Day 11 Koyasan and Osaka

It was dark when I woke up, stumbling over sleeping bodies on the futon to shiver while getting dressed. While staying in a temple, it was only polite and respectful to try to participate in some form of temple life, particularly in their prayer time or ceremonies. In Koyasan, some temples conduct fire ceremonies in the morning but here in Shojoshinin, it was just simply morning prayers.

But even that meant getting up at 5.45am to make it for morning prayers in the big hall. I was the earliest to arrive, after a few wrong turns in the darkened and quiet corridors.

I met the tall monk who checked us in from the day before and he smilingly showed me the way. I took my place on a bench at the back of the hall. Kerosene heaters were ablaze and creating a quiet buzzing in the early morning silence. One by one, other bleary-eyed travellers came in and sat at the back with me. We said little to each other beyond a smile and 'good morning'. Probably it was too early or the hushed atmosphere which just required silence.

I thought I would be bored, but surprisingly, I was not. It was interesting to hear the monks chanting, the occasional clash of cymbals or the deep resonating 'dong' of the bell. There was a soothing rhythm to the chants, like a pleasant, meandering humming river. In the semi-darkness with only the light of candles, sitting with strangers and listening to monks' chanting in the early hours of the morning, it was an experience well worth waking up early for!

It was almost 7am by the time the ceremony was over and time for breakfast. The kids were up by the time I went back to the hanare. Everyone was excited - there was frost on the leaves! It was the first time we had ever seen frost. The night before had been still but deeply cold but yet it was a nice surprise for all of us to actually see the silver-rimmed leaves and branches in the morning!

Breakfast was again strictly vegetarian fare. But it was good! I enjoyed the stewed spinach (in the middle of the tray) and happily accepted everybody else's offer of it since most of the kids did not like their veg. Isaac surprised me this trip by really being very enthusiastic about his food - in particular the kaiseki meal at Kokuya and the shojin ryori at Shojoshinin.

Breakfast over, we regretfully checked out of the hanare. I think all of us wished we had that little house for longer. But it was more practical to check out since we were going to Okunoin and we would not be able to make it back in time for the official check-out time.

Okunoin was vast, sprawling, spreading over hectares filled with towering ancient cedars, mossy stones, red-bibbed Jizos and the tantalisingly lure of legends. There was the tiny well which was said to be able to foretell your long life or predict death. If you could see your reflection in the waters below, you would be assured of a decent lifespan. If you could not, expect to say sayonara in two to three years!


Then there is this one on the right - a tiny stone post commemorating a nun who died several hundred years ago. It was said that if you listened hard enough, you could hear the sounds of hell echoing from below. Yes my kids just HAD to try this even though they were nervously giggling away! For the record, they heard nothing.



Okunoin was fascinating. There were small tombs belonging to individuals, names eroded by time and covered in moss, there were large tombs bought by corporate big names like Panasonic or UCC Coffee for their employees... everyone just wants a share of the land nearest Kobo Daishi in the afterlife! There was even a largish tomb shaped like a space rocket and another that had a jet airplane. These were found in the newer section of the cemetery when we walked back to catch the bus.


After almost 45minutes, we got closer to the heart of Okunoin - the mausoleum of Kobo Daishi. The path opened out into a clearing with a big hall. This is where you can make your offerings, get your temple stamp and calligraphy, purchase omamori and so on. This is also the place where temple staff prepare meals for Kobo Daishi. They believe he is still alive and hence will still faithfully prepare meals for him. This is also where eight significant statues are, among them six Jizos. Pilgrims are encouraged to drench the statues with water to provide succour and relief for the Jizos when they descend to the netherworld to do their job - protect and give relief to the souls of the tiny babies who have died, been aborted or miscarried, or children who have died in childhood. It is said that when these babies die, their souls go to a netherworld where they do hard labour. It is a cold, friendless stony place which is often dry and hot. Jizo would descend to help the babies and protet them against the nasty demons who are ever ready to torment them. Drenching the Jizo can be compared to fire-fighters who pour water over themselves before running in to fight a deadly blaze.

Just next to the row of statues is the bridge running over the Tamagawa stream, called Gobyo-no hashi. Embedded in the stream bed are a line of wooden stakes called sotoba, memorials to the drowned and miscarried babies. Once acrosss the bridge, photography is not allowed. But in the background, you can see the steps leading up to the Hall of Lanterns, or Torodo. Kobo Daishi's tomb is behind this hall. It is said we have to cross the bridge with a pure mind and a pure heart. I'm not sure if i filled this criteria but heck, we crossed anyway!



