Greetings everyone,
Well, again it has been a busy time with a few learning curves and new adventures. For instance, being a gaijin who does not understand Japanese, it's easy to be left out of the loop sometimes and people here don't always tell you things that maybe you may need to know. On the night that Hoff and I were supposed to be going to our Japanese class, we found out that we were supposed to go to an important enkai with all of the principals and vice-principals of our schools. We found out just one hour before our Japanese class and our Japanese pappa showed up 20 minutes after calling us to drive us to the party. Needless to say, we weren't exactly ready. Fortunately we're not really fussy girls, so we managed to not be too late for the enkai. But unfortunately, we had already eaten dinner, so we didn't have much an appetite to enjoy the lovely kaiseki food that they served us. So we took the opportunity to leave our meals and we armed ourselves with bottles of beer and started circulating the room. The way that a traditional Japanese enkai is set up is that small tables and cushions are set up around the perimeter of a large tatami room, with everyone sitting on the floor at their own little table facing the centre of the room. This leaves the centre of the room empty, so during the meal, people take bottles of sake and beer and move around the centre of the room, pouring drinks for other people who are still sitting at their tables. This gives everyone the chance to talk to everyone else. So we ended up having a pretty good time and I even managed to get about halfway around the room before anyone noticed that I didn't have a glass of my own!! Unfortunately there is a lot of smoking and drinking at these events and it's very easy to get quite sloshed if you're not careful, as everyone wants to top up your drink for you all the time! Fortunately though, most Japanese people are still quite pleasant when they're drunk!
Later in the week, Hoff and I, together with one of the English teachers from my junior highschool, went to a teacher's conference up in a smaller city a couple hours north of us called Takayama. We actually stayed in a place up in the surrounding mountains that in some ways reminded me of Canada. Well, maybe just the scenery. The facility is a kind of like a youth camp for Japanese students with dormitory style lodging, communal baths and no central heating. In fact, there is no central heating at all in Japan! That's right folks! And let me tell you, it does get pretty damn cold here! Our lovely akibare weather has left us and now we're into wool sweaters and tons of blankets at night! But even though we were a little cold, we really enjoyed the scenery. We were surrounded by high, snowcapped mountains and spectacular autumn foliage in amazing colours ( I'll tell you more about this in a couple of weeks). Being in the mountains really makes me feel at home. I also managed to find out from another ALT that in this area, unlike where I live, it's possible to go cross-country skiing up here. The conference itself was not too bad, despite the feeling of being herded around and having to eat lousy food that was almost as bad as the school lunch. Sometimes the ALT events can be a little tiresome, as some ALT's unfortunately tend to act like they belong to a frathouse, but having the Japanese teachers there as well made it quite a bit more enjoyable and not so crazy. They were really interesting to talk to and one of the Japanese teachers entertained us on the bus back into town with his hilarious English slang and pick-up lines. Although it's probably best if I don't repeat any of them here. Hoff and I bid farewell to my Japanese teacher in Takayama, who went to play pachinko while he waited for the train back home (it's Japanese culture, he keeps telling me). Pachinko, by the way, is the game of choice for Japanese who hope to be parted from their money in a timely fashion. It's like an upright pinball machine that is supposed to be quite boring to play, but hey, so are slot machines and that doesn't stop people from playing them! Anyways, we were given some info by another ALT about a ryokan that we could stay in, so we decided to spend the night so that we could check out the town. A ryokan is a Japanese-style inn where you can stay in a tatami room and bathe in a communal bath and is often cheaper than a regular hotel. They are very nice to stay in!!
