graves

We began our walk through Okunoin cemetery. It is a huge graveyard through a forest where half a million tombs are. It sounds a little creepy, but it is very serene and beautiful. It has some of the holiest places on Mt. Koya.

At the entrance to the cemetery is this little mascot for the city.  Kind of a cheerful guy, huh?

At every entrance to a temple, there is a place to wash your hands before entering.  It sure is refreshing on those very hot days!

Just look at all those lanterns!!  Beautiful!

The first part of the cemetery is the newer area.  These tombs are bought by companies and their highest executives are buried there.  There were a few bought by families also.

As you travel through the forest, the graves get very old.  I love this picture of both a lantern and statue.  

People view these statues as places where the spirits visit.  So they take care that they are not cold or hungry.  They dress them and leave food for them.  We saw one statue representing children who have died and people have left many juice boxes and treats on the statue for the visiting spirits.

They look kind of cute.

I am not sure the meaning of this one, but people have stuck coins in all of the cracks of this tree stump.  Very interesting!

This area had a line up of statues.  In front were a bunch of cups and water.  People were lined up to splash water on each statue.  Matthew couldn't resist.

At the very top of the forest was where the founder of Japanese Buddhism is buried.  Well, they actually believe he is not dead, but in a cave in deep meditation.  There is a big temple at the top in honor of him.  You could not take pictures there, but here is the pretty exit of the temple.

We passed many more graves on the way down.  I thought this one was cool.

I don't know which one this is, but we loved how this little statue was dressed.

Many of the graves were over a thousand years old.  Many key people to the ancient history of Japan are buried here.

Before we left Mt. Koya, we stopped by the temple which was the headquarters of the Buddhist church here.  Kind of like their temple square.

It had beautiful buildings.

Andrew mostly like playing in the gravel/sand.

One more drive by temple on the way out.

opening ceremonies

We got ourselves ready in the morning for our 6:00am prayer meeting. We walked to the main temple building and it had begun. We took our places at the back of the room, sitting on the benches. In front of us were some devout guests who were kneeling and chanting. In front of them were the monks leading the chanting. It was fascinating to experience the service. The continual chanting was soothing and the gongs and drums were enough to keep us awake. The service lasted about 30 minutes and then we went to the dining hall for breakfast.

Here is the room.  The monks sat cross legged at the small gold tables.  The devout guests kneeled on the red carpet and we were behind them on some benches.

Love all the lanterns.  They look really neat at night.

This was another, smaller praying area we passed on the way to breakfast.

There were serene places tucked all around the buildings.

Yes, another lantern.

Breakfast is the hardest meal here.  I have come to appreciate the vegetables - a great way to start the day, but there really isn't any of the same breakfast foods we are used to.  We have come to love the yogurts, pastries and juices we can find.

Here is Andrew looking at the offerings of the morning.  When he saw the monk who served us breakfast, he said, "Hey mom!  That is the guy from the opening ceremony!"  He was referring to our prayer meeting.  I love the way he sees things.

Lantern with moss.

There are so many beautifully trimmed trees here.

After breakfast, we cleaned ourselves up and met our friend for a walk around Mt. Koya.

Mt. Koya

We jumped on a train and met Jon's colleague at the Osaka train station. After serving in the same mission as Jon, he went to a University in Japan, married a Japanese woman and has lived many years in Japan. He now lives in the U.S., but was here for business also. He wanted to join us at our next stop - the Buddhist temple, so he was kind enough to drive us. We piled in the van and headed to Mt. Koya for the night. It was the second worst drive I have ever been on. (The first being the drive to the Sea of Galilee, but that is a different blog post.) Everyone was feeling so sick from the winding road. Two hours later, we arrived at the beautiful and serene birthplace of Japanese Buddhism.


On the drive, we found this random tower along the road.  We were intrigued, so we took the exit to find out what it was.  Turns out it was a religious building.

We were so very happy to get out of the car, and arrive at our Buddhist Temple inn.

We were once again served a fancy, traditional Japanese dinner.  We arrived just in time and hurried in to the dining hall.  The town has many buddhist temples which are run by monks.  They feed you dinner and breakfast and there is a mandatory prayer meeting you need to go to in the morning.  Because of their peace with all around them (including animals), the dinner is a vegetarian meal.  I was a little unsure what we would be served, but it was very good.

Everything is displayed so beautifully.  They take so much care with their presentation of food here.

After dinner we were excited to go to our little cottage room.  The surrounding gardens were beautiful and it was a very peaceful place to be.  This is the view from our front porch.

This is the front of the temple.

This is the entryway.

It looks very simple from the outside.

This is the short walk to our little cottage.

I really love these stone lanterns.  They are everywhere here and they are all slightly different.  

Here is a closer view of our rooms.  You can see Jon relaxing on the porch in front, on the right.   It rained for a little while, and then stopped.  Everything smelled fresh and clean.  

 

This was the main hall of our cottage, with the porch on the left and the rooms on the right.

The "living room" area.  No air conditioning, just fans.

The boys' room.

The girls' room.

Our private bath.  You fill the tub with hot water and then keep it warm with the wood covers on the left.  You shower and shampoo with the hand held shower head, then soak in the tub.

It was so nice to have so much space to ourselves.  (Especially a private bathroom!)  

baby wasps

When we came back to our inn, we hurried and got ready for dinner. We were informed that dinner started promptly at 5:00.  When we arrived in the dining room, we found a beautiful dinner set up for us.  There were a few other people dining at the same time (all guests eat at 5:00), with dividers for privacy.  They came and explained each of the things on our plates.  The fish, beef and vegetables were excellent.  Seeing a whole fish sitting in front of you is a little unappetizing, but it really was delicious.

Our main course (all the stuff above was before the main course) was meat and vegetables cooked in these personal little pots next to each of us.  I would so like to have those little pots at home!  

Maybe someday I can get some.

The delicacy of the meal was this little dish of baby wasps.  Yes, baby wasps.  He was very proud as he explained that the wasp nests were in the ground.  They dig them up and boil the wasps in a special soy sauce.  Once you get over the fact that you are eating the things that you try to get rid of all summer, they actually taste pretty decent.  We all tried them.

The dessert course is almost always fruit and maybe a little jello type creation.  We have learned to love the fruit at the end.  Watermelon is a huge hit!

These were pretty good too.  It was a rice ball coated in a soy sauce/nut mixture on a stick.  It is kind of a special regional thing.  The kids enjoyed them.

After dinner we prepared for our baths.  The baths were open only at certain times so we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity.   Luckily,  they let us lock the door so that strangers wouldn't join us as shared baths are normal at these inns.  We had a girls bathroom and a boys bathroom.

I loved the yukatas they provide for everyone to wear. 

Ali adjusted Andrew's yukata so that it would fit.

Matthew loved the bath. 

I was relieved to get clean after walking around in the hot, humid weather.

Isn't she cute?