More on Japan

I thought I should say more about our trip. After all we spent nearly 71 days there, walked over 1100 km's and saw an estimated 100 temples.

The first 49 days were spend wandering around Shikoku. There is a Buddhist pilgrimage that circumnavigates the island. This turned out to be the only time we were able to communicate with Japanese people who weren't involved in the tourist industry. It was pretty special; but hard and sometimes dangerous due to narrow roads and tunnels overrun with oversized trucks. The drivers of which were often staring at their mobile phones and texting away. One fellow was driving with his elbows to bang out the message faster.

That aside it is an amazing experience to get up every day and walk. I'm not sure if any walk would do the same. Since we've been back nothing is as much of an effort. It could be that the people of Shikoku, in the rural areas anyway, seem to work all the time. They appear calm, helpful and tenacious. Hard to explain.

The down side of all this though is that I'm finished with organized religion. After watching hundreds of people perform arcane rituals, watched over by priests taking donations, I'm convinced that God doesn't care what we do, what we believe and people can convince themselves of just about anything. I mean by and large the Zen Buddhists have a wonderful philosophy, of simplicity and deep understanding. Then they have rituals of burning this and secret hand gestures. It seems to me that the dogma of religions seems to contradict the philosophy to better serve the priests and monks.