The city of Takayama is known as ‘Little Kyoto' here in Japan, because like Kyoto, it is very representative of traditional Japan with old-fashioned streets and houses and many old temples and shrines. After getting settled in at our ryokan which unfortunately turned out to be located on the outskirts of town, we didn't have much time to do any sightseeing, so we decided to find a place to eat that served some of the local specialties. The Japanese have a very well- developed appreciation for food, which can be attested to by the sheer volume of cooking shows on TV here. They especially appreciate the seasonality and regionality of food, preferring the freshness of local delicacies over imported foods. So every town in Japan is known for some particular food or dish that visitors will be sure to indulge in during their visit. (My town is know for kaki or persimmons. They are sweet and yummy!) Takayama is known for Hida beef, hoba miso and sansai (mountain vegetables). We found a great little restaurant with a very friendly staff and an incredible menu. I ate a set meal featuring gyu sashimi, hoba miso and sansai. The hoba miso is a sweet miso paste that is cooked on a leaf over live coals at your table. It was delicious!! The vegetables consisted of locally harvested mushrooms, fiddleheads and other assorted greens, well-cooked and lightly seasoned. Healthy and delicious!! You all know what sashimi is, but maybe some of you have never heard of gyu sashimi. Gyu means beef in Japanese, so gyu sashimi is raw strips of high quality Hida beef, served with a soya dipping sauce. I know that many Westerners would probably turn up their noses at the idea of eating raw beef, but I assure you it is absolutely fantastic stuff!! (The menu even stated quite explicitly in English that they did not serve grilled beef!!) There is no blood and Hida beef is known for having very high safety standards and the cattle is very well-treated to produce very tasty meat!! I washed all of this down with what is probably the best tasting beer I have had since coming to Japan. It was a locally made beer called Hida Korikori beer that had all of the full-flavour of a Canadian microbrew. It made me very happy!! The next day, Hoff and I set out to do a little sight-seeing in Takayama. We made our way east across the river to the old part of town called San-Machi Suji and wandered through the narrow streets, stopping to look in shops selling beautiful local pottery, antiques and woodcarvings. We ended up stopping at a small museum that featured a large collection of inro, small ornate medicine boxes that used to hang off the belts of rich samurai during the Edo period. Many of them were gold-plated and the carving and inlay work on these tiny works of art was incredible!! Very beautiful. We ended our sight- seeing at a large, beautiful shine high on a small hill called Sakurayama Hachimangu Jinja. The approach to the shrine begins with two very large torii, which are the easily recognizable gates that one has to walk through to enter the sacred precinct of the shrine. The shrine was full of worshippers and tourists and had a kind of festival feel to it. There were long tables set up displaying many exquisite examples of Japanese bonsai in many colours and styles. Hoff informed me that bonsai doesn't really refer to the type of tree used in this art form, but the actual manipulation of any small tree to produce a desired shape as it grows. They were pretty fantastic, especially the ones with small colourful flowers blooming from their branches. We climbed to the top of the shrine where we could see that there was a service being performed by Shinto priests inside. My first time to actually see a shrine used in this manner!! We then found some steps that led further up to a smaller shrine where there were no people, large beautiful trees and a wonderful view of the city. Gorgeous!! Well, one day is definitely not long enough to see the whole city, so I am definitely going to be coming back here. I'm glad that I live so close!!
We came home and then left the next day, very early in the morning, to meet with the vice-principal of one of Hoff's schools who offered to drive us up to Mt. Koya in Wakayama prefecture (Koyasan in Japanese). Koyasan is a very famous Buddhist site in Japan, as it is the headquarters of the Shingon sect of Japanese Buddhism. The drive to Koyasan took longer than it would've to travel the same distance in Canada, mostly due to heavy traffic, but we got to see some great scenery and traditional Japanese architecture. We also drove throughTenri, a town close to Nara city and got to catch a glimpse of the temple headquarters of Tenrikyo, one of Japan's most popular new religions. The road going up Mt. Koya reminded me a little of some of the mountain roads in BC, except that the road was narrower, with very steep winding curves and crammed with cars and tour buses. The scenery was spectacular though! The sides of the mountain are wild and steep, covered in towering pines, cedars and colourful momigi (Japanese maple). This kind of wild scenery is perhaps not what many people would first think of when they think of Japan, but there is plenty of it here. Koyasan itself is really a small town with many of the usual amenities including an elementary school, highschool, shops, restaurants and even a Buddhist university. We had a reservation to stay at a temple along the main drag called Daienin. There are over 110 temples at Koyasan and most of them offer some kind of lodging for both pilgrims and tourists. We were expecting something rather rustic and minimalist, but we were happily surprised by how comfortable it was. We had our own private tatami room with shoji (paper screens) overlooking a beautiful