I started to feel burden of my backpack… And in front of this main gate, I suddenly remembered that someone says that a certain shop at the foot of the mountain kindly takes care of the luggage for uphill to No.10 Kirihata-ji. Oh, however, it’s too late…

At the last part of this 333 steps is called “Yakuyoke-zaka (厄除け坂)”. You can avoid bad luck by stepping up. After this struggle of long steps, I could see beautiful contrast of blue sky and the red plum blossom beside the Nokyo-jyo.

After the religious routine, I went to Nokyo-jyo to get the temple stamp. But the door seemed to be closed, and I could not find anyone inside… Further more, bad thing was that I found the doorbell is actually inside the door 🙁

After a while, I eventually noticed that the bus guide was somehow inside the Nokyo-jyo, hence I tried to open the door once again but in vain…but then right after that, I found that I tried to open the door in wrong direction 🙂

At each temple, when I asked to get the temple stamp, they offered this small elliptic paper. I wondered what it is for, but now I understood.