It was raining pretty good all day today in Kyoto. Looking at the forecast it looked like it would clear to the West sooner. We decided to take the bullet train in that direction for stops at the castles of Okayama and Himeji.
Okayama castle was nothing too impressive. They had nice exhibits inside, but no English so I was limited to interpret from the images. Basically, it told the same story regarding the rise of the Shogun I mentioned in the last post. There was a bridge outside the castle that was mentioned in many of the guidebooks. It was not impressive. My take is that it must have been impressive in the 1900s when it was built and the town never knew how to pivot away from it as an attraction as years went by.
We had lunch overlooking the river. It was chilly, but a welcome relief from the oppressive heat of Bangkok.
We headed back towards Kyoto on the bullet, but stopped again at Himeji. Now this was a castle!
When we left for Japan, Amy’s mom gave us a bag of coins. It was presented to me as “Japanese Money.” Unfortunately this was only partially true. I pulled it out yesterday to pay for some food with the coins. The lady handed back a few coins stating they were Chinese money. I looked through the bag and realized it was currency from all over the world. That night I removed the Euros and other English-style coinage. Today when I went to pay the castle entrance fee, they rejected my money again. This time I had tried to pay with Korean money. Damn Amy’s Mom! The ladies laughed at me, but were surprised at how similar the Korean and Japanese coins looked. I showed them my satchel of Pieces of Eight and Doubloons and asked them to separate them for me. I had to hand it to that crafty Thai lady. She had got us good with that trick.
It was late by the time we returned to Kyoto. We found another small “mom and pop” restaurant by the hotel and were treated to a fantastic Nigiri sushi meal. The wife was bubbly and generous with her sake pours. The husband was on the other side of the counter, dolling out sushi for us to try. We tried to express our appreciation for each piece by saying thank you, attempting to make eye contact. He would stare at us and then as soon as we looked up, he would look away. It was kinda funny. Then we reordered a few of the pieces we enjoyed, even though we accidentally did not select the ones we actually wanted, and he opened up and began acknowledging our appreciation. We then could not get him to shut up. He only knew about 4 words in English (3 more than us), but he went on about rice crackers. He said we should take rice crackers home as gifts to Thailand. He would say, “Oishī o senbei” (rice crackers delicious) and we said, "Hai" (Yes). Then he would say it again and we would respond accordingly. I am not joking that this went back and forth 5 times with him representing this sinister grin. Eventually I said to Amy, “is this guy fucking with us or is something wrong with him?” It reminded me of this stand-up piece from Nate Bargatze.
I wanted to say, “What’s going on right now?” but of course I did not know how to say that and I thought the subtlety of it might get lost in the google translate.
The next day we packed up our stuff and headed south to the Kii Peninsula and the Wakayama prefecture. I think we rode 3 trains, a funicular and a bus to get to the mountain town of Koyason, an active monastic center and one of Japan’s most sacred sites. We checked in the Eko-In Temple. This place was both a lodging and an active temple with meditation sessions and daily prayers.
After dropping our bags, a monk showed us around and asked what our plans were. I told him we would catch a bus tomorrow to the start of our hike. He gave an uncomfortable look my way and respectfully told me that the bus is seasonal and does not start running until the following month (April). That was a problem as it was a 5 hour bus ride, and if it was not running, it would turn the journey into a chaotic 10 hour mess of backtracking. The same monk then worked his magic and was able to secure a taxi. It did not come cheap, but when you need to lubricate the wheels in the travel itinerary, it never is. I was pissed for a bit as it was an oversight on my part. One that I rarely make with the countless hours I waste in travel prepping.
After sorting that out we walked around the city in search of a winter hat. I had lost mine somewhere in Kyoto and up hear in the mountains it was below freezing and although I enjoyed the cooler weather, it was a bit of a shock to my system. This little town was full monks and tourists, but really not terribly busy.
That evening we participated in evening meditation before dinner. I did not get much out of it because my back was not happy and sitting in that pose for more than 60 seconds, let alone the 20 minutes required, was an impossible task.
We were served a fabulous meal in our room. The variety of bowls these people use for each meal is impressive. Because this was a Buddhist temple, which teaches reverence to all living things, the meal was vegan. They sure found ways to make vegan meals tasty, but I am sure if your diet is that limited, you work hard to extract as much as you can out of what is allowed.
After dinner we all met in the lobby for a guided trip into the Koyasan cemetery. The same monk that checked us in, reserved our taxi, served our food, was now leading the excursion. This was an important religious site as at very end of the cemetery trail were the remains of their orders founder, Kobo Daishi.
Before reaching the resting place of Kobo Daishi we passed hundreds of graves. The monk explained that anyone could be buried here, regardless of religion. He also showed us that many of the headstones had an additional stone which contained a vertebra of the deceased, the second bone, or Axis bone, as we call it in the West. It resembles a figure praying and is important part of their beliefs. Once we crossed a bridge to the shrine for Kobo Daishi there was no phone use or talking. The main shrine was covered in hundreds of lanterns, each emblazoned with names of the deceased whose family donated to the cause. Obviously no pictures of this area.
We walked back to the lodging and were quick to sleep as 10pm is way past our bedtime.
The next morning before breakfast we participated in morning prayer. All the lodgers and people from other locations came to say prayers. I did not take pictures during this, but I copied a picture I found online
In the lobby they had offerings you could purchase and have placed within the temple with the names of people or entire families. On the picture above you can see them lined up on shelves on the sides.
I really just found the visitors taking pictures during the ceremony very annoying and disrespectful. After the morning prayer we moved to another location for a fire ceremony. Again, I just copied a pic below.
This ceremony was meant to drive away evil spirits and aid those with troubles. You could buy sticks and write names on them to be burned. Some of these tourists were climbing all over the room to get the perfect shot all while the monks were praying, chanting and banging symbols. I mean just take a break for 5 minutes and appreciate what this ritual means to these people and stop taking pictures. The monk is sitting there chanting and you are 2 feet away getting closeups like it is some zoo exhibit.
Here we saw some tourists making our monk “fixer” take pictures with them and a race car. This one was just funny and strange; not really me complaining like I normally do.
Our taxi picked us up and we were off. I had taken motion-sickness pills in preparation for this multi-hour event as I knew the winding mountain roads would be unkind. I was a bit concerned when I saw so much snow. We were hiking the next 2 days and I definitely did not prepare for this
At one point I woke up and the road was closed. The driver was having a conversation with construction guy, trying to, I assume, get him to allow us through. The construction guy was laughing, implying that there was no way, almost like there was a huge cliff around the bend. I then looked at my phone and realized we were way off course. For the rest of the ride I would sit in back and direct the driver where to turn at every intersection.
Around 2pm we arrived at our Ryokan in the town of Yunomine Onsen. This was the starting point for our hike, which would commence tomorrow. For today, we just explored the town and relaxed. Since the town was pretty much 10 buildings, it did not take long. The claim to fame for this place was the hot spring that ran through the main drag. They had a little outhouse next to the river where you could strip down and soak, but they also piped the water into our lodging, so I enjoyed it there.
After finding the hiking trailhead for tomorrow we grabbed lunch
At the food stand, they sold raw eggs and sweet potatoes. The idea being, you take them down to the water and boil them for personal consumption.
Amy cooked up a sweet potato, but since it took nearly an hour to finish she had to scurry out in her little kimono outfit after a bath to retrieve it. Other tourists took her for a local and asked advice.
That evening we had another well-crafted meal. I even got to keep the personalized menu
Until Tomorrow,
Darren
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