Japanese garden, a kerosene heater (remember, no central heating!) and a kotatsu table. A kotatsu table is a great invention that I first experienced in Nepal. It is like a small coffee table with an electric heater attached underneath the surface of the table. The table can be lifted up off the legs so that warm quilts can be layed over them. Then you stick your legs under the blankets and get toasty warm! I have one in my apartment but I haven't set it up yet. The cost of the lodging includes dinner and breakfast, which the monks bring to your room for you, along with a souvenir rice spoon. The dinner was one of the most incredible meals I have ever eaten. We knew that it would be vegetarian, but we were expecting something more simple and basic. Instead, they brought us a gourmet feast with rice, miso soup, pickled vegetables, sansai, sesame-flavoured tofu and a hearty stew cooked over a fondue pot. If you thought that you couldn't live without eating meat, this meal would definitely make you change your mind! After the meal, the monks come back to pick up your dishes and then they make up your futon for you. Hoff and I felt a little weird about this since we had never had anyone make our beds for us, let alone made by Buddhist monks!! The monks spoke a little bit of English and they were very good-humoured, but there is less privacy in a temple than in a hotel; there are no locks on the doors (honour system here) and the monks will only wait for about a second before entering your room after knocking.
The next morning after our vegetarian feast, we attended the morning service in the temple at 6am. The small hondo (main hall) is not heated and we had to sit on our knees for about an hour, so it was a little uncomfortable (pins and needles!), but it was very interesting and we enjoyed it very much. Most of the other people their were pilgrims, which we could tell by the thin white cotton Japanese-style coats that they were wearing. The service consisted mostly of beautiful chanting by some of the same monks who made our beds the previous night. During the chanting everyone was invited to shuffle up to the front of the hall to pay respects and make an offering of incense. When the chanting was over, one of the monks gave a brief talk about the artworks displayed in the hondo, but unfortunately, he spoke so quickly that I couldn't understand any part of what he said. Then we were all led through a lantern-filled corridor and allowed to walk past the main altar to pay our respects again. When we returned to our room, our futons had been put away and our breakfast was already waiting for us. After fortifying ourselves with this wonderful breakfast and embarrassing myself on the phone with my bad Japanese, which resulted in some tittering by the monk at the other end of the line, we packed up our stuff to leave with the monks at the temple's main office and set out to begin our temple-hopping.
As we headed up the street, we saw what looked like a small torii wedged inbetween two buildings. On closer inspection we saw that there was a whole series of torii, just large enough to walk under, winding their way up the hill. So we decided to walk up and counted a total of 61 torii, including the main one at the shrine at the top of the hill. The shrine itself was relatively small and obviously very old, but well-taken care of. I don't quite know why, but I think that it's the loveliest shrine I've ever seen. It was so quiet, simple and peaceful. Then we continued to head up towards the Okuno-in, a huge cemetary at the far end of the town that houses the mausoleum of Kobo Daishi, the founder of the Shingon sect, along with the tombs of thousands of adherents. Most graveyards in Japan are very small and simple with most of the memorials (most people here are cremated, not buried) simply consisting of a small, erect pillar with the person's name written on it. With this in mind, I couldn't have been more blown away by the Okuno-in. There were literally thousands of tombs of varying sizes, many of which were huge, elaborate slabs of granite, decorated with statues and stone fences. It was an incredible sight!! About a third of the graveyard is in a flat, open field, but the rest of it creeps gently uphill through a forest of gigantic Japanese cedars. As we walked through the towering giants and moss-covered tombs, we felt as if we were walking through an enchanted forest. The sky was gray and the snow was gently falling everywhere, creating a magical effect. On our way up to the mausoleum, we stopped briefly at a couple of small buildings where pilgrims were lined up at wickets, paying the monks there to write the name of a deceased loved one onto a small stick of wood, which they will then take up to the mausoleum. The hope of these people is that by memorializing their loved ones here, they will be able to help them to gain liberation in the future when Kobo Daishi wakes up from his meditation and the future Buddha comes to earth. The sacred precinct of the mausoleum is off limits to photography and yukata wear (I really don't know about why this is!!) and building almost looks like a haunted house sitting at the top of the hill with the grey mist surrounding it. The mausoleum was pretty interesting, but there wasn't really too much that we could see. Even though the inside of the building is lit up with hundreds of ornate lanterns, the light they give off is very weak, making it quite dark inside. It was also very busy inside, so we decided not hang around for too long and just walked around the perimeter of the building and looked at some smaller altars and shrines and an old storehouse of Buddhist scriptures. The whole place had a beautiful mystical quality about it that I thoroughly enjoyed.
