Japan: Day 3 and 4
Jun. 3rd, 2006 10:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rose_of_painBah, well, still no sign of any of the other guys and whether or not they have their pictures. And I really just need to go ahead and do the rest of the reports before I forget stuff. This part will unfortunantly have no pictures since, like I said before, I didn't have my camera during this part of the trip. Which sucks because it's probably the most interesting part of the trip in my opinion. So I was really hoping to have Jordan's pictures. Ah well.
Day 3: Mt. Koya-san
Traveling: from Tokyo hotel to Tokyo subway, to bullet train to Osaka, to regular train, to cable car up mountain, to bus to monastary
Most of day 3 was spent just traveling. We did A LOT of traveling. Before we left, we made sure to get bento lunches because we would be spending 3 hours on the bullet train. And man, that was fun. It was cool just seeing it coming into the terminal. Jordan even got pictures of it arriving. I was pretty depressed for quite a bit of the day about leaving my camera in the hotel though as I realized it when we were in the subway and still in Ginza even but Holly-sensei was afraid if we went back to get it, it might delay us too long. As it ended up, we probably could've gotten it. Ah well. Instead she called the hotel later and had them send it to the hotel in Kyoto. But anyways, so we spent the next 3 hours on the bullet train. We slept some and chatted mostly.
Then we arrived in Osaka, whee! We were going through the train terminal there and I was immediately regretting we weren't staying at all there because I really wanted to as just the train station area was just really awesome. And right away I managed to find a Takarazuka flyer and grabbed it. XP Holly-sensei looked over the performances but said they didn't really fit into our plans so we wouldn't be able to go. ;_; Suckage. But at least I got a pretty flyer for my wall. So then we then continued on to the next train and got to go through a lot of Osaka and then left civilization and headed up into the moutain. By the time we got to the last station on that train, there was a total of one other person besides us on the train. XP Considering it was like a Friday at the time and all and pretty remote. Then we got on to this rather cool looking cable car. Once again, really wish I had Jordan's pictures to show you as he took pictures of it too. Brennan said it reminded him of the thing you take when going into the Golden Saucer in FF7. XP The terrain we saw outside the windows while going up was absolutely beautiful.
So then we got to the top and then got on a bus to take us into the town of Koya-san. Basically the place is monk town. XP Seriously. Everything revolves around the Buddhist monastaries and whatnot. And there were quite a number of them too. This is the place that Kukai founded after all. So then we got to the monastary that we were going to be staying at and met Kurto-san, our Sweedish monk. XP Who also speaks english, japanese, german, and I think italien? Oh and french as I recall! He took us to our rooms where we would spend the next two nights. And so yes, we got to stay in traditional japanese rooms with the sliding doors and the tatami mats with futons and all that. The guys were split into two rooms and I shared a room with Holly-sensei. Then we found out that we were indeed going to have to take traditional japanese style baths. XP That was a bit of a surprise but hey, gotta go for the whole experience after all. So before dinner we all went to do that. It was a bit...uh...odd. ^^; But the hot water did feel really nice though I could only handle it for so long before it got just a bit too hot for me.
Then we changed into the yukata and haori they had for us and went to dinner. Hee, we all looked quite cool in our outfits and I know Holly had Kurto-san take a number of pictures of us so eventually I'll have those to show. The dinner was vegetarian of course but it was like extremly fancy vegetarian food of really high quality. The monks don't eat meals like that. It's only prepared for their guests as they have people visit them like we did quite often. We weren't the only ones there too. There were some Japanese, some French peeps, and a few other Americans. Though we were the only ones that got the grand tour by Kurto-san. The food was very nice though some of it was a bit too rich for me or too sweet. And gotta say, I had my full of tofu by the end of this trip. lol I think we had tofu in like every possible cooked way by the end. Brad-sensei and Holly-sensei had some beer with their meals. Holly only had a little while Brad had quite a bit and as Chris ended up next to him, it was Chris' responsibility to refill Brad's cup each time. And then Brad even took the rest of the bottle back to the room with him. XP Not much else happened after that. We just talked during the meal. We were mostly quiet so it was just mostly Kurt and Brad talking. Then we went back to the rooms and chilled and fell in love with the soft futons. Hee. And then went to bed.
