Holiday in Japan (Day 9)

We were up later than usual today. We had no towels, so we could not have a shower, though I am not sure that I would have wanted one given the general filthiness of the place. We left at 9.30 and into another 'sunKus,' which we had located the previous night. I bought a drink and we asked for directions to the Nankin train line. We walked for a while and eventually came upon Nakamozu station, again. We found the entrance, bought a ticket straight through to Kōya-san, and then headed for the bakery: ‘Maplies’. I had an apple pie, James a chocolate croissant. We got on the train, which was a local stopping service, and ate our snacks. We changed at Kitano to a rapid express, to speed the journey up, somewhat

The journey up the mountainside was along a single track and was windy. The train crawled slowly upwards. At Gokuroku-bashi everyone got onto the ‘cable-car,’ though this was, in fact, a train on a 45° slope, pulled up the mountainside. At the top, we caught the bus to Ichino-hashi and entered our temple, one of 53 offering accommodation. A young man greeted us and bayed us enter. We filled in a form, before being taken through a dark hall, and up some stairs to our room: 宝生卅三 (Honshō 33 - Ratnasambhava 33). It was a largish room with a sliding door partition and had a balcony with a view down to the pond below. The tokonoma (alcove) was complete with calligraphic scroll and we had okashi (cakes) to go with our tea. There was even a TV in the room.

We went out a found a nearby place for lunch. We had tempura. Mine was a soba, and James an udon. After, we walked to Okunoin, the largest graveyard in Japan with over 500,000 tombs. It was quite impressive, buried inside a forest. There were some odd graves, though: one with a rocket ship on top, another with a Nissan badge, and one for Yakult. It seems that companies keep communal shrines for their (ex-)workers here.

There was a large temple building at the far end, where a monk was chanting ad a few people were kneeling in the ceremony. The building was covered in lanterns, inside and out, each numbered. There were over 500 around the eaves, three in a row.

By now, I could barely walk and we crawled along, though that is probably the best speed for taking in such a grandiose place. We finally arrived back and relaxed for a while with tea and a cake. Unfortunately, another English speaking family moved in next to us, disturbing our peace. Then, just as we were about to go for a pre-dinner bath, they nipped in front of us. We had a shave nonetheless and waited for them to finish. We eventually went down to find that nobody was there, so we had a wash, although the bath was far too hot to get in. We dressed and a 5.30 a monk came round calling us to dinner. “Dinner, desu,” he said, combining both languages.

The four rooms on our floor ate together downstairs in one room. An American family of four from Colorado, one son, one daughter, sat next to us and an Australian guy and an American girl from Toronto took up their seats at the opposite end. We were served a vegetarian feast: rice, soup, tempura (though no fish) with sauce, tofu, a spongy-like substance (possibly more tofu) with green beans, a mushroom and squash in a bowl, another with vegetables in a ginger soup, some solid, flat squares of black, mame (sweet beans), crunchy vegetable things, tea, and an orange. We chatted for a while about Japanese people, onsen, and sports. Altogether, we spent an hour there.

It was raining by the time we finished eating, and the family of four had planned to go and visit the lantern temple, as supposedly it is very pretty in the dark. I do not think that they got too far. We returned to our room, where the beds had been made, to relax before bed.