Day 13 - Miyajima to Koyasan

Today we managed to cover almost every type of public transport possible in Japan to get to our next destination, a Buddhist Monastery in a small place called Koyasan, south of Osaka. We had an early start for this epic journey, that took us by foot from our hotel to Miajima Ferry, ferry across bay to Miyajimaguchi Station, local train to Hiroshima Station, Shinkansen to Shin-Osaka Station, subway train to Namba Station, a local express train to Hasimoto Station, then a local slow train to Gokorakubadhi Station, a funicular cable car up a mountain to Koyasan Station, a bus to Karukayado-mae and then a final walk to Komyo-in Temple (Pilgrim's Lodge).

We left the hotel this morning about 7am and got to our monastery about 1.45pm. So, not bad going for that number of transfers... They whole process of getting here from Namba Station was very streamlined and geared to get lots of 'pilgrims' up the mountain as smoothly as possible. Very easy to navigate they whole way though. I think only the things that threw us a little was the fact there were two separate stations when we got off the ferry and the totally unusual lack of an easily found toilet in Osaka Station (don't worry, we eventually found one).

The final bus dropped us only a short walk to the monastery towards the far end of the village we are in. After checking into the monastery, we walked back up the beginning of the village to visit a temple complex with a very, very, huge pagoda. From there we wended our way back down through the village main street looking at sights (more temples, usually) and stopping in shops to mooch around looking at souvenirs. Our end goal for the walk was the cemetery that this place is renowned for. Nestled in amongst a forest of ancient looking trees, the path through the cemetery goes for 2 kms and houses over 200,000 grave shrines/mausoleums. It was almost magical just wandering through as dusk was creeping in and darkness fell....

Then it started raining, so we hot-footed it back to the monastery to get out of the rain and make sure we made it in time to change into our yukatas for dinner at 6pm.

Dinner was another Japanese feast, this time completely vegetarian. We were pretty hungry by this stage as we had only grabbed food from a konbini on the way here, and hadn't eaten very much all day. So, I think we did justice to the meal this time!

Next on the schedule was a group meditation at 7.30 for half an hour and then an onsen bath before bed.

I normally meditate lying down, completely relaxed. This meditation had us sitting cross legged with straight backs. This was fine for a few minutes, but I was very happy when the bell rang to signal the end of the meditation. Thank goodness for the hot onsen afterwards is all I can say....Read more