Just beyond the bridge are more tombs, in one corner, the tombs of emperors. Among them is a small building, about the size of a phone booth, with lattice wooden walls. Within is the Miroku-ishi rock. This is a rock, I think about 3 kg heavy, like a black oval oversized egg. The legend is that you've got to move the rock from its resting place to a ledge above. If you can do that, you have a pure heart and you're probably a good person since the stone is supposed to feel light to the good and heavy to those who are evil. The catch is, you can only use one hand to do lift it since there is only a small window, enough for one arm to go through.



Okay, pity pictures were not allowed because we all tried our best to lift it amidst much pained expressions, red faces, loud grunts and popping joints from arm sockets. Some of us came close but none succeeded. Except for KH. It seemed almost effortless to him. So now you know who has the purest heart among all of us!



With the exception of Trin, who had a mini tantrum, there seemed to be a solemn air pervading the Torodo and understandably so. Within the hall are thousands of bronze lanterns kept alight continuously. These are donated by devotees. Out of these, in the back of the hall, are two that have been kept alight for more than 1000 years. One was donated by an emperor and the other by an old woman who sold everything she had to buy the lantern.



Just behind the Torodo, shrouded in circling mists of incense and flowers, is Kobo Daishi's mausoleum. You could offer a lit candle here, or a lit joss. But we chose to just stand in silence as a mark of respect, contemplating the legend of the man and the whole trail of tombs that have led us here, to the heart of Okunoin. Another family was there. They had a man in his 50s with them and from the sound of it, he might have been suffering from Tourette's syndrome. Every once in a while, the silence would be broken by a sudden shout or agitated yell in Japanese. It was startling and rather disconcerting. The kids glanced curiously at him and asked why he was yelling like this. I said he could not help it, he wasn't trying to be rude but it was a condition he suffered from.



It took us more than 45min just to walk one way to the Torodo and about another 40min to walk back. En route, I got my henro from the Gokusho, the Hall of Offerings. We passed the memorial tomb of the famous 47 ronin and their master Asano. We took the path that led through the newer wing of the cemetery where tombs were clearly built sometime in the middle of the last century. Along the way, we passed tombs marked with icons of rockets and aeroplanes!



It was almost 2pm by the time we got the bus back to Shojoshinin, collected our bags, walked to the heart of town, got the next bus down to the bus station for our ride all the way back down to Gokurabashi and to Osaka. Lunch was in a little cafe perched on a hillside, next to the funicular station. It had great valley views and tasty meals. The kids loved the niku udon and the beef curry.



In Osaka, we had no problem finding our hotel since it was just almost outside the Nankai station. We just had to find the right exit, climb the stairs and right at the top, at street level, is the entrance to Hotel Ichiei! Convenient! Especially when you're tired from a lot of travelling.

I liked Ichiei for its interesting rooms and spacious layout - generous by business hotel standards. The kids had a full tatami-mat Japanese room with futon bedding while KH, Trin and I had a semi-western/Japanese style room. Both were tastefully done up and I liked the fact that they had internet connections but I was not very comfortable with the lack of security. Anyone could come up from street level right into the room floors without passing the front desk. But the price was certainly good value for the rooms we got and it was in the heart of Minami, easy access to nightlife, food and shopping.



It was raining but because the Namba area had such a warren of underground walkways, stations and shopping malls, we could easily walk from our hotel to the main shopping drag without getting wet. Once above ground, there were covered arcades with a bewildering array of food choices. We all pigged out on 100yen conveyor belt sushi for dinner. Cheap, not the best grade of fish and cuts, but satisfying. We had grand plans initially, to walk around the Dotombori area, but I think we were all a bit tired from the journey. With the rain pouring down, it just seemed easier to head back and crash for an early night. The next day was going to be day packed with 5-star sights and lots of travelling!

Day 10 Koyasan

We left K's House early to get breakfast at this little ramen joint near Kyoto station. This was very near the bridge where I thought I had left my book the day before. It was not far to walk from K's House. The little shop was bustling with locals coming in and out for the yummy ramen. It was so small that there was no place to queue and anyone coming in just stood awkwardly against the door and waited for someone to finish. Obviously so, we had to leave our bulky backpacks at the entrance, taking up even more space in the already packed-to-the-gills shop.

