The circle is now complete. When I left you I was but the learner, now I am the master.

Sorry, I just had to do it.
Anyway, the circle is quite literally complete as I returned to temple 1 yesterday. But first there's Wednesday. Not a whole lot happened on Wednesday. I left number 88 and headed back to temple 5, where I spent the night at the same place I stayed on my first night. The learner/master part of that quote also applies as I imparted my now infinite wisdom of the henro path to the fresh clean shaven henro I saw at the earlier temples. It was an interesting feeling to be on the other side of things for once.
Yesterday I went back to temple 1 in the morning, and headed back to Osaka in the afternoon. While waiting on the bus back to Osaka I found some internet access. I opened up my school webmail account to find 3664 messages waiting for me, at which point I immediately logged back out and decided to wait until I got back to my PC and spam filter. Riding on the bus was a slightly odd feeling (the whole moving without walking thing). But even odder was walking through Nanba station while changing trains. It felt like something out of a movie. Here I was in sweat stained clothes with a large backpack (with tarp and sleeping pad strapped to the top) walking amongst one of the more fashionable parts of Osaka. On one hand I definitely felt out of place, but on the other it did kind of feel like coming home. It was also a strange feeling to see so many other foreigners again. It was the first time since I left Osaka that I saw other Caucasians.

Today I went to Mt. Koya, where Kobo Daishi's grave is located (amongst a lot of other famous people). That was interesting, although more interesting than the actual temple mountain was the impossibly small odds chance encounter I had. I ran into the woman that I had met on the trail so many times. She had just finished yesterday, and come straight to Mt. Koya. Needless to say we were both quite surprised to see each other.

Anyway, this ends my adventures as a Henro (for now... I'll be back for a sequel some day). Hope you enjoyed the stories, I'll try to answer any questions in comments, though no guarantees.