Sleeping with Monks

Friday and Saturday

On Friday, we woke up in our lovely hostel room.  Today we needed to move a little quicker than yesterday as it was the day of the Temple Lodging in Koyasan.  I said goodbye to robo-shower (hopefully I'll meet one of his friends again), Ame sorted some booking stuff, I went to the supermarket (a surreal experience but I managed to get some good lunch stuff) and then we were off!

I swear our bags just get heavier and heavier but we made it to Nankai station in Osaka via the subway and a brief walk.  We had 50 mins until our 12:00 train was set to leave.  No probs we thought.  Annoyingly, we had already found out that Koyasan is not included in the Japan Rail Pass, so we needed to buy a two day World Heritage ticket (it's on the World Heritage list, don't 'cha know).  Again, not a problem, we knew where the ticket office was.

Once in the ticket office, we're informed that they only take cash.  A little unexpected; I would of thought Japan would have done everything on card.  So I headed off to the cash point, which wouldn't accept my card.  Neither would the next, or the next.  Strange really as we had got money out at the airport easily.  I then tried a bank and eventually asked a woman in the exchange office.  She explained that only certain machines were "international" and pointed me to a ATM about 10 mins walk.  Great.

So I got there and it wouldn't accept my Nationwide account and I realised I forgotten my pin number for my credit card.  Not looking great.  Eventually after popping backwards and forwards to various places, I queued in a bank and got told to go to the post office.  In the post office, whilst waiting for my ticket number to be called out, I used my Nationwide card in one of their machines and hey presto.  Over 1 hour later I had some fricking Yen was in my hands and I could finally pay for our train tickets.  I suppose Japan is just not as set up for tourists as other countries. 

So forgetting about that stress we got on the 13:00 to Koyasan.  It was a nice 1hr30mins train ride up the mountain taking in gorgeous scenery.  We got to the station before Koyasan and then had to hop on a cable car to go up the rest of the mountain.  Amy finds these things very fun.  Luckily it was a train track and not a hanging one.  I hate hanging ones.  Even this one climbed at an alarmingly vertical angle. 

We then hopped on the bus and very soon were at our Temple Lodging.  Immediately you could see this was going to be a special night.  The temple was peaceful and had a few monks dressed in blue running about the place.  They seem to wear blue.  Cambodian monks wore orange.  I'm not really sure what it all means.

On entering the temple reception area, we were greeted by a monk and took our shoes off and replaced them with slippers.  We were then led to our posh traditional Japanese room with a lovely table in the middle with a tea set complete with a flask of boiling water.  We put our bags in the section behind our room and closed the sliding screen doors.  We then sat for a few minutes marveling at our room and sipping the finest green tea. 

We then left to have a look about a the Okunoin cemetery.  Basically, Koyasan is famous because of the monk Kobo Daishi who built a temple here and was credited with being like the Japanese Leonardo Da Vinci.  He is now celebrated as Buddhist prophet and some believe he will come back as Miroku (the Future Buddha) and lead the dead to salvation.  This is why people sought after getting buried at this particularly sacred site.  The walk up to the Hall of Lanterns Temple is paved with graves and tributes to the dead.

Some of it is very old and the cemetery is bliss to walk through.  Of course Ame was freezing up the mountain so we had to keep pretty much on the move.

One of the most sad things about the graveyard was the little Buddha statues with bibs and hats which are statues for miscarriages and baby deaths.  The grieving families wrap the statue up warm like it was their baby.  There are hundreds of these along the walk.

Also, companies such as Panasonic have bought out space so that they can lay rest the dead people of their company!  A funny perk you might say...

 
Once we reached the Hall of Lanterns, photos were prohibited.  I suppose that's because of the lanterns.  It was very beautiful in the temple and there were monks inside chanting.  It was a calm and pretty place.

So we wandered back to our temple were we had been told we would be sent for at 18:15 for dinner.  We had another cup of green tea and tried on our yukata!  Don't we look aufeeeentik???

