On our recent trip to Kansai we took the chance to visit the mountain area of Koyasan, which is 2 hours by train, cablecar & bus from Osaka. I read about this place in August last year on my flight from New Zealand to Japan and had wanted to go there ever since. And it certainly wasn't a disappointment! Actually, that's not 100% true, because our temple lodging turned out to be less idyllic or welcoming as expected, but apart from that I'd recommend Koyasan to any traveller to Japan. Koyasan is the spiritual center of Shingon Esoteric Buddhism, a faith with a wide following throughout Japan which was established by a priest named Kukai 1200 years ago. The summit -1000 m above sea level- is home to more than a hundred temples (see photo of the map below) and many other monuments of religious significance. While I wouldn't call myself or Vaughan particularly spiritual people, Koyasan has a unique, peaceful atmosphere that really relaxes mind and body, a great antidote to Japanese urban frenzy.
Our stay for the night: Haryo-in Temple, complete with vegetarian meals and a not-so-Zenlike view of the lavatories! They did have good onsen (baths) though and were cheaper than the other temples around, so feel free to try it out if you're in the area :-). 
My favourite spot in Koyasan and maybe even in all of Japan was Okuno-in cemetery, which is surrounded by a thick forest of massive cedars and features the Inner Sanctuary of Koyasan, Kokusai's mausoleum. We walked on these paths in the morning for two hours with hardly any people around and thoroughly enjoyed the still, sacred mood. In my humble opinion this is without competition the most impressive -and least creepy!- cemetery in the world (not that I'm a regular visitor of graveyards!).
Pilgrims on their way to the mausoleum
Prayer statues dotted the entire graveyard and I took countless pictures of them (see my Yahoo photo site for more). This one was taken by Vaughan, I love it :-).
A monk ringing the 1pm bell in the Garak temple district; it looked like hard work!
1 comment:
Very pretty & a nice change from the hustle & lights of Japanese cities. We had one of the big Zen temples next door to the high school I taught at. It was very hard to be too serious about it after seeing a couple of the monks in the local hon-ya reading mangan!
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