Hangin' with the monks!

We met at the lobby for a 7:30 start. After a quick coffee at Starbucks, we caught an 8:00am bullet train from Hiroshima for San-Osaka. our last Shinkansen for the trip.


Today was our busiest day of travel.

After watching countless pea green rice fields sweep by in a blur, we left the bullet train and changed onto a more regular train.



Blindingly fast!

Though to call it regular is quite an understatement. The rail journey that followed turned out to be a spectacular climb up through steep, wooded mountains. Apart from an “accident” ahead that had us waiting about 15 minutes, the journey was uneventful, steep and very scenic.

We traveled for quite a while, dipping in and out of tunnels dug through the terrain till we reached another cable car that would take us steeply up the mountain to Koya-san. This was a far steeper climb than our previous cable-car journey and for some reason, VERY crowded. It was a lot of weight for one cable.

Ahh! Too crowded and humid.

The cable car mantra. "Don't snap cable, don't snap cable..."

Koya-san Mt. Koya

The place is a high plateau (822meters) and home to some 127 shrines and temples. Women were only allowed in 100 years ago so the whole place, for a very long time, was a monkish boy's club.
At the top, the monks tiny van took our luggage except mine, and a few others which did no fit despite the young monks best attempt at luggage tetris. He drove off and we caught a bus through the small township that had grown there over the years, past many monasteries and shrines. Sharon remarked that it looked like a summertime alpine ski resort.

Arrived at the Shukubo (or temple lodgings, a place called Sekisho-in and dropped our bags. Welcomed with tea and a biscuit on the tatami matted room by the head monk who was this old guy in a singlet top. When we left, Kit, our guide said ask for directions to Sex-show and they would understand you. Easy to remember!

Arriving at Sekisho-in

Shoes off and into what became a very stinky cupboard.

We took a walk to some of the more impressive temples and shrines and on the way through, bought the umbrella we so badly wanted yesterday in Mayajima.

We checked out the Japanese Konpon Daito, the great Stupa. There was the original Japanese style and the later Chinese inspired one. I really preferred the original and Sharon liked the colour of the Chinese tower. Cinnabar is the colour. It was massive!

has a way of making people look small.The Chinese inspired Stupa.

The older, more traditional Stupa, That big ring above is actually a massive prayer wheel.

This place has a way of making people look small.

We all pitched in to turn a massive prayer wheel. Posed for a group photo.

Kanpai!

Walked back via Kongobuji temple where we contemplated the stone garden (Banryutei) and found out about the history of the place.

Note the water buckets on the roof in case of fire. Everyone is pointing to stamps made on the entrance gates by pilgrims.

Kit filling us on on the history of the place. He knows a LOT about it.

We visited the tea house and drank green tea on the matted floor and ate a sweet biscuit offered by the nuns (who look just like bald lady monks).

Green tea,  a sweet rice cake thing, and some literature on the temple.

 It is the epicenter of Shingon-shu Buddhism (the home of esoteric Buddhism). We walked through the kitchens and out into the sun.

Headed home though the small town to our sparse monk rooms (though they did have heated toilet seats, a kind of weird extravagance), but only for 15 minutes before early dinner_Buddhist style. A vegetarian feast of tofu and soups and sweet eggplant and curds and jellies and fruit, washed down with cold Sake, beer or softer drinks.

Despite my face, it was very good food.

With our plate came souvenir chopsticks and a monk handed out prayer beads to each of us to wear on our left hand.

After dinner was a real treat and the reason for the influx of white robed pilgrims, regular Japanese and tourists. I had been wanting very much to visit the Okunoin cemetery and tomorrow turned out to be the day when the gods come down to earth so at night, people turned out in their thousands to light candles along the cemetery path to guide the gods home. Mando-Kuyoe was the name of the festival and it was very lucky for us to be there for that one night. It was really very pretty, firstly to walk through the cemetery at dusk, marveling at the cedar trees and moss and the leaning, ancient stones of over 200,000 graves, and then as the sun set, to see the path lit by over 100,000 candles, and lanterns hung along the way.

We walked about 2 kilometers between the moss covered stones to the main temple (Okunoin Gyobo) where the ashes of Shoguns, Samurai and Emperors were housed. Lots of intense and ritual to enjoy. Rooms stacked with burning lanterns, floor to ceiling to walk through and contemplate, prayers to buy and wishes to be made. Really a special time even for and atheist like me. Shame there were no photographs allowed!

Back through the cemetery we saw some of the more recent cemetery oddities, the kind that strangely don't seem out of place in this Japanese culture. There was a very expensive grave to mark the passing of all the termites exterminated by a pest control company, a grave erected by Yakult for employees, A big coffee cup grave, a beloved dog's grave (full on stone carving of the mutt) and even graves dedicated to Kamikaze pilots.

Went back to our rooms to nurse our sore feet(wish we had Doctor fish now),and went to sleep early to rest for morning prayer.

Sleep!