Koya-San, the mountain that stole my heart (among other things) - Part I

So we're going to go back in time a few weeks, to 5/15/11, when we took an overnight trip to Koya-San.

Koya-San (高野山) is a range of mountains in Wakayama prefecture. Featuring over 170 Buddhist shrines, as well as Japan's largest cemetery, Koya-San also houses Kobo Daishi. Kobo Daishi was the founder of Shingon Buddhism and is said to still be alive, in a state of eternal meditation (which he has been in since 835), protecting his followers as he awaits the arrival of bodhisattva Maitreya. Though I do not practice Buddhism, I can tell you that Koya-San is a very special place. The mountains are thick with endlessly tall pine trees, and everything was green and in bloom this year. It was a wonderful experience.

The trip to Koya-San was free for us OUSSEP students, and according to Kondo-Sensei, was paid for by the Japanese government (thank you, Japanese taxpayers!). I am a little confused by Japan because they love to bring foreigners here and show off, but on the other hand, they seem to not actually want foreigners here, or at least they don't want us to integrate... but that's another story for another day (and besides, it's nothing overt or offensive; people here are very nice).

I don't really know how to do this blog because there was just SO MUCH that I want to talk about, so I think I'm just going to do a very image-heavy blog with text and explanations where necessary/relevant. Alright, let's go.

We (M, K, L, myself and two other girls) were picked up at 9:10 AM from our dorms by a gigantic, fuchsia bus. The gigantic, fuchsia bus would become quite a welcome sight after kilometers of walking during our little journey, and it was nice to instantly be able to tell which bus was ours. The bus had already stopped at two other pick-up points, and then stopped at one final dorm to completely fill the bus with OUSSEP'ians. We were finally heading to Koya-San! I had really gotten excited about this trip as I learned more about the destination. We would be traveling three hours from Suita, into the mountains of Japan. The temperature would be about 10C cooler than Suita. We would be spending the night in an actual Buddhist shrine. We would get to experience a Japanese-style bath. We were invited to join an early-morning Buddhist prayer session. And the shrines, oh the shrines!

We stopped at the base of the mountain for lunch, and I snapped a pic of our group and our delightful bus:

Everyone gets so excited when I break out the camera. We were having lunch at a traditional-style restaurant (and it was included in our package, so we did not have to pay for it). Our seating area:

That's Kondo-sensei (one of the OUSSEP coordinators, and the professor which teaches our Intro to Japanese Society and Ideology) in the background :)

Our bento boxes (lunch!):

The contents of said bentos:

From back-left to right; slice of ham, fried potato bits, pickled something-or-other, vegetables and tofu, rice, chilled tofu with wasabi. We were also told that this particular restaurant invented miso soup, and so were very famous for their recipe. I can say it is probably the best miso soup I have ever had:

They also served us green tea, of course, and no water. No one in Japan drinks water except me. And when people in Japan DO drink water, it's out of a four-ounce glass that is 2/3rds of the way full and once emptied, never gets refilled. I carry water with me everywhere now. Anyway, here's my insane friends being insane (K on the left, L on the right):

Lunch was mostly vegetarian, save for that single slice of ham. I enjoyed most of it, and what I didn't enjoy I was fairly neutral on. It's interesting how what you're raised eating influences food preferences.

On the way out I stopped by the restroom and was surprised to find a "Western-style" toilet that is just totally unique. It's in the shape of a Japanese toilet, but you sit on it like a western toilet. And yes, I took a picture of a toilet, so sue me.

After lunch (and toilet breaks!) we headed back onto the bus and started up the mountain. Impossibly-narrow roads gave way to impossibly-narrower roads that twisted and turned in ways that I wouldn't have thought a bus could handle. Our driver was absolute pro, though, despite things that seemed like close-calls to me. It's what I imagine getting a whale through a drainpipe would be like, except said drainpipe has other motorists careening down it haphazardly. We lumbered to the top of the mountain and there were a few what-seemed-to-me-to-be VERY near misses. We almost wiped a couple of motorcycles off the damn mountain. That being said, we made it to the top safely, and I naively thought that was the scary part. Wait until we are going DOWN the mountain. THAT was the scary part.

Here's some shots of stuff at Koya-San!

We arrived at a shrine and split into two groups; each group was assigned to an English-speaking tour guide. As I mentioned, there are over 170 shrines at Koya-San, we started at the Kongobuji temple. It was quite neat, and I have some images. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside much of the shrines and temples; there are giant gold-colored Buddhas, hundred-year-old screens with hand-painted works of art on them, ancient and sacred artifacts. I wish I could share them with you, but none of us were going to disrespect the shrines or our hosts by breaking the rules, so you'll just have to use your imagination.

We were lead to the shrine stairs and of course there was a well/fountain to purify our hands with:

I of course had some of the shrine water, because for some reason I think it's neat to have water from every shrine I've visited. I can just imagine what it would be like for someone in ancient times to have traveled, by foot, hundreds of miles to visit a sacred shrine and be greeted by this cool, clean spring water used to purify one's body and quench one's thirst.

