Temple: Tairyuji

Dedication: I shared a room with John for about six months when I was 18 and living in Manchester. He lots of fun, and considerate too, which is useful in a crammed shared house. He had a poster of Sharleen Spiteri from Texas up. We used to kiss her hair for good luck before we went out. The last time I saw him was nearly ten years ago when he was the bar manager at the cornerhouse in Manchester. I’m thinking of you today John, thanks for your friendship back then.

Picture: Tairyuji is up another mountain and this and the mountain path between the two has been maintained for hundreds of years and is another pilgrim’s struggle. I didn’t find the climb tough but when I realised there was a cable car I immediately got it down. Save my knees, yay.

I was on the first ropeway of the day and the staff gave me some mushroom soup as osettai and chatted to me all the way down in half English/half Japanese about the upcoming golden week events. The car made a pretty dramatic drop into the cloud. I had an extra 3km to walk when I got down but it was well worth it.