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What are the Shikoku's famous 88 temples

TuskCracker

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More information on Shikoku's famous 88 temples?


p.s.: i know their is tons on the web about this,
but what about a personnel view, people
who have been their.

_.
 
Do you have specific questions? I used to live on the pilgrimage route and visited many of the temples that were in my area. But you PS is so broad, I don't know what to tell you
 
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Anything, from someone who has been their.

Is it cheap-and-gaudy

Is it rugged and much walking and hiking

It came from this movie, I read a review about
 

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JackInBox said:
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Is it cheap-and-gaudy
Click to expand...
. well, that is a subjective issue and it all depends on the people doing the judging. There are 88 temples and some may be cheap and gaudy compared to others. But really, most of the buildings themselves are often nothing special or unique. It is much more about the spirit of the thing itself and personal motivations for undertaking the pilgrimage than what you will actually find in a physical form. If people go expecting temples on a grand scale like you may find in Kyoto, they will be let down more often than not. The drive to see grand buildings is not what is going to keep you walking in all weather,all day, everyday for weeks on end, your body hurting, and no possibility of sleeping in a bed, having a bath, or a square meal (if you are really walking the route, that is).

JackInBox said:
.Is it rugged and much walking and hiking
Click to expand...
Some areas of the path are very rugged and some are just like walking through a city along with the cars, trains, bikes and the rest. Often the route follows major highways - not very romantic. Some people stay in hostels while on the road, some camp outside. Some people take special bus tours and do the whole thing in about a week. Some come and do 10 or so temples, take a break, and come back later. Some do the route on a bike, some drive, some walk the route backwards, and in winter (for the biggest challenge).

The form your pilgrimage takes is much less important that the spirit in which you make the journey.
 
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So its a long hikes for many miles. Thats what I gather

Is it like a long trail through the woods, stopping at different temples ?
 
The trail is about 1400, yes thousand, km's long. Only some parts of it are like walking along wooded trails, most is along the side of roads (some quite busy) or even through the heart of major cities.

If you want a first hand account of someone who has done the trail (I only lived in the area, visited some temples and aided lost pilgrims (I lived out in the country on the route between two temples where it was not easy to know if you were heading in the right direction)), check out this site - > http://www.lac.uic.edu/~dturk/shikoku.html
 
Yeah, my wife's family home is near temple 88 in Kagawa prefecture. Its not a hike, its a big 'course' that takes you through massive stretches of incredibly unattractive urban sprawl to see a string of temples that are mostly no different from any other temple you'd see in a small city or town elsewhere in Japan. For this reason very few people, save for extremely devoted members of the Shingon sect with a lot of time on their hands, bother to do it on foot anymore.

If you are looking for a long pleasant trail through the woods that has temples you'd be a lot better off going to Wakayama prefecture or elsewhere. Unless you are an endurance machine, the 88 temple route is not something you want to be doing.
 
What "Wakayama prefecture".

What region of Japan

Is the castle district ?

+
 
Er...the Wakayama prefecture in Japan, of course. Its just south of Osaka prefecture and has quite a few mountain temples with really nice hikes through the woods and stuff like that.

There are actually a lot of pilgrimage routes in Japan, the 88 temple Shikoku route is just the most famous (which does not mean it is the most pleasant).

I don't know what the castle district is. There are thousands of castle ruins scattered all across Japan.

Are you looking to take a trip, or just asking out of curiousity?
 
where can I find a locate map (internet image) of the trail?
 
I have read that it takes about 2 months to walk this route and
pilgrams who do walk beg to survive. Is this so?
 
I haven't been in Shikoku, however, I didn't know that tourists made this pilgrimage....I think only few tourists can be found doing this pilgrimage no?

Anyway, I know it is off-topic, but I had to mention this: If you have seen the Japanese horror film "Shikoku", you would think about the pilgrimage in a different light....sooooo scary!!!!
 
i've thought about doing this pilgrimage, its a hefty trail to follow though,
has anyone else thought about doing it?
 
As someone who actually has walked one entire prefecture, I'll offer the most important pieces of advice you can take with you:

Unless you are Bill Gates-rich, I suggest taking camping equipment so that you can be totally self-sufficient with regards to accommodation (Japanese minshuku/family-run guesthouses, on Shikoku, can be hard to reach after a long slug between temples, so they tend to charge 6000 yen as bare minimum, and with the pilgrimage taking four to eight weeks, that will burn a major hole in your wallet).

Try to travel light, I took too many books and cd's with me, and in addition to being too much weight, it made me miss home far too much, which really wore down my motivation and so I couldn't face doing any more.

Try to find a walking partner who is from your country, I made several short-term Japanese walking partners, but I still felt lonely because I couldn't communicate with them as effectively.

If you want more advice feel free to PM me, I'm too busy to write everything in right now.
 
what books do you recommend? you know to read on the journey, and how long did it actually take you to complete?
 
http://echoes.bluemandala.com/doing.html This and many of the links within are compulsory.

As for books to take with you...War and Peace comes to mind :-D , as the journey will take a while no matter how long you decide to walk.

Don't buy all the equipment in an attempt to be a full pilgrim like the Japanese. It's too much of a hardship if you're attempting a spiritual journey, and if you're not, you don't need any of it. The one thing people will expect you to buy and take with you is the walking stick (which must never touch ground when you cross over a body of water).

I walked for 7 days, total, waking up on the 8th day to an email message on my mobile phone from my mother telling me my bank balance was ﾂ≫??000 (ﾂ≫??000 less than I had budgeted!). I'm not exaggerating the expense of this pilgrimage. Luckily I'd completed the whole of Tokushima-ken, the first prefecture/state/county of Shikoku. Apparently I can return to that point whenever I want and carry on again...in the future I most certainly will consider doing the whole thing in the month of May, as June is the wettest month, July through November is painfully hot, November to April is bitterly cold (I slept on a refurbished bus one night as it was free accommodation for pilgrims...I woke up to find it snowing at 5 am in April. The temperature inside the bus was under 5 degrees Celsius so I can't imagine what it was like outdoors.)

I think at my pace, taking 8-10 hours a day of walking with short stops every hour or two, it would take 5 weeks/ 42 days to complete (you must return to temple 1). I was afraid of getting into prefecture two, Kochi-ken, as it's the least populous of the three, is most backwards in terms of attitude, has the longest walks of the pilgrimage, and the least free accommodation (meaning lots of expensive minshuku or sleeping outdoors in the freezing cold).
 
I'm going to do this on foot started in September.
 
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