After returning to town and warming ourselves up with some lunch, we went to the Kongobu-ji which is the temple headquarters of the sect. The temple itself is quite large and seems to be a good example of traditional Japanese temple architecture. I especially enjoyed seeing the thickly thatched roof which gives Japanese temples a kind of rustic appeal, as they tend to blend in with their natural surroundings quite well. We entered the temple from the side where we had to pay a small admission fee. The inside of the temple is set up kind of like a museum, where you get to walk around and look at the different tatami rooms and enjoy the scenic rock gardens. Most of the rooms have beautifully painted fusuma (sliding doors), the most famous of which is the Willow room which is decorated with yanagi and is known as the place where Toyotomi Hidetsugu, the step-son of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, committed ritual suicide. Fortunately, they had changed the tatami mats since then. Then we went to a recently added annex attached to the temple where we were given a tray with tea and rice cookies and were directed to a large tatami room where we could sit and enjoy the ambiance of the place. We moved to the front of the room so that we could get a closer look at a spectacular mandala that was displayed there. It looked fairly old as the paint was faded in some areas, but I was really impressed as it was a style of painting that I had seen pictures of, but I don't think photographs can do justice to. The canvas is thin, finely woven silk that has been dyed a deep, rich indigo colour and the picture is painted on it entirely in gold paint. Absolutely wonderful!! Then we found ourselves being greeted by a Buddhist preist who then made his way up to a podium at the front of the room and began to give a brief lecture to the people congregated there. At the end of his speech, he turned towards us and asked a question, smiling to see if we understood (did I mention that we were the only gaijin in the room?). I smiled back at him and then he turned to face the front and led everyone in a short chant. Although we didn't understand most of what he said, we did understand that he was lecturing everyone about why they came up to Koyasan. "What do you want?", he kept asking them. "Why are you sitting here?" In Japan there is a cultural phenomenon known as omiyage. Omiyage are gifts that you give to your friends and co- workers whenever you go away on a trip as a way of apologizing for any inconvenience you may have caused them by your absence. As a result of this, any tourist destination in Japan is just littered with shops selling all kinds of local souvenirs including food (the most popular of all omiyage) and tacky knickknacks. Koyasan is no exception to this. The priest was trying to remind everyone that they didn't just come here buy omiyage, but that there was a more important reason, a more important type of omiyage that they came here for. Unfortunately, I don't know what he said that was, but I think that his message was pretty clear. In a consumer- driven culture such as Japan, it was very refreshing to hear someone talk about things that are more important to consider than just material goods and touristy sight-seeing. So that pretty much ended our Koyasan experience and we went back to our temple to pick up our stuff, just in time to see one of the chanting monks peel out onto the street in a mini-van after waving to us, and we took a mildly scary cable car down the side of the mountain to meet our ride. The cable car is actually riding on a track down the side of the mountain, but you're going down at such a steep angle (maybe around 45 degrees?) that the cables are necessary and the car itself is like riding on a large staircase. Without the cables, it would be like riding on a rollercoaster!! Well, Koyasan is such an interesting place and was such a fantastic experience, that I'm sure that I will come back here again. But I won't drive up the mountain!! Too insane!! Now that I'm back at home, I'm going to dig out the kotatsu blankets and the kerosene heater. Brrrr!!
Take care and stay warm!!