Everything was in Japanese. See the prices on the wall. So we had no idea what we were ordering. We just said with big smiles "Ramen!" and held up our fingers to indicate how many bowls. But just as we were blur, the guy serving us was just as blur! So we were really communicating like chicken and duck! To his credit, each time the frustration got to him, he just took a deep breath, excused himself with a "Chotto!" and went off serving someone else. So we just had to be really patient and wait. Eventually, we got all our orders - much later than the other customers because of the communication difficulty. But the soup was thick and flavourful and the ramen nicely al dente - a great breakfast all round.





From Kyoto station, we took a shinkansen to Shin Osaka. It was easy-peasy to do with our JR Pass. Just hop on the train but be careful not to take the Nozomi which the JR Pass does not cover. Reservations not needed, we just made sure we were in line early enough in the designated queue for the non-reserved cars. From Kyoto to Osaka, it was only about 15min by shinkansen. Picture on the left shows us on the shinkansen platform at Kyoto station.

Once at Shin-Osaka, it was also very easy to just head for the basement directly below the JR station to catch the subway south to Namba where we had to take the train to Koya-san. Namba station is the heart and soul of Osaka's Minami district where the restaurants, nightlife etc are. The place is vibrant day and night both above, and below ground. A network warren of malls connect the Namba subway station with the Nankai station. Nankai station is a privately owned line and the Koya line takes us all the way to Koya-san, one of Japan's most sacred places.

We decided not to cart all our backpacks to Koya-san since we were only spending a night there and returning to Osaka the next day. So we had arranged enough of our stuff to go into one daypack and the rest of the big packs were stored in the left luggage section of Nankai station. It would have been better to get one of the big lockers but they were all booked out. Note that there are limited large lockers in Nankai Namba station, but if you had no choice - like us - you could easily just put them with the left luggage counter. Its pretty costly though - 600yen per bag per day. So with two backpacks, it cost us 2400yen just to store luggage!



Getting to Koya-san is really half the fun of the whole experience. The train, more like a commuter train, first cuts through the concrete urban jungle of Osaka. Then it leaves the wires and telephone poles and grey cement behind for green fields, tiny crop holdings, small townships. As the train gradually empties out, it chugs higher into the hills, clinging to hillsides of bamboo and cedar, stopping at isolated stations perched precariously on ledges overlooking rushing streams and forest. Who really lives here? Surely there must be people living nearby or a station would not have been built here. But apart from the lone wooden single-storey station building, there were no other houses immediately in the vicinity that we could see. The views spanned from valleys, hillsides bronzed in green gold from the afternoon sun, darkened into tunnels and opened out into blue, shadowed stations.

Koyasan is all about mist, legend, reverence and faith. The temples, the village that grew around it and the large rambling grounds of Okunoin, Japan's largest cemetery all grew out of faith and devotion to Kukai the monk, the founder of Shingon Buddhism, otherwise known as Kobo Daishi the saint who is even now believed to be not dead, but in deep eternal meditation in his incense-shrouded mausoleum.

As a Catholic, I have visited several Catholic shrines in Europe. This time, though not a Buddhist, I approach this visit to Koyasan with the same reverie and contemplation that comes with visiting a very holy place. But as with all pilgrimages, getting to a holy place is never easy or straightforward - in both the physical and spiritual sense. In Koyasan's case, getting to Koyasan for us entailed taking three trains, one funicular ropeway and one bus!

We arrived at Gokurabashi, the terminal station, where a red lacquered bridge spanned a rushing river and a red-bibbed Jizo sat tranquilly at one end. From Gokurabashi, we took the funicular up the steep hillside to the bus terminal.




From the bus terminal, no one is permitted to walk the last stretch to Koyasan village because it was a winding road meant only for vehicles. Our tickets from Namba Nankai covered the whole trip - train, funicular and bus-ride. But this was not included in the JR pass.

Koyasan village has one main street flanked by shops and temples. I had chosen to stay at Shojoshinin right at the end of Koyasan village because it was right next to the entrance to Okunoin which would be handy for late night strolls. We arrived under blue skies and golden late afternoon sun. Despite the long journey, we were all excited to finally be here. And as if in response to our great mood, we saw a shooting star cross the late afternoon sky, its tail trailing bright white against the blue. First time in my life I ever saw one and it happened here in Koyasan. Does it have any significance? We found our way to Shojoshinin with no problem. The bus-stop was right across the road. This is the side gate of Shojoshinin.


