As much as I wanted to sleep in and have a rest day today, it simply wasn’t gonna happen, thanks to practically every hotel being booked out or the cost too expensive. It had rained all night, and even at six o'clock it was still pouring down. Thankfully I had nice clean clothes to wear today, and I was extra careful putting all my rain gear on too, not wanting any little leaks or other annoyances to occur.
I had hit up a 7-Eleven the night before for my breakfast today, which consisted of the healthy goodness of ham and cheese rolls, chocolate croissants, and more iced coffees. Since I had caught the train yesterday to the hotel, effectively "cheating" a few kilometres by not walking, I decided to walk off the official trail and head towards Temple 31 through the city. By doing this, I would walk the distance that I had lost yesterday, possibly more. After breakfast I took off along wet roads of the city, that were surprisingly completely devoid of any morning traffic.
Very slowly, as I made my way towards Temple 31, I began to see Kochi come to life. Children in their traditional sailor school uniforms with their lunch boxes and umbrellas, salarymen in their suits running to escape the rain, and bumper-to-bumper traffic making their way in and out of konbinis for their coffees, just like me. And I had quite a few coffees this morning; I grew very fond of the ¥150 coffees with sugar syrup. Clearly I had an addiction problem.