Willow
Well, again it has been a busy time with a few learning curves and new adventures. For instance, being a gaijin who does not understand Japanese, it's easy to be left out of the loop sometimes and people here don't always tell you things that maybe you may need to know. On the night that Hoff and I were supposed to be going to our Japanese class, we found out that we were supposed to go to an important enkai with all of the principals and vice-principals of our schools. We found out just one hour before our Japanese class and our Japanese pappa showed up 20 minutes after calling us to drive us to the party. Needless to say, we weren't exactly ready. Fortunately we're not really fussy girls, so we managed to not be too late for the enkai. But unfortunately, we had already eaten dinner, so we didn't have much an appetite to enjoy the lovely kaiseki food that they served us. So we took the opportunity to leave our meals and we armed ourselves with bottles of beer and started circulating the room. The way that a traditional Japanese enkai is set up is that small tables and cushions are set up around the perimeter of a large tatami room, with everyone sitting on the floor at their own little table facing the centre of the room. This leaves the centre of the room empty, so during the meal, people take bottles of sake and beer and move around the centre of the room, pouring drinks for other people who are still sitting at their tables. This gives everyone the chance to talk to everyone else. So we ended up having a pretty good time and I even managed to get about halfway around the room before anyone noticed that I didn't have a glass of my own!! Unfortunately there is a lot of smoking and drinking at these events and it's very easy to get quite sloshed if you're not careful, as everyone wants to top up your drink for you all the time! Fortunately though, most Japanese people are still quite pleasant when they're drunk!
Later in the week, Hoff and I, together with one of the English teachers from my junior highschool, went to a teacher's conference up in a smaller city a couple hours north of us called Takayama. We actually stayed in a place up in the surrounding mountains that in some ways reminded me of Canada. Well, maybe just the scenery. The facility is a kind of like a youth camp for Japanese students with dormitory style lodging, communal baths and no central heating. In fact, there is no central heating at all in Japan! That's right folks! And let me tell you, it does get pretty damn cold here! Our lovely akibare weather has left us and now we're into wool sweaters and tons of blankets at night! But even though we were a little cold, we really enjoyed the scenery. We were surrounded by high, snowcapped mountains and spectacular autumn foliage in amazing colours ( I'll tell you more about this in a couple of weeks). Being in the mountains really makes me feel at home. I also managed to find out from another ALT that in this area, unlike where I live, it's possible to go cross-country skiing up here. The conference itself was not too bad, despite the feeling of being herded around and having to eat lousy food that was almost as bad as the school lunch. Sometimes the ALT events can be a little tiresome, as some ALT's unfortunately tend to act like they belong to a frathouse, but having the Japanese teachers there as well made it quite a bit more enjoyable and not so crazy. They were really interesting to talk to and one of the Japanese teachers entertained us on the bus back into town with his hilarious English slang and pick-up lines. Although it's probably best if I don't repeat any of them here. Hoff and I bid farewell to my Japanese teacher in Takayama, who went to play pachinko while he waited for the train back home (it's Japanese culture, he keeps telling me). Pachinko, by the way, is the game of choice for Japanese who hope to be parted from their money in a timely fashion. It's like an upright pinball machine that is supposed to be quite boring to play, but hey, so are slot machines and that doesn't stop people from playing them! Anyways, we were given some info by another ALT about a ryokan that we could stay in, so we decided to spend the night so that we could check out the town. A ryokan is a Japanese-style inn where you can stay in a tatami room and bathe in a communal bath and is often cheaper than a regular hotel. They are very nice to stay in!!
