Koyasan

Koyasan graveyard

*Warning!!! This is an image intensive post!*

Tipping is frowned upon in Japan, but gifts are very welcome. Since we are essentially staying in two different homes on this trip (the hostel in Osaka, and a B&B in Kyoto, both family run, with the families living there as well), I felt an obligation to bring some sort of gift for them. But what sort of gift? In enters the internet telling me that gifts from where you live are appreciated, particularly if they are small and about where you live (post cards or t-shirts for instance), or consumable. So I started thinking about what sort of gift we could bring that would meet these guidelines.  I kicked around a lot of ideas including peanut brittle and fudge, but finally settled on two things: girl scout cookies (in this case Samoas and Thin Mints) and a decorative hand towel with the shape of Georgia stitched in as well as a bunch of famous Atlanta landmarks.

We left Osaka giving our second gift to the owners of Camino Ro.  We had already given the first gift of the Girl Scout cookies the first night.  They told Ryan they enjoyed them, and we had to explain exactly what they were and how special they are since they only come out a few weeks every year.  They were very happy and shocked to receive their gifts.

We made our way to the train to Koyasan, and we only got a little bit confused on the way, due to our train eventually having to split. We had to make sure we were in the correct cars for the correct destination.  Along the way we saw some rural villages as we wound our way through and along the mountains. It got a little scary as the train was moving along the cliffs since we could see all the way down, but it was beautiful none the less.

Village along train ride to Koyasan

Mountains on the way to Koyasan

Upon arriving at the Koyasan train station (which isn’t actually at Koyasan) we were directed towards the cable car that would take us up the mountain to where Koyasan actually is. The brochure says that Koyasan is nearly a thousand meters above sea level.

Cable car coming to take us to Koyasan

From there we hopped a bus to where our temple was located.  We stayed at the Rengejo-in. It is one of several Buddhist temples that also rent rooms to visitors.

Entry gate for Rengejo-in

By the time we arrived, it was around noon. We couldn’t go to our room until three (which is the real check in time) and we had to be back for evening meditation by 5. The monks took our bags and told us that we could walk around and tour while we wait.

Meghan stands in front of one of the trees in Koyasan

Koyasan mascot. This guy is everywhere! Isn't he cute!

We stopped in a little place called the International Café for lunch.  They only had one lunch available and it was, of course, vegetarian, as this is a Buddhist monk town, but it was delicious.  It was run by what appeared to be an ex-pat woman from some sort of northern European country.  She spoke English and Japanese fluently.  There were many Japanese citizens visiting Koyasan and several were in the café, there was one monk who appeared to also be an ex-pat of some other Northern European origin.

Koyasan lunch: salad, pasta, potato salad, and bread with hummus.

A side note about Japan: When walking around Japan, you might notice that on every major sidewalk and in all the train stations there are yellow bumped paths.  These are for blind people so they can tell where they are walking. They are very painful on the feet if your shoes are to thin as I (Meghan) found out the hard way. Every time there is a change in the path a different bumpy block happens alerting the blind to be careful that there is a change directly past this. These paths are even out in Koyasan which we found surprising.

Blind person path in Koyasan

After our excellent lunch, we made our way to Okunoin. The path up to it is 1.9km and is through an ancient forest with gravestones resting amongst the trees.  There are no words to describe how beautiful and magical this walking path is.  We tried to capture it on film and ended up with about two hundred pictures just of this path and temple. It was truly amazing.

We thought this guy looked like a turtle.

If I remember correctly, these are for aborted babies.

Coins in a tree stump.

There are many different Buddhist groups that visit Koyasan. That is because it is part of a pilgrimage that many of them make. They have books and cloths with all the temples they have to visit as part of the pilgrimage listed, and once they arrive at the temple they give them to the monks who essentially sign, though in an amazing beautiful way, to verify that they did in fact visit.

Buddhist tourists make offerings and clean the idols by throwing water on them.

Making our way up to the temple proper, we happened to be behind one of the aforementioned touring groups. They lit incense and candles and all started chanting together.  This was also very beautiful, and I wish I had an audio recording to share with everyone.  Unfortunately you cannot take pictures or record once you get to the temple. The temple itself is filled with thousands of lanterns. It is a sight to be seen and we totally snuck a picture of it since there was no one at or around one of the side buildings to the temple. Unfortunately it came out a bit fuzzy.

On our way back from the temple some sort of ceremony started. Two men came out of a side street leading a processional of Buddhist monks and nuns. 

check out those shoes

monks

we believe these are the nuns at this temple

We then made our way back to our temple lodgings. 

our room

one of the gardens at our temple

view from our room

one of the many zen gardens at the temple

one of the gardens at our temple

It’s important to note that our lodgings are an actual active temple. When we attended meditation, several were there as well, and it was lead by the head monk who speaks a decent amount of English. He has a great attitude and is pretty funny and in the end he thanked us for coming to Japan even after the terrible earthquake.

The monks at our temple getting ready for meditation

When we were released from meditation, dinner was ready and we were led to a room where it was just us and the three other non-Japanese in attendance. It turns out that one of them was actually staying at Camino-Ro with us in Osaka. She is staying in Japan for 6 weeks and is here from Australia while the other two were from Scotland visiting for two weeks.

Our dinner was huge. It wasn’t very enjoyable for me, but Ryan seemed to like it.

Temple dinner

Finally it was time to shower, or in this case bathe. I hadn’t intended to go to a public onsen (bathouse) while I was here, but that was the only option available while in Koyasan. The bath is only open from 7:30-10:30 so there was no chance of me sneaking in when no one was there.

I think I took the experience in stride, and perhaps the women felt a teensy bit sorry for me. Neither Ryan nor I were brave enough to actually get in the bath part with all the other people, but we did get clean and that was the important bit.

Then it was off to bed since we had to be at a 6:00am ceremony.

Link to Today's Pictures