So bang on 18:15, a young monk politely asks us to follow him to another little room in the complex.  The slidy door opened to reveal 2 pairs of little tables with a few dishes on each.  The menu was strictly vegetarian because that's how the monks like things.  There was a few pickled base snacks so I got a double helping of those because Miss Coad can't cope with vinegar.  The best bit was the tempura and the soup.  It was all rather interesting and a great experience.  We even ordered some saki to have with it. 

When we returned to our room, someone had already been in it to make up our futon beds with big warm duvets and sheets.  Before bed, it was bath time.  A monk came and retrieved us for bath time.  This is a single sex affair with a men's bath and women's bath area.  I read about this so I pretty much knew what to expect.  You strip completely, wash on a stool and then bathe in a big bath of almost boiling hot water.  Obviously I was not alone and I had a couple of old German men enjoying the "solitude" with me.  To be honest with you, the water was SO hot I lasted about 5 minutes.  But I'll give it one thing, both me and Ame were BOILING for the next couple of hours. 

We returned to the room, snuggled into our beds and set ourselves up for watching a film.  We had Hero, a film about around the time of the first Emperor of China, and thought it was appropriate.  After a really good film, we went to sleep looking forward to morning prayers at 07:00.

06:30 came along very quickly and before you knew it, Mr Monk was politely rap-a-tap tapping on our door whilst we hurried around making sure we were decent and naughtily kept him waiting.  You should never be late for monk.  Whoops.  We scurried along behind him to the main temple and entered to the sound of chanting that had already started.  We suspected you should also never be later for morning prayers, whoops again.  It was only a minute but we felt a little silly creeping into the room where 10 other people were happily sat watching the chanting under fold.

We settled within an instant though and listened peacefully for 30 minutes to the chanting and bell ringing.  There were an old Japanese couple who were there and they looked like they were getting a lot out of it.  Religion really isn't for me, but it is very interesting, if not a little invasive, to watch what goes on.  Broadens the old mind and such....  After all that, we then had another super healthy brek which was very nice to try.  Not sure it's going to change our brek diet for the future though....

After returning to our now daytime converted room we drank more green tea got packed up and headed out for a brief 30 min walk to explore a little more before it was off to the next adventure.  So on the bus we went, to the cable car, then onto the train to Osaka Nankai (Namba) station.  Ame got some lovely snaps of the stations on the way.

Some of the seats have lovely little knitted cushions on them.  Could you see them lasting a second in one of our stations before they were ripped apart?  Everyone is so law abiding and civil here.  

We headed on the subway to Osaka Shinkansen (Bullet train) and got our train to Hakata where we would change for Nagasaki.  Now a few train facts for those interested.  On the platform are queue marks where the doors are.  People politely line up at the queues and this is how you board.  It is very, very civilised.  No pushing.  Next the train is pristine with reclining padded seats and tray tables.  It goes at travels at top speed of around 275mph.  We traveled 340 miles by train to Hakata in 2 1/2 hours.  That's an average journey speed of 136mph from A to B.  And it was on time to the second.  I love the transport.

A quick change at Nagasaki and we were on a local train for another 2 hours.  We arrived at Nagasaki, hopped on a tram to our hostel and we were there.  7 hours of traveling in total.  Over 500 miles in 7 hours.  Not bad Japan.  Our hostel was the cute and had a lovely little map for us.  We had a double bed this night which seemed a novelty!  We dumped our stuff and went out a restaurant recommended by our hostel.  It was ace.  I had pork cutlet, Ame had chicken katsu both with unlimited refills of rice, miso soup, green tea and shredded cabbage.  We left satisfied and full for the first time in two days.

After a brief walk around Nagasaki centre we went in a local sushi restaurant for a beer night cap.  The town is lovely, safe and the people are so welcoming.

We went home for a really good sleep so we would be ready for the A-bomb heaviness of the next day...