Splendors of Japan
Day Ten – 20 May 2014
Mt. Koya!
Weather: Cloudy then rain. 19-22
Another eight hours of blissful sleep. Something about a frozen foot just lulls you to sleep.
For the next two nights we won’t have access to our main luggage and it will be trucked to our final destination in Osaka. For the monastery stay tonight and the night in Hiroshima we had to pack an overnight bag.
There was no line at breakfast and the apple strudel was back this morning. Delicious with hot English Breakfast tea. I was down for the departure at 8:30 and we headed for Mt. Koya. It took us more than an hour at pretty well full speed to leave behind civilization and hit our first tunnel in the hills. En route, Kimiko gave us a language lesson. Japan had no writing until Chinese characters were imported here with Buddhism in the 6th Century along with architecture and sculptures etc.
Today, they use three systems. The Chinese characters for important words (kanji), a second system of Japanese characters and the more common Hatikana, the first system taught to children and the one with many English words or parts of words used.
There are more than 50,000 kanji characters but Japanese students will only learn about 2000. Kimiko gave us a pictorial demo on the pictorial evolution of the Chinese characters and I took a couple of photos as an example. What is interesting is how they type on a keyboard. All Japanese use the English alpha-numeric keyboard and they will enter the first few letters of a word and up will pop a suggestion line (much like how Google gives you suggestions as you type in your search key). From there, they will pick the Japanese word and touch it. They do this for virtually every single word they type! Kimiko gave me a demonstration and it’s just like having to do the Google selection for every word. She says the Japanese are fast typists but I can’t see how they can get over 100 words a minute like I can on a regular keyboard.
Someone asked Kimiko about the word “hai” in Japanese. We take it as meaning “yes” or “I agree.” (And of course, we use “hi” as hello…so we never know if they’re saying “yes” or “hello.”) Kimiko said it didn’t always mean “yes” as in “I agree.” I is more like “un huh” “yeah, yeah.”
Or as one tourmate said, it’s the “husband’s yes.”
Heh.
Oh, and one tourmate reported that he saw a cow! Two white ones, actually. The first cows we’ve seen. Which is weird given how famous Japan is for quality beef.
We had a break in the town of Kutsuragi and continued on up into the hills towards Mt. Koya. There isn’t actually a mountain called Mt. Koya. Just the area is called that or Koya-san. The area was first settled in 819 by a monk called Kukai who thought the hills looked like the pedals of a lotus flower and decided to stay and build a monastery. He died before the monastery was finished. There are more than 100 temples and about 70 shrines in the area. People make pilgrimages to this area and visit 88 temples on route, finishing here. The pilgrimage takes 2 months and we could see some of them about town as they wear white shirts.
Like so many of the other sites we’ve visited in Japan, Mt. Koya is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
We make a photo stop at a Buddhist gate that is right next to a torii gate and then we drive through the town of Mt. Koya to the far end to the largest cemetery in Japan – Okunoin. It is estimated that at least 200,000 people are buried here after cremation.
Each marker is for a particular family and some have wooden poles with names inscribed to list those who are laid to rest there. Many of the statues are dressed up and we even found tiny statues inside holes in the trees with a plate of money next to it. The cemetery is located inside a forest of towering pine trees. They believe the first person laid to rest here was Kukai and in 980, some lords and samurai also wanted to be buried here as well.
They haven’t stopped asking to be buried there.
When I first heard Kimiko say 200,000 were buried there, I thought I must have heard it wrong but nope, this cemetery is immense. It was a leisurely walk through the cemetery even though it was like a 3 km walk. At one point, we’re not allowed photographs and go into the temple that is full of lit lanterns. There are so many, they’re numbered so people know which one they dedicated. Apparently there are 19,000 lanterns. An amazing site.
And I couldn’t take a pic!
Kimiko said that people are still buried in the cemetery and if a family wants a site, the cost is roughly $300,000 for one the size of a tatami mat (180x90cm). When the lantern temple was built, the memorials there were moved and those that were unknown were placed into several large mounds. Some of the memorials are from businesses like Panasonic and Nissan. There is also a memorial for the victims of the 2011 quake as well as to the soldiers from both sides involved in the war. The Australians were touched by a dedication to the Australians who died in the Second World War.
We took or time going back and walked directly to the restaurant for a Japanese Be My Guess lunch. The rice was good and the tempura is always good. The soup was a clear noodle broth and quite good.