The city of Takayama is known as ‘Little Kyoto' here in Japan, because like Kyoto, it is very representative of traditional Japan with old-fashioned streets and houses and many old temples and shrines. After getting settled in at our ryokan which unfortunately turned out to be located on the outskirts of town, we didn't have much time to do any sightseeing, so we decided to find a place to eat that served some of the local specialties. The Japanese have a very well- developed appreciation for food, which can be attested to by the sheer volume of cooking shows on TV here. They especially appreciate the seasonality and regionality of food, preferring the freshness of local delicacies over imported foods. So every town in Japan is known for some particular food or dish that visitors will be sure to indulge in during their visit. (My town is know for kaki or persimmons. They are sweet and yummy!) Takayama is known for Hida beef, hoba miso and sansai (mountain vegetables). We found a great little restaurant with a very friendly staff and an incredible menu. I ate a set meal featuring gyu sashimi, hoba miso and sansai. The hoba miso is a sweet miso paste that is cooked on a leaf over live coals at your table. It was delicious!! The vegetables consisted of locally harvested mushrooms, fiddleheads and other assorted greens, well-cooked and lightly seasoned. Healthy and delicious!! You all know what sashimi is, but maybe some of you have never heard of gyu sashimi. Gyu means beef in Japanese, so gyu sashimi is raw strips of high quality Hida beef, served with a soya dipping sauce. I know that many Westerners would probably turn up their noses at the idea of eating raw beef, but I assure you it is absolutely fantastic stuff!! (The menu even stated quite explicitly in English that they did not serve grilled beef!!) There is no blood and Hida beef is known for having very high safety standards and the cattle is very well-treated to produce very tasty meat!! I washed all of this down with what is probably the best tasting beer I have had since coming to Japan. It was a locally made beer called Hida Korikori beer that had all of the full-flavour of a Canadian microbrew. It made me very happy!! The next day, Hoff and I set out to do a little sight-seeing in Takayama. We made our way east across the river to the old part of town called San-Machi Suji and wandered through the narrow streets, stopping to look in shops selling beautiful local pottery, antiques and woodcarvings. We ended up stopping at a small museum that featured a large collection of inro, small ornate medicine boxes that used to hang off the belts of rich samurai during the Edo period. Many of them were gold-plated and the carving and inlay work on these tiny works of art was incredible!! Very beautiful. We ended our sight- seeing at a large, beautiful shine high on a small hill called Sakurayama Hachimangu Jinja. The approach to the shrine begins with two very large torii, which are the easily recognizable gates that one has to walk through to enter the sacred precinct of the shrine. The shrine was full of worshippers and tourists and had a kind of festival feel to it. There were long tables set up displaying many exquisite examples of Japanese bonsai in many colours and styles. Hoff informed me that bonsai doesn't really refer to the type of tree used in this art form, but the actual manipulation of any small tree to produce a desired shape as it grows. They were pretty fantastic, especially the ones with small colourful flowers blooming from their branches. We climbed to the top of the shrine where we could see that there was a service being performed by Shinto priests inside. My first time to actually see a shrine used in this manner!! We then found some steps that led further up to a smaller shrine where there were no people, large beautiful trees and a wonderful view of the city. Gorgeous!! Well, one day is definitely not long enough to see the whole city, so I am definitely going to be coming back here. I'm glad that I live so close!!
We came home and then left the next day, very early in the morning, to meet with the vice-principal of one of Hoff's schools who offered to drive us up to Mt. Koya in Wakayama prefecture (Koyasan in Japanese). Koyasan is a very famous Buddhist site in Japan, as it is the headquarters of the Shingon sect of Japanese Buddhism. The drive to Koyasan took longer than it would've to travel the same distance in Canada, mostly due to heavy traffic, but we got to see some great scenery and traditional Japanese architecture. We also drove throughTenri, a town close to Nara city and got to catch a glimpse of the temple headquarters of Tenrikyo, one of Japan's most popular new religions. The road going up Mt. Koya reminded me a little of some of the mountain roads in BC, except that the road was narrower, with very steep winding curves and crammed with cars and tour buses. The scenery was spectacular though! The sides of the mountain are wild and steep, covered in towering pines, cedars and colourful momigi (Japanese maple). This kind of wild scenery is perhaps not what many people would first think of when they think of Japan, but there is plenty of it here. Koyasan itself is really a small town with many of the usual amenities including an elementary school, highschool, shops, restaurants and even a Buddhist university. We had a reservation to stay at a temple along the main drag called Daienin. There are over 110 temples at Koyasan and most of them offer some kind of lodging for both pilgrims and tourists. We were expecting something rather rustic and minimalist, but we were happily surprised by how comfortable it was. We had our own private tatami room with shoji (paper screens) overlooking a beautiful