Day 4: Mt. Koya-san Tour
Traveling: LOTS of walking
Our sleeping schedules were all out of wack ever since we got to Japan of course. So it was quite often that we'd end up waking up really early and have a hard time going back to sleep. Welp, this day we had to wake up early anyways for the ceremony but a number of us still managed to wake up before everyone else. After going to the bathroom, I enjoyed the view from the windows outside our rooms for a while and talked to James and Jordan as they woke up. They claimed to have heard a strange animal early in the morning which I must've been dead asleep for. They said it started purring..then snoring..then whistling. ^^;; The rest of us figured they probably heard a mix of things and just got confused. But they claimed it was the same creature and were determined to figure out what it was. So thus began the biggest inside joke of the trip. We all later decided that it must've been the Pocari. Since we kept seeing the Pocari Sweat drink all over the place and kept wondering what a Pocari was so this must've been the answer of course. XP
We went to the morning fire ceremony, which was a very awesome experience. We got to go into their ritual room and had the pine-scented incense put on our hands and then Kurto-san explained a little to us before it began. There was a lot of chanting and it really was quite peaceful. They even let us participate by having us offer tea to one of the shrines and inscense to the shrine they had for Koba-daichi (who I think is Kukai? Unless I got mistaken. I really didn't know that much compared to the others in our group. Jordan and I were kinda the clueless ones when it came to this. ^^;). Then after that we had another vegatarian meal for breakfast and Kurto-san prepared for taking us around Koya-san. He ended up spending pretty much the whole day with us, giving us this nice tour and explaining things in great detail. A LOT of detail actually to the point I got a little tired of hearing him talk at times. ^^; Ya know, for a monk, he certainly talks a lot. o_o;
We did a lot of walking and went to a lot of the shrines on Koya-san. It was raining most of the day but that gave it a nice eerie effect and it was only raining lightly anyways. It was rather cool walking through clouds since I know that we were high enough up that the fog we went through was actually low clouds. XP Awesome-ness. But anyways, we stopped at one point to have some coffee, tea, and/or hot chocolate at a cute little cafe place. Then we went to the Gala and went into all the really awesome big Pagodas. There was some amazing shrines in them though we weren't allowed to take any pictures of them. Some really nice Buddha statues and Kurto-san explained each of the different statues significance and such. We also went into several little mueseums where he gave us long like 20 minute lectures on each statue as we were in this room. ^^; I think we all got tired of standing though so the fact that the 2nd room had seats made us happy and we sat while listening (or zoning out like I was ^^;;) to him explain the mandalas on the wall and such. Sadly I really don't remember much of what he talked about as I just kept zoning out and really got tired of standing in one place for too long throughout most of the day. But the stuff we saw was really amazing and there were absolutely beautiful buildings and pagodas we went into. And we were taught how to do the proper praying rituals so we could do that as well.
We ate lunch in this nice restaurant and since we were such a big group, we got to have the tatami mats in the back so that was cool. I wanted to try Kitsune Udon this time as they had it and the last noodle place we went to only had it with Sobe so I had Tanuki Udon that time. XP So this time I got the Kitsune. Really I did this just for the names. lol And Jordan did too and took pictures of them as well. Then after that we trekked over to the biggest graveyard in Japan and I think they said it was the biggest in the world, but I'm not sure. But it was this really awesome incredible graveyard! And at the end it led to Kobai-daichi's grave. It was just really really awesome and the atmosphere was amazing. Some of the trees there were really huge and ancient. *_* There were so many ancient graves too. And it costs a lot to get your gravestone put in there so really only the higher-ups were in here. Holly and Jordan spazzed over finding the gravestone of the first big Kabuki actor. And I got really excited when we found both Hideyoshi's and Noboununga's (ah crap, I know I spelled that wrong but it's late and my brain isn't functioning). And a lot of the big Buddhist scholars as well of course. There were some shops that we bought charms at as well and I bought one for good health. lol Then we continued on to Kobai-daichi's grave. They had a rather big temple for him and there were lots of japanese coming to pay their respects. And Kurto-san taught us the chant to say and that was rather cool getting to do that. And as Brad said, "Wow, you really do feel better after doing that." Not sure why, but it's true. ^^;
