Koyasan & Torodo Hall

This morning I woke up feeling more tired than I had done since we’ve arrived, .. I just don’t know.. I got enough sleep but I barely wanted to move.. and Jesse really did put up with a lot of random snaps this morning – he was lovely and patient and I got over my snappiness by midday or so.

Our travels today took us to a quaint mountain town, not unlike South Park, about 2 hours south of Osaka. We managed to get on the right trains the whole time, which was wonderful – and we then got to ride a ‘cable car’, which was more like a train sloped at a 45 degree angle the whole way.

Here we are, incredibly confused, at the train station, followed by a very interestingly designed train.

As the train neared the destination – it actually started climbing the mountain, for about 30 minutes or so we were noticeably going up… and the views were truly spectacular, beautiful forestry and tiny towns that were so cute.. the photos just don’t do them justice.

When we finally reached the town, we decided to stop and have a bite to eat before entering the temple/graveyard area. Thankfully there were pictures, so we were able to point to a dish that looked like chicken, rice and gravy. It turned out to be chicken, rice and curry and was absolutely bloody amazing.. I ate the whole thing with chopsticks even though a spoon was provided.. it was yummo.

The graveyard itself was definitely a sight to see.. of course though photography was prohibited in the most impressive areas. Nonetheless, we snapped as many as we could. Unfortunately, once again, there was very little English lettering so we weren’t able to truly soak in what we were seeing, just a lot of beautiful monuments built over graves I believe.

We went inside Torodo Hall, at the end, there was weird loud music being played..it provided a very ‘religious’ atmosphere, I guess. Inside, we could only go a few metres in, and behind the rail was.. well, I don’t really know what.. a lot. Of like.. ornaments.. decorations.. statues.. a few people sitting cross legged. And where we were, people were coming in and throwing their coins into these big bins, then bowing, and walking out – so we decided to do the same. Respectfully, of course.. there was certainly no element of us making fun at anything. At first I was a little afraid in case I would do something that is rude, but in the end I decided I do not intend to be rude so I went ahead and did it. On the way out of the hall, an English-speaking monk gave us both a bit of incense powder and told us to rub it in our hands, he told us it would ‘purify’ us.  

We mosey’d on back to the bus, then to the cable car, and to the train station. At the train station, I needed to go number 2.. and there was no Western-style toilets. Yes, I squatted over a hole in the ground – it was.. difficult, hah.. thankfully there were bars to hold onto so I didn't need to be overly concerned about balance.

Here is some of the cable car journey down the mountain..

Enough about that, I slept on the train on the way home while Jesse played iPhone games.. we were very relieved and happy to return in Momodani – that we decided to celebrate with a McDonalds meal and a stroll along the local mall. I bought a 105 yen pair of socks for tomorrow – we haven’t washed any clothes since arriving and unfortunately all my socks are dirty – our feet are rank. What surprises me most is Jesse happily wearing unwashed clothes and skipping his twice-a-day shower routine.

Three rumours I am happy to confirm for now..

1. There really are, vending machines, absolutely everywhere. Think of a rural, remote town, on top of a mountain, yep.. now picture vending machines every 100 metres or so. (How do they stock them all?!) These things are everywhere
2. They really do say ‘mooshi mooshi’ when they answer their phones.
3. At religious places, and graveyards, locals truly do 'offer’ things to their ‘gods’ or.. I’m not sure.. but like, today we saw money left at graves.. and at Shittennoji Temple we saw cans of drink, bags of chips, snacks.. Jesse even spotted a beer today, offered to the gods. It’s very interesting.

We are still tired, and a bit smelly, but hopefully tonight we will both get a very solid rest.

Here is our photo album for today

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