My weekend in Wakayamano Koyasan

The Trip to Wakayama

The trip to Wakayama was long, and we had a very late start in the morning. However, we did manage to get to the prefecture and up a long mountain road to ‘Koyasan’, which is a famous mountain area chock full of Buddhist Temples in Wakayama prefecture. The leaves were spectacular, but man oh man was the weather COLD.

First thing we did was walk around a temple area and see lots of old Buddhist temples, new ones (since 99.9% of Buddhist temples seem to burn down multiple times) and lots of statues of Buddha, Bodhisatva and other friends as well. The weather was quite nice that day, and it was cool seeing some of the JETs I’d met at the airport in LA or at the Tokyo Conference in July! Everyone took plenty of pictures and nothing else is worth writing about.

The Temple

That night we went to a Buddhist temple where we would stay the night. We all crowded into a spacious dining area and feasted on delicious vegan foods prepared by the monks. It was a wide assortment of tastes and colours. The Swiss Buddhist monk who was our MC for the evening mentioned that the meals always must have 5 flavours. There were indeed, at least 4. I may not be the biggest fan in the world of TOFU, but it wasn’t half bad, not half bad at all. We also indulged on BEER which was twice as good as half bad! After that, we all went over to a facility on the 2nd floor and made PRAYER BEADS! This sounds like some sort of rehab retreat by now, but I swear it isn’t… My beads are pink and many of the beads list good qualities and qualities that could be improved upon. After that, it was time for a hot soak in the bathing area, which was tiny, but emptied of most JETs after about an hour and a half of waiting around. It was freezing cold in the temple, but the bathwater warmed everyone up just enough that we didn’t die before we got to the futons. I shared a room with my carpool (Desi, Andy, Marina and Kristin, who came from Sonobe). It was cozy.

The next morning we woke up at quarter to 6am to take part in a meditation ceremony downstairs. The room was cold and everyone was exhausted, so I don’t think anyone stayed the entire hour and a half, but it was definitely interesting! The monks chanted and some lit candles or incense. We had the opportunity to walk around and view the chanting area and candle area from all sides. It was really cool!

The Graveyard

After the meditation and a light (and delicious) breakfast, the group of us went over to a famous graveyard in Koyasan to… look at tombstones! Japanese tombstones are very different than Western ones, of course, but it never occurred to me before I arrived in Japan. Japanese stones are generally shaped like Shinto lamps (I’m sure I’m not correct in calling them that), and they are set up in more of a shrine area up some stairs and grouped in families or like causes. They are much less creepy than western cemeteries, … and there is a noticeable lack of zombies.

Nothing too terribly interesting, aside from some lighthearted stories about suicide, betrayal, and samurai killings. Although there was a blowfish shaped tombstone (it seriously looks like a cartoon blowfish) that was for the deaths of people who ate the poisoned part of blowfish sushi (fugu). Unbelievably awesome. The only other aspect of the tour that I can recall is HOW COLD IT WAS. I think it just dropped into the lower 40’s without warning and everyone was numb and cranky by the end of the two hours. We all wandered over for some hot lunch before calling it a day and driving home.

The Trip Home

The only thing notable about our trip home is that it took us 9.5 hours to get back to Mineyama. Why, you ask? The reason is that we got lost in Osaka for about four hours. Easily four hours. I won’t go into it because I want to block out the memory, but there you have it. 9+ hours to get home. I didn’t even bother to try and go home to Ine since I knew that detour would be waiting for me again with open arms, and fresh tanuki/unicorn corpses. Also because my car died when I tried to start it and wouldn’t start up properly until the next morning. So, I left early the next morning and drove home only to begin a considerably shorter workweek.

Shorter because I would spend Tuesday at home with a bad fever, and because Friday is a national ‘Thanksgiving Harvest’ holiday that I can’t wait to sleep through.

Epilogue

So other than that ridiculous week, nothing much to report other than the weather, which has turned very cold and very rainy. Although, I’m fond of rain! The Japan Sea side of Japan apparently gets quite a bit of rain and snow in the cold months, so I suppose I have that to look forward to. The books don’t mention much about how much HAIL and THUNDER we get, but maybe (probably) it’s just Ine.

and now enjoy pictures of leaves for no other reason than they're pretty: