While I’m doing everything I can to avoid some real exercise, my walk has already started in my mind. I think about it every day, I try to get as much information as possible and I also try to guess what will happen. Here’s my three best guesses about what will go down in Shikoku.…

Mens sana in corpore sano, the Latins used to say. A sound mind in a healthy body. You should aim at achieving this status, during your pilgrimage. It’s not an easy task, however, on both the physical and the mental sides. As experienced during the Camino, your first enemy is your brain: see that town…

Trying to learn Japanese is not the only thing I’m supposed to do, in order to prepare for the Shikoku pilgrimage. Three years of living in Germany have left me the gift of a sizeable beer belly that it’s very difficult to get rid of. One month away from my departure for Japan, I am…

A-I-U-E-O Ka-Ki-Ku-Ke-Ko And so it goes… As soon as I land on Shikoku, the biggest challenge will be to communicate with the natives there. Learning Japanese is no easy challenge, but it’s also not impossible. They do have three different alphabets (better call them “syllabaries”) though. And they can use these three writing systems together…