Then we headed back down a different path and went by all the newer graves there. There were a lot for big companies and they had some rather amusing grave sites. UCC, the big coffee company in Japan had one with marble coffee cups on it with brown marble coffee inside them. We even looked to see for ourselves after Holly told us it was there. XP I was too short and so had to jump to see though. x_x And there was also another one that had a spaceship. We joked that we needed to find Sony's if they had one so we could all pay homage to it. And Brennan said "Maybe we'll get like a PS3 or something if we do that!" XPXP But we did not find one even if there was one there. Ah well. As it was quite a long walk to get to the graveyard, we decided to head back shortly after so we could make it back to the monastary in time for dinner. And there we had another great veggie meal though we didn't have enough time to bathe before this one this time. A number of the guys decided to have sake with their dinner this time and so there was quite the amusing session of refilling each other's cups. Brennan drank a lot as I was next to him and we were all kinda "Uh...you should stop" though he kept claiming it doesn't affect him and well, he did seem to be fine after all. So who knew. lol
Then afterwards Brad wanted to take us to go see the grand gates at the entrance to Koya-san so we had a pleasant walk through the town at night, complete with a visit to an ice cream vending machine. lol The gates were indeed really impressive. ^^ Though they had a lot of construction going on behind them from the looks of it. We had some rather nice conversations on the way to and back as well. A lot of geeky conversations for the most part. lol And talk about the Pocari again. We were debating on what it would look like and how the guys should try to capture it. When we got back, it was after 9 so we weren't sure if we could bathe or not since that's when the monks were given permission to bathe so we didn't want to impose on them. But Holly and I realized that we could still take our's since there was like only one or two nuns. And our feet really hurt so it felt really good. Both times we used the bath, we ended up with this other japanese guest woman being in there at the same time and asking all these questions. o_o; It was kinda odd how she always ended up in there at the same time we did. ^^;;; But the guys didn't get to take a bath as they went to see if it was busy and it was so they gave up. By the time Holly and I came back, they were all passed out on their futons. We had left the connecting doors open when we left so that's why we were able to see them all sprawled out on top of the futons with their clothes still on, passed out. lol It was amusing. Especially Brennan as he fell asleep with his feet partially in our room so we closed the door on his foot. XP Well, as good as we could at least til he finally woke up and moved it. ^^;
We left for Kyoto the next day but did stay for the morning ceremony and breakfast but that counts as part of day 5 so I'll wait til the next report and end here.
~Lyn
Day 3: Mt. Koya-san
Traveling: from Tokyo hotel to Tokyo subway, to bullet train to Osaka, to regular train, to cable car up mountain, to bus to monastary
Most of day 3 was spent just traveling. We did A LOT of traveling. Before we left, we made sure to get bento lunches because we would be spending 3 hours on the bullet train. And man, that was fun. It was cool just seeing it coming into the terminal. Jordan even got pictures of it arriving. I was pretty depressed for quite a bit of the day about leaving my camera in the hotel though as I realized it when we were in the subway and still in Ginza even but Holly-sensei was afraid if we went back to get it, it might delay us too long. As it ended up, we probably could've gotten it. Ah well. Instead she called the hotel later and had them send it to the hotel in Kyoto. But anyways, so we spent the next 3 hours on the bullet train. We slept some and chatted mostly.
Then we arrived in Osaka, whee! We were going through the train terminal there and I was immediately regretting we weren't staying at all there because I really wanted to as just the train station area was just really awesome. And right away I managed to find a Takarazuka flyer and grabbed it. XP Holly-sensei looked over the performances but said they didn't really fit into our plans so we wouldn't be able to go. ;_; Suckage. But at least I got a pretty flyer for my wall. So then we then continued on to the next train and got to go through a lot of Osaka and then left civilization and headed up into the moutain. By the time we got to the last station on that train, there was a total of one other person besides us on the train. XP Considering it was like a Friday at the time and all and pretty remote. Then we got on to this rather cool looking cable car. Once again, really wish I had Jordan's pictures to show you as he took pictures of it too. Brennan said it reminded him of the thing you take when going into the Golden Saucer in FF7. XP The terrain we saw outside the windows while going up was absolutely beautiful.