Japanese garden, a kerosene heater (remember, no central heating!) and a kotatsu table. A kotatsu table is a great invention that I first experienced in Nepal. It is like a small coffee table with an electric heater attached underneath the surface of the table. The table can be lifted up off the legs so that warm quilts can be layed over them. Then you stick your legs under the blankets and get toasty warm! I have one in my apartment but I haven't set it up yet. The cost of the lodging includes dinner and breakfast, which the monks bring to your room for you, along with a souvenir rice spoon. The dinner was one of the most incredible meals I have ever eaten. We knew that it would be vegetarian, but we were expecting something more simple and basic. Instead, they brought us a gourmet feast with rice, miso soup, pickled vegetables, sansai, sesame-flavoured tofu and a hearty stew cooked over a fondue pot. If you thought that you couldn't live without eating meat, this meal would definitely make you change your mind! After the meal, the monks come back to pick up your dishes and then they make up your futon for you. Hoff and I felt a little weird about this since we had never had anyone make our beds for us, let alone made by Buddhist monks!! The monks spoke a little bit of English and they were very good-humoured, but there is less privacy in a temple than in a hotel; there are no locks on the doors (honour system here) and the monks will only wait for about a second before entering your room after knocking.
The next morning after our vegetarian feast, we attended the morning service in the temple at 6am. The small hondo (main hall) is not heated and we had to sit on our knees for about an hour, so it was a little uncomfortable (pins and needles!), but it was very interesting and we enjoyed it very much. Most of the other people their were pilgrims, which we could tell by the thin white cotton Japanese-style coats that they were wearing. The service consisted mostly of beautiful chanting by some of the same monks who made our beds the previous night. During the chanting everyone was invited to shuffle up to the front of the hall to pay respects and make an offering of incense. When the chanting was over, one of the monks gave a brief talk about the artworks displayed in the hondo, but unfortunately, he spoke so quickly that I couldn't understand any part of what he said. Then we were all led through a lantern-filled corridor and allowed to walk past the main altar to pay our respects again. When we returned to our room, our futons had been put away and our breakfast was already waiting for us. After fortifying ourselves with this wonderful breakfast and embarrassing myself on the phone with my bad Japanese, which resulted in some tittering by the monk at the other end of the line, we packed up our stuff to leave with the monks at the temple's main office and set out to begin our temple-hopping.
As we headed up the street, we saw what looked like a small torii wedged inbetween two buildings. On closer inspection we saw that there was a whole series of torii, just large enough to walk under, winding their way up the hill. So we decided to walk up and counted a total of 61 torii, including the main one at the shrine at the top of the hill. The shrine itself was relatively small and obviously very old, but well-taken care of. I don't quite know why, but I think that it's the loveliest shrine I've ever seen. It was so quiet, simple and peaceful. Then we continued to head up towards the Okuno-in, a huge cemetary at the far end of the town that houses the mausoleum of Kobo Daishi, the founder of the Shingon sect, along with the tombs of thousands of adherents. Most graveyards in Japan are very small and simple with most of the memorials (most people here are cremated, not buried) simply consisting of a small, erect pillar with the person's name written on it. With this in mind, I couldn't have been more blown away by the Okuno-in. There were literally thousands of tombs of varying sizes, many of which were huge, elaborate slabs of granite, decorated with statues and stone fences. It was an incredible sight!! About a third of the graveyard is in a flat, open field, but the rest of it creeps gently uphill through a forest of gigantic Japanese cedars. As we walked through the towering giants and moss-covered tombs, we felt as if we were walking through an enchanted forest. The sky was gray and the snow was gently falling everywhere, creating a magical effect. On our way up to the mausoleum, we stopped briefly at a couple of small buildings where pilgrims were lined up at wickets, paying the monks there to write the name of a deceased loved one onto a small stick of wood, which they will then take up to the mausoleum. The hope of these people is that by memorializing their loved ones here, they will be able to help them to gain liberation in the future when Kobo Daishi wakes up from his meditation and the future Buddha comes to earth. The sacred precinct of the mausoleum is off limits to photography and yukata wear (I really don't know about why this is!!) and building almost looks like a haunted house sitting at the top of the hill with the grey mist surrounding it. The mausoleum was pretty interesting, but there wasn't really too much that we could see. Even though the inside of the building is lit up with hundreds of ornate lanterns, the light they give off is very weak, making it quite dark inside. It was also very busy inside, so we decided not hang around for too long and just walked around the perimeter of the building and looked at some smaller altars and shrines and an old storehouse of Buddhist scriptures. The whole place had a beautiful mystical quality about it that I thoroughly enjoyed.
