On March 24th of this year, almost half of the students I teach in the Kamo Community Center along with Kazuko, got together to keep a long held promise, and start to hike the eighty-eight holy places around their beautiful village.

Conversation in class over the previous year had often returned to this topic, and they taught me that the famous eighty-eight temple tour of Shikoku is not the only one in Japan. In fact many areas of Japan have their own pilgrimage the devout can complete to have Buddha answer their prayers. Under a mostly glorious spring sun we sent off and completed our first leg of nine temples, and plan to complete the remainder over the next eighty-eight years, if necessary!