Up On a Mountain, Praying in a Temple

This past weekend, Colleen and I went to Koya-San, which is in Wakayama Prefecture. Koya-san ("Mt. Koya") is about 1KM above sea level and the center of Shingon Buddhism which was founded by Kukai/Kobo Daishi in 819 (they say that he is the guy who created hiragana, now THAT is a person to sing praises to!).

In order to get to Koya-San via public transportation (twisting up a mountain in a car? I have done that twice and both times I feared for my life), Colleen and I did the following:

1) Keihan Line Rapid Express Train from Demachiyanagi Station in Kyoto to Yodoyabashi Station in Osaka (literally end to end): 1 hour
2) Transfer to Osaka Subway Midosuji Line to Namba: 15 minutes
3) Take the Nankai Dentetsu Rapid Express train from Namba to Gokurakubashi Station: 90 minutes
4) Cable car from Gokurakubashi Station to Koya Station all the way at the top of the mountain: 5 minutes.

But wait! There is more. When Colleen and I got to Namba Station, we just missed the 11am train to Hashimoto Station (which is on the Nankai Line) which connects to a train that goes further down the line to Gokurakubashi Station, so we had to wait an hour. All in all it took us about 4 hours to get there (and even the same amount of time coming back for some reason even though the train from Gokurakubashi was direct to Namba and we made all the connections with less than 5 minutes in between). The great thing is that to promote tourism, there is a special "Koya-San Free Pass" that includes round-trip train tickets, 2 day bus pass, discounts on some temples and souveneir shops for only 2780yen. Killer.

So all in all, 5 connections, 4 trains, 3 cities, 2 prefectures and a cable-car near a mountain tree.

The scenery was very nice. Like my trip to Shirahama, I got the chance to see the countryside, or the inaka. And it was downright proper inaka, especially after Hashimoto Station; the train began to snake its way up the mountain and since it was so precarious, there is only one line of track for a two way train system. How does that work? Well, the track divides into two at the stations so I guess they station masters and all other parties involved just keep an eye out so that opposing trains pass by each other at the stations and not play chicken on the mountainside. But that is only really between Hashimoto and Gokurakubashi.

The coolest part was the cable car ride. If you suffer from a fear of heights or vertigo, even taking the train up the mountain gives you some interesting sights (such as very steep drops). The mountain is so steep that the design of the cable car is actually slanted; imagine something like a moving staircase, and that was how the cable car was designed. Literally. I felt like I was on a theme park ride.

To my surprise, Koya-san isn't just a complex of Buddhist monasteries with some things to cater to the tourists here and there; it's a right proper town. "Holy crap," I thought, "I am REALLY in the inaka. Cooooool!" When you live in the city, especially in a foreign country, you learn to appreciate the chances that you have to actually get outside of it. Another awesome thing is, Koya-san is so inaka (at least for me) that I got to FINALLY see this for real: the old-school Japanese mailbox.There wasn't even a 100yen shop to be found!
Because Koya-san is so high, the weather is a bit different; it's cooler. In the summer, people come here in droves because down below is so damn hot. It's sorta like my dad's hometown in Greece. No mosquitoes, but a lot of bugs. Also, because of the nature of the town - Buddhist friendly - everything shuts down around 6pm. Colleen and I learned that the hard way when we went out to get some dinner, luckily there was a small cafe open.

Our check-in was at 4pm so we had some time to kill. We both packed light, but it is annoying to lug stuff about but we trudged on, making reservations for Buddhist vegetarian cuisine at the tourist office for one of the smaller temples the next day. Lay people can actually stay at the temples (its called "shukubo" or "temple lodgings") but it was really expensive. Koya-san can be done in a day but with the 4 hour trip, that's alot of stress. So, we made reservations at the Koya-San Youth Hostel.

Before we could go to the hostel, we went to Kongobu-ji (which has the CLEANEST bathroom I have ever seen at a temple in Japan), which was constructed in 1593 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and the main temple at Koya-San. It's also the location of the largest rock garden in Japan. We had to take our shoes off, which was a common theme for the weekend and quite annoying for me because I wore my sneakers, thinking that because of the weather (it was going to rain) and the fact that we would be doing alot of walking, while my suede loafers were pretty decent, sneakers would do the job better. I forgot that like Himeji, really really old places (and even the new Treasure Museum in Koya-San) make you take your shoes off. No contest.

When we finished with Kongobu-ji and the time to check in came, we headed over to the youth hostel. Youth hostel it is NOT. More like a mom-and-pop run budget ryokan (traditional Japanese inn); maybe the association with the YHA helps bring the prices down, maybe the Japanese idea of a youth hostel (especially in this neck of the woods) is different, but Colleen and I lucked out from here to kingdom come. First, while it had that settled in look and the bathing room/bathrooms were not private it was clean and very well-maintained. Second, our room had a view of the garden AND had painted screens (it was called the "Tea Room" - walking around the house before we finally checked in, I saw that the room was open and prayed that we would have that room and we did) and third, it gave us a really good breakfast. Cost? About 4400yen for the night. That was less than 40USD. After dinner, Colleen and I settled in our room and chilled out and read, though the ladies in the room next door to us were bloody insomniacs and acted like over-caffeinated junior high school students.