All seemed quiet but we bumped into a tall monk who spoke some English. He welcomed us warmly and checked us in, briefing us on the dos and don'ts before showing us to our room, or more correctly, our house! Yes, we got a private residence, called a hanare, all to ourselves!


Set apart from the main temple buildings, the hanare is a standalone house surrounded by gardens. From the picture above, the hanare stands out of sight in the greenery on the right of the gate as you enter.



Kids enjoying the kotatsu!


Like all Japanese houses, we removed our shoes before stepping up the steps into the house. There was a living area which came complete with a kotatsu! A kotatsu is a heated table with a blanket. People sit at the table with their feet beneath the blanket, warmed by the heat there. Very useful for cold nights.




There were three sleeping areas, easily demarcated into rooms with gilded sliding shoji screen doors. Futons were already laid out in readiness. The toilets (one western with a heated seat and the other a traditional Japanese squat type) was outside the living/sleeping area, along one side of the house. There was a traditional deep tub made of cedar for Japanese style bathing. A glass enclosed veranda ran all around the house's perimeter. Steps led from the veranda down to the little garden in front of the house.






All we could say was: Wow!

We had some time before dinner - which was served early at 5.30pm. Initially we wanted to walk Okunoin that evening but because dinner was so early, we abandoned that plan. Instead, we explored the first 300m of the cemetery and then made a u-turn to return to the temple.

What's so special about Okunoin, you might ask? And why do the creepy thing by walking through a cemetery? Well, Okunoin is fascinating. When Kobo Daishi passed away more than 1200 years ago, his body was interred in a mausoleum in Okunoin and since then, hundreds of thousands of Buddhist faithfuls have sought to have their remains buried near him. From emperors to shoguns, witches and monks, poets and even today's corporate warriors, anybody who was ever somebody in Japan, everyone wants to get in on the action when Kobo Daishi (as they believe) rises again because he's the only guy who can interpret what the Miroku Buddha says, so there is much jockeying to get into pole position among the dead.

Big corporations like Panasonic and UCC Coffee reserve lots here for their faithful employees' ashes. If you can't be bodily interred here, even a lock of hair, a fingernail clipping would do.



And as for walking through the cemetery at night, we just wanted to experience the atmosphere at night. It is said that Okunoin by night is especially atmospheric.


Walking through it at dusk with the kids, it was not scary at all. We 'purified' ourselves by washing our hands with water from the purification fount just before the bridge at the entrance. There were others also walking the path. The graves were old and mossy but the paths were kept in good condition. We didn't go far because we didn't have time. The stone lanterns, flanking the path, were just lit and the light falling as we turned back to go for dinner.



Dinner was served in a large communal hall. There were other guests there as well but we were separated from each other by screens. The monks served us dinner with a shy smile and then left.


Dinner was vegetarian - shojin ryori - no meat, no onions, no garlic. We ate sitting on cushions bent over red lacquered trays.


KH the neanderthal suffered for the lack of meat! But I thought dinner was great and very flavourful. I could not get enough of the softly fluffy rice with stewed beans or vegetables. The tempura veggies were also light, crisp and delicious with the dipping sauce and some daikon. The tofu, Koya tofu, was different from the usual tofu, being stickier and a bit more pasty. It took some getting used to, but it was good. The younger kids had the cream of veggie soup in addition to their servings.






After dinner, the children indulged in their favourite Japanese activity - bathing! After soaking in the hot bath, they huddled under the kotatsu and watched tv while KH and I wore our yukatas and tanzen and headed off for a night walk through Okunoin. We had a tiny torch but did not need to use it. The path was lit by occasional streetlamps and the orange light from the stone lanterns. We could barely see the graves on either side of the path.





I did not get any eerie feelings. The only time I felt a bit nervous was a swath of path that was not lit by any streetlamp. We used the torch and that was the only time I felt like hurrying.

We didn't go far because it was a 45-minute walk all the way into the inner sanctuary of Okunoin. So we turned back.




The night was cold and very still. There was no wind, no movement in the air, just a deep chill. I felt a nice sense of peace sitting out on the veranda after the walk. There was a cemetery, more than a thousand years old, right next door, darkness was all around, but the lights from the hanare were warm and comforting and the stars in the night sky sparkled brightly. I had never seen so many stars. It occurred to me that dressed in my yukata, hair pulled up in a knot, sitting on the veranda of a Japanese house, that I could not be more "in the moment". Perhaps hundreds of years ago, there could well be another woman dressed like me, sitting the same way and staring out at the same timeless stars. I liked the sense of parallelism.