Day 49 - Satsuma Sendai To Kushikino And The Simple Joys Of The Road, The Kyushu 108 Temple Pilgrimage, Japan
Day 49 - Satsuma Sendai To Kushikino And The Simple Joys Of The Road, The Kyushu 108 Temple Pilgrimage, Japan
This morning I got up early, in order to soak in the hotel’s hot springs.
In many Onsen hotels, the use of the baths changes over night.
The women get to soak in the men’s area and the men soak in the women’s area.
This way if you are staying in an onsen hotel for one night, you will get to soak in one area in the evening, and in the other area early the next morning.
This morning, one of the hot mineral baths was a low voltage electric bath.
It takes getting used to, to enjoy the healing benefits of these electric baths.
The minute you get in, all the places in your body that need healing start to tingle and hurt.
But if you persist and allow the electric current to do its magic, the pain dissipates and then disappears.
I still get tingles of goosebumps and pleasure in my body, now when I remember and write about this experience.
We ate an early breakfast, while watching the people camping outdoors, their kids jumping on the trampoline and running around chasing one another.
Why do adults lose the sense of pleasure that comes from jumping up and down and running around and moving our bodies….
It was a pleasure to pack our backpacks, that now feel so light and empty…
We started walking early.
It felt like it would be a cool and breezy day.
Walking in cool weather and with lighter backpacks was much easier, and we made good time at a pace of about five kilometers per hour.
After a few hours, we wanted to rest our feet and have something hot to drink, so we stopped for soy lattes in a nice modern cafe by the Satsuma Sendai station.
Then we continued walking, looking for a place to have lunch.
Google Maps showed that there was a vegan restaurant, located in a rural house.
It sounded too good to be true.
Many times we have made our way to out of the way cafes or tiny restaurants, only to find out that they were closed or out of business.
But we didn’t want another Soba Noodle lunch or Udon Noodle lunch, so we decided to make our way there.
We made many small turns through fields and small neighborhoods, and arrived at the small farmhouse.
To our delight, it was open and actually busy with customers.
We were welcomed in.
We took off our backpacks and shoes and ordered two of the lunch sets.
The menu read:
Lunch ¥1200 ($8)
Tofu steak with Grain mustard sauce.
Husband's Fu story
Taro with yuzu miso
Marinated mushrooms
Earthen pot cooked rice
Cabbage and wakame soup
Drink of your choice and dessert
I only use rice oil for frying.
Desserts do not have any eggs, butter, or white sugar.
A young woman and her mother were both the cooks and the servers.
The tray of food that we got was very delicious and tasted very wholesome.
They also baked some healthy cookies, each wrapped in its own individual wrapping.
We bought some of those to eat during our tea breaks along the road.
I admired the paintings that they had around the house.
She told me that her dad painted them when he was younger.
Her dad came from Hokkaido and her mom was from here.
They admired our journey, saying that today they had 16 customers and worked very hard, but after hearing about our walking plan, they felt like their work was not so hard after all.
From there, we walked by the main car road.
We had wide sidewalks and meandered through the rural landscape.
We got to Kushikino town, where our Onsen hotel was located, and went to the super to buy some fruit for dinner.
Our hotel is a lovely seaside Onsen hotel.
From our room, the view of the harbor and the sea is through a grove of pine trees that were planted here hundreds of years ago, to block the winds, storms and sea spray from ravishing this coastal town.
Our room was a Japanese style tatami mat room, which offered a homey atmosphere at a bargain price.
We did not take their meal plan, which included a seafood Kaiseki dinner and breakfast, because the cost of the food was double the cost of the room.
Instead, after soaking in the small hot springs, we made hot tea and ate clementines, persimmons, bananas and a slice of fresh bread with camembert cheese.
It was a very satisfying dinner.
At the supermarket, I bought some apple cider vinegar drinks.
During our walk today, I listened to a book about the health benefits of Kombucha.
I wanted to buy Kombucha, but no supermarket sold it.
Kombucha helps cultivate healthy gut bacteria, which helps maintain a healthy immune system and aids digestion.
But all I could find were the apple cider vinegar drinks I mentioned above.
They are also good for healthy gut bacteria, but are a little too sweet, so I diluted them with soda water.
We are doing well, staying healthy and getting used to walking every day.
The food we eat is not as light and healthy as we usually eat, but we are digesting it well.
I can clearly see the benefits of walking long distances every day.
Each day brings with it little joys, if we take the time to enjoy and appreciate them.
Today, it was soy lattes in a cool cafe with comfortable chairs, a delightful vegan lunch experience made and served by two lovely women in their farmhouse, a tea break later with their handmade cookies, an electric hot springs, the sweet persimmons I ate for dinner, and a quiet onsen hotel by the sea.
A pleasurable day indeed!
Sending you love and strength,
Tali
Stats: 30,706 steps
Today’s walk: 22 km
Kilometers walked to date: 832
Temples visited: None
