Mrs. Isoguchi had told us breakfast, which she had kindly offered to prepare for us, would be ready by eight so we would have plenty of time to catch our 9:07 ferry back to Takamatsu . At eight, we found ourselves in front of what has become one of my favorite things in this world – a home cooked Japanese breakfast. We each had several tempura fried beans, shrimp and vegetable medleys, a bowl of rice, a miso soup, a bowl of grated daikon topped with dashi , a couple sausages and a hard boiled egg alongside green tea and coffee. When I first came to Japan, I was very much of the sweet breakfast variety. I could hardly imagine tempura, salted cod or other such things to start my day. Now, the simplicity and tastiness is something that I really look forward to whenever we stay at a hot spring hotel or ryokan.

We happily thanked Mrs. Isoguchi for the wonderful meal (which she continuously apologized for, saying that she was an awful cook), packed and attached our bags and thanked theIsoguchis profusely before rolling out to meet our morning boat. Back on (only slightly larger) turf, we decided we should get the lay of the land. On the 21st, we are planning on taking a 10am boat to Osaka and we thought it would be a good idea to find the ferry terminal lest we get terribly lost on the morning of our trip and end up, very literally, missing the boat. It’s quite a good thing we decided on our little hunt. The terminal was not easy to find and if I have learned anything about us, lost,pre -coffee, with a boat to catch, it would not have been a pretty sight. We found the terminal, contemplated sleeping in a graffiti covered skate park, decided not to, and headed back in the direction of Marugame – a city we had been to several days prior but had not been explored thoroughly enough. There were several temples belonging to the 88 temple pilgrimage that we still wanted to see.

As we cycled through the city, we found ourselves both with a strange a feeling. Cycling, again, down the same stretch of route 33 – probably for the fourth or fifth time – we stopped after a small bridge.

“Are we really going to go down 33 again? I don’t really need to see those temples,” chimed Meghan.

“Well… I don’t know,” and I really didn’t. I was at an absolute loss. I kind of wanted to see the temples, but really didn’t want to do the same 50km over again. With 50km back the following day. Meghan felt the same way. For about 10 minutes, we both stood there on the side of route 33 – speechless and unable to make an decisionwhatsover. Eventually, Meghan said,

“Well, I think I saw someone camped by that river back there. We could chill there for a couple days, play some frisbee, and tan.”

This seemed like a great idea. And so that’s what we did. We fully accepted our holding pattern for what it was – a holding pattern. We about faced and went to hunt our a spot for our home by the river. Heading down, we realized that a cycling road lined the river for what looked like a good distance. I checked on the map and found out that not only did the cycling path run along the river, but it lead right to another one of the 88 temples. Before settling down, we fired down the path to check out our fifth temple.

Now, we are sitting in MacDonald’s, wheezing precious electricity from their power sockets, before we head out to set up camp. Meghan had to battle the staff for some mayonnaise to go with her fries (which now successfully resides, in aMcFlurry lid, by the fries) and we are catching up on some much needed posts and internetting. Tomorrow, our holding pattern continues. We will, hopefully, check out the Heike Museum, play some park golf or frisbee and maybe lay around a bit. The following day, we will, again hopefully, board the boat to Osaka where we will meet up with some good, old Hokkaido buddies.