Some more photos of the shrine in question;

Gate entrance to the shrine:

Close-up of a dragon carving on the gate:

The shrine itself; it has large wooden water receptacles on the top in case of fire. Ladder for the same reason:

More dragons and woodwork detail:

The other half of the temple:

Now, I have especially fond memories of this particular temple, which I'll explain in a bit. The entrance is to the right of the above photo, and you walk in and take your shoes off and put them in a cubby and slip into house slippers. No shoes are allowed within the shrine. Ironically (trust me, it's ironic), I took this picture of my feet before putting slippers on:

We toured the inside of the shrine, and again there are very few photos we were allowed to take inside the shrine itself. We were allowed to take photos of this giant tree trunk chunk, but I'm not really sure what the story behind it was:

Some shots looking out of the shrine:

On next week's episode of Pimp My Palanquin:

Meticulously maintained grounds:

We were led through the shrine and brought to a large tatami-mat room to enjoy some tea. There was a monk who came out and talked about the shrine to the groups of people who were there, but it was all in Japanese and I didn't catch most of it. But I did get some shots of the room and the tea.

Teacups like flowers:

OUSSEP students enjoying tea:

Depictions of the Buddha:

Various shrine shots:

Japan's largest rock garden:

There's some mythology which you can read about here, but the main point that was made was that the design of the garden is of a pair of dragons emerging from a sea of clouds, and you can sort of see it if you understand what Japanese dragons look like; more like snakes than what Westerners would consider a dragon to look like.

I also got a shot of these doors which bear the Kongobuji temple's seals:

More various shots of the temple gardens:

I especially like that last photo.

Anyway, moving right along. There is more from inside this particular temple, but I could spend hours showing you images and talking about it (haven't I already?). When we came out of the temple, everyone retrieved their shoes and were ready to move on. Except, I couldn't find my shoes. There were a lot of cubbies, but I was very thorough in my search, plus I knew where I'd put my shoes. They were gone. This being just an overnight trip, I hadn't brought a change of SHOES. Sure, everything else - I'd been careful to bring extra clothes in case of a freak rainstorm or something, but no extra shoes! The temple monks loaned me a pair of house slippers which was kind of them, but they're flimsy and don't protect one's feet against the gravel we were walking on. They were also too small. Furthermore, I looked like a jackass walking around wearing temple slippers OUTSIDE, if not also looking a bit disrespectful.

Kondo-sensei and Toyono-san (the other coordinator) left a number to be contacted at at the shrine in case my shoes turned up, and we moved on to other temple grounds. I was pretty disappointed that my shoes were missing. The irony is that while I normally buy $20 shoes at Payless, I'd bought a nice pair of Nikes from Academy Sports just before I left for Japan. I knew I'd be doing a lot of walking and so I wanted a nice pair of comfortable shoes for the trip, and so I'd invested more money in these shoes than I normally would. And they were gone. I also learned that LOTS of people wear white Nikes in Japan, because once they were gone, my eyes were naturally drawn to people's footwear. So many white Nikes :(

I was trying to stay positive; I was very disappointed that my shoes had been taken, my feet were hurting because the slippers were a poor substitute, and I knew I was going to have to sink at least ￥4,000 (about $50 USD) into a new pair of shoes. Despite my irritation, I was determined not to let it ruin my trip and for the most part, was doing fairly well. A lot of people thought it was funny that my shoes got stolen, and for the first 10 minutes or so, I was capable of playing along, but after that, my capability melted away and I became somewhat irritated. The jokes finally ebbed, and I was just about feeling more confident and able to enjoy the tour when one of the other OUSSEP kids thought it would be hilarious to hide my slippers when we were inside a different shrine. And it probably was pretty funny, and I'm sure he meant no harm by it (he didn't even really hide them very far, they were tucked under some wooden slats right where we took our shoes off at - very visible had I even been looking) but when we came out of the shrine, and I saw my shoes missing, I knew I'd been punked.

Being punked on a normal day is enough to cause a person to take in a deep breath, struggle to not take it personally, and try really hard to laugh at themselves along with the others and on any other day, that would have been exactly what I did. But I was, for lack of a better term,pissed. I stood there, and was just like "Really? ...Really?" I probably looked capable of violence at that point because they were quick to point out that the slippers were right there and haha see, they didn't go very far! It's fine, it was just a joke, haha! I really don't think it was anything personal and had my actual shoes not been stolen (say, they punked me by hiding my real shoes when nothing else had happened), I would have been more capable of rolling with it but I was already feeling victimized and irritated and this just pushed almost every single button that I have. I spent the remainder of the tour in silence, keeping distance from the rest of the group. I'm not mad at anyone, I don't hate anyone, I just felt like if I said anything it would be the absolute wrong thing to say, and I was afraid of taking it out on the group and/or ruining their tour. It was just a joke, I don't think it was malicious, and I didn't want to lash out at anyone over it.

Though I was keeping my mouth shut and keeping away from people for the time being, I did get some more shots of the shrines in and various scenery; I didn't want my emotional irritation to get in the way of me enjoying the shrine. I will probably never be at Koya-San ever again, and I didn't want to lose the moment. There is definitely something magical about that place. So, I took pictures and explored a bit on my own, in my own way. Here are some of the shots I got:

One thing that I wanted to share with you, because I think it's pretty special, is a recording of the monks chanting. They were inside this building, just chanting away; please forgive the video quality, I wasn't really sure what visuals I should be (or was allowed to be) recording, so I just stood there panning around. But anyway, here's 16 seconds of Buddhist monk chanting:

I think that for now, I will leave you with that. This post is already pretty extensive. I want to share with you what our lodgings were like - we slept at a Buddhist temple, our meals and rooms prepared for us by monks. It was a very neat experience, through-and-through. Losing my shoes was a small price to pay to having enjoyed Koya-san, and I am so glad that I went. Next time, I'll tell you more about where we stayed and share the many more photos I took. I will also update my tumblr because there's 100+ pictures!