The next day, it was raining. No matter really; we were both prepared and it was a good chance to check out the umbrella-worthiness of my parasol, without doing too much damage to it. Result? I think I will use as an umbrella when it doesn't rain that hard, given the fabric of it. There are more umbrella-like parasols (at OPA!) that I intend to get. We had breakfast in the main room, checked out (more like telling the owner, "Thank you for having us, we are leaving!" and the owner responding, "Take care!"), put our stuff in a locker at the tourist office and trekked off. Even though it was about 8:30am, the town was up and running. First stop was the Treasure Museum, which had on display a ton of Buddhist art dating all the way back to the Heian period (started in 794, if I remember correctly) till about the mid-twentieth century. At one point, the place was so quiet, so empty and so filled with Buddhist statues that I felt like any minute they would come alive a la Tomb Raider.

To continue with the creepy aura of the day, the fog was rolling in. Good thing it was in the morning and not in the evening; fog + Buddhist temples = mega creepy aura. Colleen, ever the stout San Franciscan, exclaimed that the weather reminded her of home; me the somewhat wary New Yorker, just tried to keep an eye of my surroundings. As you can see, I wasn't amused. Luckily - and rather strangely - the sun came out but the weather was like a light switch: on-off, on-off. At one point, the weather was still cool, but the sun was blaring; so, I re-opened my parasol and commissioned it once again to sun-blocking duty. It also had to dry, since I was paranoid about ruining it.

We hit the Garan, which is a series of temples and stupas - one of which Kobo Daishi lived in and saw a lot of tourists and pilgrims, many of which were praying to the empty buildings. What was interesting was that unlike the circuses of students and tourists that I see at Buddhist temples in Kyoto, while Koya-San is a bit touristy, it's very hardcore Buddhist. No circuses (of the hokey sort that you see at Kin- and Ginkaku-ji's) of any kind here. Even at the museum, there were boxes for monetary offerings in front of the statues; if there wasn't there was a small group of coins in its stead. We also went to the Daimon (literally "Great Gate") which is on the opposite end of Koya-San, near the highway that runs into the town. We wanted to check out the Tokugawa Mausoleum, but it was cutting close to 12 and we had to make time to get to lunch.

Lunch was Buddhist vegetarian at Muryoko-in, one of the smaller temples. Colleen and I both got the cheapest one and were amazed at the amount of food - we thought it would be like regular Japanese fare: alot of money, but barely nothing or freaky stuff. It was delicious. While at Muryoko-in, we both agreed that where we stayed was much better.

After lunch, we headed to Okuno-in, a big draw at Koya-san for tourists, pilgrims and mourners alike. Mourners? Okuno-in is the largest Buddhist graveyard in Japan. Thank god there was no fog, just alot of sun when we went. It was so crowded! The graveyard went into the woods, and the much older graves were further inside; I'm guessing that over time, the graveyeard spread closer to the road, obviously. The kicker were some of the company graves. One was mistranslated as "White Ant Memorial" - while the kanji literally mean "white ant," it's actually "Termite Memorial." The exterminating company built it to apologize for killing the termites. My favorite one was UCC - UCC is a coffee company, so part of their grave (for former employees) was a big stone coffee cup. Even Nissan had one, completely festooned with the logo, just like the ones on the cars.

Walking through the graveyard was a bit sad though; here and there (and at times everywhere) there were small statues with bibs and knit caps. They were "jizo" - statues built in honor of a dead child. Jizo is actually a Buddhist deity who protects children, especially those who died before their parents. I saw some statues with chocolate bars and other toys and things that were pretty new, so I could sense the relative closeness of the jizo statue - it wasn't just something that took place in the past. (Side note - they can also be for aborted children; I won't go into politics here, but I will just say what I read once in this book called "Being A Broad In Japan" (which is a book for foreign women in Japan): according to the account of one foreign woman, putting up a "jizo" helped her with coping with the decision that she made.The values system is just different here, as compared to the US.)

You could get a sense of how old the place was with the moss growing on most of the older graves which were closer to the main temple. It spite of the robustness and the din emanating from the throngs of people, you could still sense the tinge of melancholy.

After Okuno-in, Colleen and I headed back to Kyoto. Four hours later, we were back in the 'hood and proceeded to have falafel, kebab and pita at Falafel Garden, a local Israeli restaurant. Given that Greek/Turkish/Israeli/Mediterranean/Middle Eastern food is pretty similar, it's the closest to Greek food that I can get in Kyoto (without me having to make it). The kebab that evening tasted particularly delicious; with summer around the corner, the backyard garden was open. I felt like I was back in Astoria.