After returning to town and warming ourselves up with some lunch, we went to the Kongobu-ji which is the temple headquarters of the sect. The temple itself is quite large and seems to be a good example of traditional Japanese temple architecture. I especially enjoyed seeing the thickly thatched roof which gives Japanese temples a kind of rustic appeal, as they tend to blend in with their natural surroundings quite well. We entered the temple from the side where we had to pay a small admission fee. The inside of the temple is set up kind of like a museum, where you get to walk around and look at the different tatami rooms and enjoy the scenic rock gardens. Most of the rooms have beautifully painted fusuma (sliding doors), the most famous of which is the Willow room which is decorated with yanagi and is known as the place where Toyotomi Hidetsugu, the step-son of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, committed ritual suicide. Fortunately, they had changed the tatami mats since then. Then we went to a recently added annex attached to the temple where we were given a tray with tea and rice cookies and were directed to a large tatami room where we could sit and enjoy the ambiance of the place. We moved to the front of the room so that we could get a closer look at a spectacular mandala that was displayed there. It looked fairly old as the paint was faded in some areas, but I was really impressed as it was a style of painting that I had seen pictures of, but I don't think photographs can do justice to. The canvas is thin, finely woven silk that has been dyed a deep, rich indigo colour and the picture is painted on it entirely in gold paint. Absolutely wonderful!! Then we found ourselves being greeted by a Buddhist preist who then made his way up to a podium at the front of the room and began to give a brief lecture to the people congregated there. At the end of his speech, he turned towards us and asked a question, smiling to see if we understood (did I mention that we were the only gaijin in the room?). I smiled back at him and then he turned to face the front and led everyone in a short chant. Although we didn't understand most of what he said, we did understand that he was lecturing everyone about why they came up to Koyasan. "What do you want?", he kept asking them. "Why are you sitting here?" In Japan there is a cultural phenomenon known as omiyage. Omiyage are gifts that you give to your friends and co- workers whenever you go away on a trip as a way of apologizing for any inconvenience you may have caused them by your absence. As a result of this, any tourist destination in Japan is just littered with shops selling all kinds of local souvenirs including food (the most popular of all omiyage) and tacky knickknacks. Koyasan is no exception to this. The priest was trying to remind everyone that they didn't just come here buy omiyage, but that there was a more important reason, a more important type of omiyage that they came here for. Unfortunately, I don't know what he said that was, but I think that his message was pretty clear. In a consumer- driven culture such as Japan, it was very refreshing to hear someone talk about things that are more important to consider than just material goods and touristy sight-seeing. So that pretty much ended our Koyasan experience and we went back to our temple to pick up our stuff, just in time to see one of the chanting monks peel out onto the street in a mini-van after waving to us, and we took a mildly scary cable car down the side of the mountain to meet our ride. The cable car is actually riding on a track down the side of the mountain, but you're going down at such a steep angle (maybe around 45 degrees?) that the cables are necessary and the car itself is like riding on a large staircase. Without the cables, it would be like riding on a rollercoaster!! Well, Koyasan is such an interesting place and was such a fantastic experience, that I'm sure that I will come back here again. But I won't drive up the mountain!! Too insane!! Now that I'm back at home, I'm going to dig out the kotatsu blankets and the kerosene heater. Brrrr!!
Take care and stay warm!!
Willow
posted by Willow at
7:05 AM