So then we got to the top and then got on a bus to take us into the town of Koya-san. Basically the place is monk town. XP Seriously. Everything revolves around the Buddhist monastaries and whatnot. And there were quite a number of them too. This is the place that Kukai founded after all. So then we got to the monastary that we were going to be staying at and met Kurto-san, our Sweedish monk. XP Who also speaks english, japanese, german, and I think italien? Oh and french as I recall! He took us to our rooms where we would spend the next two nights. And so yes, we got to stay in traditional japanese rooms with the sliding doors and the tatami mats with futons and all that. The guys were split into two rooms and I shared a room with Holly-sensei. Then we found out that we were indeed going to have to take traditional japanese style baths. XP That was a bit of a surprise but hey, gotta go for the whole experience after all. So before dinner we all went to do that. It was a bit...uh...odd. ^^; But the hot water did feel really nice though I could only handle it for so long before it got just a bit too hot for me.
Then we changed into the yukata and haori they had for us and went to dinner. Hee, we all looked quite cool in our outfits and I know Holly had Kurto-san take a number of pictures of us so eventually I'll have those to show. The dinner was vegetarian of course but it was like extremly fancy vegetarian food of really high quality. The monks don't eat meals like that. It's only prepared for their guests as they have people visit them like we did quite often. We weren't the only ones there too. There were some Japanese, some French peeps, and a few other Americans. Though we were the only ones that got the grand tour by Kurto-san. The food was very nice though some of it was a bit too rich for me or too sweet. And gotta say, I had my full of tofu by the end of this trip. lol I think we had tofu in like every possible cooked way by the end. Brad-sensei and Holly-sensei had some beer with their meals. Holly only had a little while Brad had quite a bit and as Chris ended up next to him, it was Chris' responsibility to refill Brad's cup each time. And then Brad even took the rest of the bottle back to the room with him. XP Not much else happened after that. We just talked during the meal. We were mostly quiet so it was just mostly Kurt and Brad talking. Then we went back to the rooms and chilled and fell in love with the soft futons. Hee. And then went to bed.
Day 4: Mt. Koya-san Tour
Traveling: LOTS of walking
Our sleeping schedules were all out of wack ever since we got to Japan of course. So it was quite often that we'd end up waking up really early and have a hard time going back to sleep. Welp, this day we had to wake up early anyways for the ceremony but a number of us still managed to wake up before everyone else. After going to the bathroom, I enjoyed the view from the windows outside our rooms for a while and talked to James and Jordan as they woke up. They claimed to have heard a strange animal early in the morning which I must've been dead asleep for. They said it started purring..then snoring..then whistling. ^^;; The rest of us figured they probably heard a mix of things and just got confused. But they claimed it was the same creature and were determined to figure out what it was. So thus began the biggest inside joke of the trip. We all later decided that it must've been the Pocari. Since we kept seeing the Pocari Sweat drink all over the place and kept wondering what a Pocari was so this must've been the answer of course. XP
We went to the morning fire ceremony, which was a very awesome experience. We got to go into their ritual room and had the pine-scented incense put on our hands and then Kurto-san explained a little to us before it began. There was a lot of chanting and it really was quite peaceful. They even let us participate by having us offer tea to one of the shrines and inscense to the shrine they had for Koba-daichi (who I think is Kukai? Unless I got mistaken. I really didn't know that much compared to the others in our group. Jordan and I were kinda the clueless ones when it came to this. ^^;). Then after that we had another vegatarian meal for breakfast and Kurto-san prepared for taking us around Koya-san. He ended up spending pretty much the whole day with us, giving us this nice tour and explaining things in great detail. A LOT of detail actually to the point I got a little tired of hearing him talk at times. ^^; Ya know, for a monk, he certainly talks a lot. o_o;
We did a lot of walking and went to a lot of the shrines on Koya-san. It was raining most of the day but that gave it a nice eerie effect and it was only raining lightly anyways. It was rather cool walking through clouds since I know that we were high enough up that the fog we went through was actually low clouds. XP Awesome-ness. But anyways, we stopped at one point to have some coffee, tea, and/or hot chocolate at a cute little cafe place. Then we went to the Gala and went into all the really awesome big Pagodas. There was some amazing shrines in them though we weren't allowed to take any pictures of them. Some really nice Buddha statues and Kurto-san explained each of the different statues significance and such. We also went into several little mueseums where he gave us long like 20 minute lectures on each statue as we were in this room. ^^; I think we all got tired of standing though so the fact that the 2nd room had seats made us happy and we sat while listening (or zoning out like I was ^^;;) to him explain the mandalas on the wall and such. Sadly I really don't remember much of what he talked about as I just kept zoning out and really got tired of standing in one place for too long throughout most of the day. But the stuff we saw was really amazing and there were absolutely beautiful buildings and pagodas we went into. And we were taught how to do the proper praying rituals so we could do that as well.
