Up Mount Koya - "Koyasan"

Japanese houses

We left the Osaka hotel at 9 am and followed Mingi along the street and down into the subway.  After the subway we changed to a suburban train, then again to one which took us out of the city and up into the mountains to a height of about 400 metres.  A cable car then took over and hauled us up a steep grade to about 800 metres altitude, and a slow bus took us the last leg into the little town.  It rained most of the morning, but the mountain scenery was quite spectacular.  Not alpine, but very steep mountains and narrow valleys, clad in lush green forests and bamboo.  It was interesting observing the styles of Japanese houses flashing by, and we notices that many had small rice paddies as well as more familiar vegetable gardens.

Stupa

We walked to our new accommodation, the "Ekoin" (Eco-Inn?) monastery, run by monks (obviously!).  The town is a very popular Japanese tourism and religious destination as it is the world seat of the Japanese Shingon branch of Bhuddism, and the monks run many of these traditional accommodation houses.  Now we know about toilet slippers, and Japanese-style toilets, and communal bathing rules.  Had lunch together at a local eatery, then toured the temples and stupas in the town.  Stupas are the wooden shrines (of all sizes) which are found all over Japan, but especially in Koyasan.  The most spectacular is a huge orange one.  Towards dusk we explored the famous graveyard, the largest in Japan with thousands of tombs.

Okunoin graveyard

Back at the Ekoin Sue took the plunge and had a hot bath - the only one to do so as it turned out.  Dinner was a Japanese vegetarian meal provided by the monks, which we all attended in our traditional robes (left-over-right, not right-over-left).  Our limbs struggled to cope with eating Japanese-style, seated on the floor (at least for us more senior members of the group).

Dinner

Aaah

Back in our rooms we found futons and pillows had appeared.  A very welcome sight given my aching back!  We slept on the floor like this just two nights in Japan - every other night was in standard hotel accommodation.  It was quite comfortable, and the floor mats are clean because no-one ever walks on them in their shoes (well, almost no-one).

The inn is one of the few places we will encounter with free wi-fi.  Updated our blogs, and read online about about the magnitude 7 earthquake near Wellington!