The entrance of Morimoto-ya is unexpectedly neat (sorry, but I expected these guest house would be old and so so). The old landlady welcomed me. She told me that she will wash my Kongo-zue (Pilgrim’s stick), and then guided me to this cozy room after showing me where is the bathroom. She then suggested me to take a bath after a break.

I found a washing machine in the bathroom, so asked if I’m OK to use it. Then she said she’ll do it for me… but it’s bit embarrassing 😉 so I told her I’ll do it by myself. But… maybe I should have accepted her kindness ?!

At the dinner, there’re only myself and a married couple who looks around 60s. They lives in Tokyo, and is going to do pilgrimage for 10 days by their car after they visited their child living in Akashi. They told me that No.75 Zentsu-ji (善通寺) is the place where Kobo-daishi was born, and that I should not miss to walk in the dark underground beneath the building.

The landlady also told us interesting information. In addition to 88 sacred temples, there’re 20 more “branch” temples (108 = 88+20 is considered as the number of worldly desires of human beings). And at each temple, you can get a bead. After the completion of the visit, you can connect all 108 beads to make a beautiful rosary (Juzu). She also told us that year 2015 marks the 1200 year anniversary of Mt. Koya’s founding by Kobo Daishi, and that a special red amulet was distributed at each temple. She showed us picture frame on which all the 88 red amulets are put. I was surprised that even usual people living in Shikoku also do pilgrimage several times by using their car and other public transportation.