Arrived in Osaka after a 4 hour flight from Hong Kong, hopped on a train into the city, walked through the city center for 10 minutes to get to the hotel. Arrived just in time for the welcome meeting of the next tour 'Japan Express'. Only 8 people in the group, a nice change from the 16 in China, which I felt was just a little too big. We went out for dinner and had traditional udon noodles where you select what you want to eat from a machine. Desert was an ice-cream bun. Sounds weird I know, but it was very nice. We were also introduced to one of the many vending machines that the Japanese seem obsessed with. This machine has some cans chilled, and some hot! The red labels are hot drinks, including green tea and coffee.
Next day we headed up to Kyoasan, a mountain village where Japanese Esoteric Buddhism was founded 1200 years ago. Kobodashi, the man who founded it, studied Buddhism in China and brought it back to Japan, and also created the Hiragana and Katakana characters that Japanese people still use today for writing.
We were staying in a monastery that had a real authentic feel. The beds were foutons on the floor, and there were paper sliding doors everywhere. We got youkata (robes) to wear around the monastery and they were quite comfortable
Slightly less 'authentic' feeling, but very Japanese, were the toilets. Cyber-loos. They detect when you enter the stall, they have heated seats (surprisingly nice), they have a button to push to spray warm water to clean your bum, and another button to blow hot air to dry it. Apparently the ladies have a button to push to play some music to hide the noise of their tinkling.
Off out for an explore of some of the 117 temples in the village and our first stop was cherry blossom!! Proper authentic Japanese cherry blossom. Turns out that I did manage to see some cherry blossom in China, up near the Great Wall, but I wasn't sure if that was actually cherry.
Next stop was the EasyJet Stupa. That's not it's proper name, but you look at it and tell me it's not appropriate!
This prayer tower contains many Buddhist sutras, and if you don't have time to read them all, you can push the handle round the building and get the same knowledge and enlightenment from doing that as you can from reading it all. Buddhists have come up with a fair few shortcuts to enlightenment we discovered.
This next temple is the headquarters of the Esoteric Buddhists and was filled with many gardens and rooms with beautifully decorated sliding doors.
According to legend Kobodashi is still alive, in eternal meditation in his mausoleum. Local Budhists bring him breakfast and lunch every day and have done for 1200 years. Around this mausoleum is an extensive graveyard with over 250,000 tombs/graves. The path from the entrance is over 2km long. The tombs contain only the throat vertebrae of the deceased, and whole families share a grave. The rest of the body is cremated and kept somewhere near the family home. People from all over Japan have graves at the Koyasan graveyard. We even saw a tomb for a space rocket maker (so all the dead rockets can rest in peace), a Nissan grave for workers who died at work and also a grave for termites, set up by an extermination firm that kills them.
We also popped into Torodo, the Lantern Hall. This was started when a lady couldn't afford to make a donation to the temple, and instead donated a lantern. There are now thousands of lanterns with the names of the deceased on them that are kept always lit (looked to me like they were lit with light bulbs, but it was extremely pretty).
Back to the monastery for a meditation session. We had to breath counting only to ten and then start again (so it doesn't become a competition with yourself), sitting cross legged, and eyes half open, half closed, so you can't look at things, but also can't fall asleep. Then you want to make your internal world join with the external world to become one. I managed to not drop off and achieved a dead leg.
Back to the room and changing for dinner, a proper Buddhist dinner, totally vegetarian (indeed, even vegan), sitting on the floor, with some hot sake to wash it down.
After dinner we went on the night tour of the graveyard with a monk to guide us. IT was very cold and atmospheric going through the graveyard at night, and we learned a few interesting bits of information, but there were a lot of people in the group, and overall I'm not sure it was worth the money and a self guided walk would have been just as good.
Coming back from the tour I broke away from the group for some more photos and some peace and quiet. It was incredibly quiet there with no noise at all, apart from the occasional chittering and squealing of flying squirrels up in the trees.
Next morning we were up early for the morning Buddhist ceremony and chanting, followed by the fire ceremony where your wishes are written on pieces of wood and burnt with incense to make them come true.
From there it was back to Osaka briefly and then a bullet train to Hiroshima.
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| Ice cream in a bun - it's a thing. |
Next day we headed up to Kyoasan, a mountain village where Japanese Esoteric Buddhism was founded 1200 years ago. Kobodashi, the man who founded it, studied Buddhism in China and brought it back to Japan, and also created the Hiragana and Katakana characters that Japanese people still use today for writing.
We were staying in a monastery that had a real authentic feel. The beds were foutons on the floor, and there were paper sliding doors everywhere. We got youkata (robes) to wear around the monastery and they were quite comfortable
Off out for an explore of some of the 117 temples in the village and our first stop was cherry blossom!! Proper authentic Japanese cherry blossom. Turns out that I did manage to see some cherry blossom in China, up near the Great Wall, but I wasn't sure if that was actually cherry.
Next stop was the EasyJet Stupa. That's not it's proper name, but you look at it and tell me it's not appropriate!
This next temple is the headquarters of the Esoteric Buddhists and was filled with many gardens and rooms with beautifully decorated sliding doors.
According to legend Kobodashi is still alive, in eternal meditation in his mausoleum. Local Budhists bring him breakfast and lunch every day and have done for 1200 years. Around this mausoleum is an extensive graveyard with over 250,000 tombs/graves. The path from the entrance is over 2km long. The tombs contain only the throat vertebrae of the deceased, and whole families share a grave. The rest of the body is cremated and kept somewhere near the family home. People from all over Japan have graves at the Koyasan graveyard. We even saw a tomb for a space rocket maker (so all the dead rockets can rest in peace), a Nissan grave for workers who died at work and also a grave for termites, set up by an extermination firm that kills them.
We also popped into Torodo, the Lantern Hall. This was started when a lady couldn't afford to make a donation to the temple, and instead donated a lantern. There are now thousands of lanterns with the names of the deceased on them that are kept always lit (looked to me like they were lit with light bulbs, but it was extremely pretty).
Back to the monastery for a meditation session. We had to breath counting only to ten and then start again (so it doesn't become a competition with yourself), sitting cross legged, and eyes half open, half closed, so you can't look at things, but also can't fall asleep. Then you want to make your internal world join with the external world to become one. I managed to not drop off and achieved a dead leg.
Back to the room and changing for dinner, a proper Buddhist dinner, totally vegetarian (indeed, even vegan), sitting on the floor, with some hot sake to wash it down.
After dinner we went on the night tour of the graveyard with a monk to guide us. IT was very cold and atmospheric going through the graveyard at night, and we learned a few interesting bits of information, but there were a lot of people in the group, and overall I'm not sure it was worth the money and a self guided walk would have been just as good.
Coming back from the tour I broke away from the group for some more photos and some peace and quiet. It was incredibly quiet there with no noise at all, apart from the occasional chittering and squealing of flying squirrels up in the trees.
Next morning we were up early for the morning Buddhist ceremony and chanting, followed by the fire ceremony where your wishes are written on pieces of wood and burnt with incense to make them come true.
From there it was back to Osaka briefly and then a bullet train to Hiroshima.
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