted and then jellied so that it can be messed up to give the appearance of an anime character. Their eyebrows are plucked and foundation is applied to get their face looking more perfect than any girl that I've dated. In America their efforts would only attract other guys, but in Japan the girls think it's cool; I think. It's so onna rashii to me. Then what do I know? I'm not a female. But I can't imagine the male icons of Hollywood doing what these boys, and some men, do to themselves. Can you imagine Bogart, Newman, Redford, etc with plucked eyebrows, foundation, etc? I can't. I guess that I'm just old school, although maybe I shouldn't be. I need all the help that I can get. So if you happen to see me looking different, better(?), well I changed my mind and decided to join this beautification program of the male species. If Jake Shimabukoro can do it, why not me?