After lunch we checked out the shop and I got my obligatory fridge magnet. (The mascot for the 1200th anniversary…yeah, not often one can say that).
Our next stop was to Konobuji Temple, the headquarters of Koyasan Shingon-shu Buddhism. It was built in 1583 to memorialize Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s mother and rebuilt in 1869. This temple also had painted panels by the same artist as the other temple but we could take pictures of them here. There’s a portrait of Kukai inside where we were treated to tea and a cookie. The temple grounds are home to the largest rock garden in Japan. This is the traditional last stop for the pilgrims and they leave their canes here where they are reused.
From here, since we were early, Kimiko took us up to another temple area where there was a large orange temple called the Great Stupa where there is a 3D mandala demonstrating the nondual nature of the Shingon teachings. I didn’t go in but saw photos and probably should have. Kimiko said the temple is painted orange as a way to ward off evil spirits.
The original temple built 1200 years ago is also here.
A short walk took us back to our bus and it was time to check in. Kimiko thinks were all terrified of the prospect of sleeping on the floor. I’m not but a few have problems getting up and down might need help in the morning. We checked in at 4 and were given a slip of paper for our room. No key. There are no keys. There are no locks.
Nada.
We had to leave our shoes on shelves at the entrance and the monks wanted our passports to photocopy. Some people were upset by this but they told them it was government regulation that all hotels are supposed to follow but most don’t anymore. They’re not going to rock the boat.
We got them back in a matter of minutes.
The monk gave us a talk on the Inn, the baths, the meals and the futons, which would be set up as we ate dinner. The monk showed me to my room which was a 10 tatami mat room with a TV, free wifi, plugs and a toilet with sink. There was a low table and a wicker chair. I got settled in and found sumo wrestling on TV. I was set until dinner!
Given that it just started pouring out of the heavens, there was no checking out the shops, which were just a short walk away.
The wifi is usually only available in the little coffee lounge but my room was close enough to get it.
Sweet. Looks like I will do the entire tour without having to pay a cent for internet and always had it in my room via wifi (no cabled connections).
For dinner, we were given the option to where the cottom kimono in our rooms. They came with a belt and a heavy waist length coat if you found it chilly. It was about 15 degrees out so it was just right.
Dinner was another Be My Guess dinner with a little BBQ to heat up vegetables and tofu in soy milk. The tempura was good, as always, although there was a red pepper that was too hot to eat. And of course, there was rice. Dessert was a soy based pudding in a maple type of syrup. It was actually quite tasty.
There were other bowls too (see the photos) and there’s no problem sampling everything and only eating what you like. They will also provide forks if you can’t use the chopsticks. Kimiko told me that they don’t have a problem catering to non-fish or non-raw-fish eaters but noted that getting gluten-free food is a bit of a challenge. (So bring lots of gluten free snacks if you need to!)
Everyone wore their robes to dinner (those that didn’t were promptly sent back to their rooms by the rest of us…LOL) so we looked pretty smart all dressed the same. The hardest part about dinner is getting down on the floor. They do provide a low stool and extra cushions if needed. I was able to put my legs out straight in front of me under the trays. They were able to accommodate anyone who has problems getting up or down.
Failing that, you could always cuddle up to “Sean.” 😉
One nice thing about the dinners in Japan is that they don’t last long. On some tours, a dinner would take up the whole evening. Here, an hour at most. You can eat at your own pace, eat the items in any order, start at any time and leave when you’re done. I went back to my room to find the table moved and my bed set up on the floor.
I was signed up for the calligraphy class tonight and we weren’t allowed to go in the kimono (I’m guessing there’s a story there involving a lot of ink).
Six of us showed up for the class and if you have problems sitting on the floor, this isn’t for you. The class took over an hour depending on how long you took to finish the characters. I think most expected we’d be doing our own characters on white paper but no, this is just using the pen to write on top of Japanese characters from the Buddhist Sutra. There were about 240 characters.
Our teacher gave us instructions in Japanese that Kimiko translated and his last words through Kimiko were ‘when you’re done, just leave it on the desk’ and off he went. LOL
Not completely what I was expecting but I did enjoy copying over the characters with the nice pen. I took an hour to do it and I was the second one done. Others were there much later and one Woman gave up.
I went back to my room but was wasted by 10:30. I crawled into my futon and snuggled up into the really comfortable comforter on the bed. I was out like a light listening to the patter of rain on the roof.
Go to Day Eleven
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