We ate lunch in this nice restaurant and since we were such a big group, we got to have the tatami mats in the back so that was cool. I wanted to try Kitsune Udon this time as they had it and the last noodle place we went to only had it with Sobe so I had Tanuki Udon that time. XP So this time I got the Kitsune. Really I did this just for the names. lol And Jordan did too and took pictures of them as well. Then after that we trekked over to the biggest graveyard in Japan and I think they said it was the biggest in the world, but I'm not sure. But it was this really awesome incredible graveyard! And at the end it led to Kobai-daichi's grave. It was just really really awesome and the atmosphere was amazing. Some of the trees there were really huge and ancient. *_* There were so many ancient graves too. And it costs a lot to get your gravestone put in there so really only the higher-ups were in here. Holly and Jordan spazzed over finding the gravestone of the first big Kabuki actor. And I got really excited when we found both Hideyoshi's and Noboununga's (ah crap, I know I spelled that wrong but it's late and my brain isn't functioning). And a lot of the big Buddhist scholars as well of course. There were some shops that we bought charms at as well and I bought one for good health. lol Then we continued on to Kobai-daichi's grave. They had a rather big temple for him and there were lots of japanese coming to pay their respects. And Kurto-san taught us the chant to say and that was rather cool getting to do that. And as Brad said, "Wow, you really do feel better after doing that." Not sure why, but it's true. ^^;
Then we headed back down a different path and went by all the newer graves there. There were a lot for big companies and they had some rather amusing grave sites. UCC, the big coffee company in Japan had one with marble coffee cups on it with brown marble coffee inside them. We even looked to see for ourselves after Holly told us it was there. XP I was too short and so had to jump to see though. x_x And there was also another one that had a spaceship. We joked that we needed to find Sony's if they had one so we could all pay homage to it. And Brennan said "Maybe we'll get like a PS3 or something if we do that!" XPXP But we did not find one even if there was one there. Ah well. As it was quite a long walk to get to the graveyard, we decided to head back shortly after so we could make it back to the monastary in time for dinner. And there we had another great veggie meal though we didn't have enough time to bathe before this one this time. A number of the guys decided to have sake with their dinner this time and so there was quite the amusing session of refilling each other's cups. Brennan drank a lot as I was next to him and we were all kinda "Uh...you should stop" though he kept claiming it doesn't affect him and well, he did seem to be fine after all. So who knew. lol
Then afterwards Brad wanted to take us to go see the grand gates at the entrance to Koya-san so we had a pleasant walk through the town at night, complete with a visit to an ice cream vending machine. lol The gates were indeed really impressive. ^^ Though they had a lot of construction going on behind them from the looks of it. We had some rather nice conversations on the way to and back as well. A lot of geeky conversations for the most part. lol And talk about the Pocari again. We were debating on what it would look like and how the guys should try to capture it. When we got back, it was after 9 so we weren't sure if we could bathe or not since that's when the monks were given permission to bathe so we didn't want to impose on them. But Holly and I realized that we could still take our's since there was like only one or two nuns. And our feet really hurt so it felt really good. Both times we used the bath, we ended up with this other japanese guest woman being in there at the same time and asking all these questions. o_o; It was kinda odd how she always ended up in there at the same time we did. ^^;;; But the guys didn't get to take a bath as they went to see if it was busy and it was so they gave up. By the time Holly and I came back, they were all passed out on their futons. We had left the connecting doors open when we left so that's why we were able to see them all sprawled out on top of the futons with their clothes still on, passed out. lol It was amusing. Especially Brennan as he fell asleep with his feet partially in our room so we closed the door on his foot. XP Well, as good as we could at least til he finally woke up and moved it. ^^;
We left for Kyoto the next day but did stay for the morning ceremony and breakfast but that counts as part of day 5 so I'll wait til the next report and end here.
~Lyn
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-06-04 09:30 am (UTC)