I was remembering this morning with nostalgia the Chichibu 34 Kannon pilgrimage. I wished I could do it again right now, but really it's impossible. Then I thought, I haven't written up my memories of the trip. Why not do a virtual pilgrimage? Visit each temple again through my memories and photos and notes from my books. And so I begin. I'm not sure if I will manage to write something every day. I know I won't do all a day's traveling each day -- after all, it took a day of walking it. I can hardly relive an entire day in significantly less time. But the point of a pilgrimage isn't to rush through it as fast as possible. The journey itself is the point of the process, rather than just arriving at the destination.

And so today I begin the virtual pilgrimage with temple #1: ( Shimabu-ji )