Let no war banner fall!

We left Osaka in high spirits with our newly constructed 'sengoku' war banners! Stuck into our backpacks, we scooted on like proud soldiers ready to proclaim our ascendency over the challenging journey. We have 2/3 more to go or roughly 1,200km.

The rain got steadily heavy as we marched through the streets of Osaka. Out came all our defenses against the rain; waterproof jackets, backpack covers, gardening gloves and plastic bags over our backpack. We looked like a mismatched bunch of homeless wannabes.

The only things left uncovered were our war banners. We had no more plastic bags left and there was no way to slot them in our bags. Major dilemma! Eventually we decided that our war banners had to be protected at all costs. So Michael sacrificed his raincoat to scoot in the rain, so our war banners had a protected place to ride.

PS: In the end, the marker ink ran down the cloth anyway but the platoon made it to Nara! Zero casualties reported!

- Michelle Yang