So...

we'll just pretend that today didn't happen. Next time I decide I can do 42km in one day with a ~15kg pack including climbing over 3 mountains, someone smack me. So we won't talk about today anymore, instead we'll talk about my companions so far. After all, what would a journey be without the people along the way.
My roomates for the first night were 2 Japanese guys. One probably about my age and one in his mid 30's, give or take 20 years. Not much to say about the younger one, I think he's just kind of out for some adventure. The older one seems to love travel. He's done this trip on motorcycle before, and drove around the US to all 50 states (most likely didn't drive to Hawaii). I also met a guy I've dubbed big pappa bear there. He wasn't staying the night, just came by to chat. Somewhere close to 50 I'd say, I think he works for the company that supports the trail and has done it more than 50 times, I assume a number of those were by car.
The next day I ran into the young guy and a girl, so we started travelling togetger. We ran into another girl that joined us, and big pappa bear (who treated us all to lunch). Finally we ran into the traveller after lunch, who joined us as well. In the evening I went with the traveller to a free place for the night, the unfortunately the onsen it was attached to was closed for the day.
I split off from the group in the morning as I wanted to cover more ground today. We all know how that turned out...

I have arrived

The sun has set on my first day in Shikoku. While I didn't get as far as I wanted I would definately qualify it as a success. I didn't get started until late afternoon due to coming from Osaka and the temple offices where I get the stamps close at 5. So I made it to temple 5 but have to wait until 7 tomorrow to get stamped.
However, I did have a pretty fortunate series of events. I was going to camp out under a little shelter by temple 4 but I needed dinner so I headed down to temple 5 just down the road and found a restaraunt nearby. It said udon but the おばあさん running the joint only told me about the okinomiyaki. But then she proceeded to tell me about a nice place to sleep and gave me some onigiri as a gift, so now I'm staying in a pretty decent 4坪 place with sink and water heater. She also told me about a nearby onsen which felt great. I could get used to this homeless thing. I think I've got free lodging at an Onsen lined up for tomorrow.

Welcome

Welcome to my archive. I call this an archive rather than a blog because its purpose is to archive my thoughts as I wonder about the island of Shikoku. I shall try to post approximately once every day or two, but it could be less depending on how things are going.
Since English is my native language most of this will be English. However, as this is meant as an archive of my thoughts and I often find a Japanese word better fits there may be Japanese as well. If I am feeling 元気 I will not settle for an English alternative. If you don't read Japanese, google wwwjdic.
Also, as I'm on the road I won't actually be looking at the archive myself, so don't be surprised when I don't answer comments.
I am writing this whole thing via cell phone emails, so don't be surprised if there are misspellings and the formatting is horrible.
I think thats all the intro needed, the next post will likely not be until the 29th when I start my journey.
Dan