Wally Nes’ Blog

There were two destinations with my parents that I visited that I really wanted to share with Raphaëlle. This was the first. Koya san was the other.

As has been mentioned in the blog entry regarding the parental visit, Koya san is a Holy mountain and centre of Shingon Buddhism for Japan.

For being 2.5 hours away from Osaka Koya san manages to be quite in the middle of nowhere. The access method requires a long trainride through the country followed by a long trainride through the mountains, with stunning scenery I may add, topped off by a cable car ride up the mountainside. This sees you to a charming . . . station. After that you still need a 10 minute bus-ride to get you to town. Koyasan is a town built entirely around the buddhist temples there. And, unfortunately, the tourist that flock there.

That means that this little spot on earth has a really REALLY high concentration of really nice and beatiful temples. These temples are sprawled all over town and most of the viewable ones are positioned on the west side of town. These temples have some excellent paintwork done on the inside, though it is forbidden to photograph or sketch these so you’ll have to go without pictures of it and some of them come with their own stone garden. While I visited them with my parents last time in twilight, I got to see some of the structures in full glory this weekend. The gardens (not the stone ones) were in full regalia and even the ponds muscled in on the colour extravaganza. A most inspiring surrounding for some Zen action.

Having seen some of the structures at night fully illuminated I of course took aelle out for a quick tour of this (had to be back before 9. Those temples keep strict curviews) and because I’d seen them I did not take my camera. Of course on that night there would happen to be a festival in town, so we got to see some traditional dancing and music (eventhough everything but the drumbeat came from a DJ booth). I have a video on my mobile but . . . I’ll see what it looks like before posting.

On the east this leaves room for the graveyard. This graveyard is where any Japanese buddhist worth a damn is burried. You know, real important buddhist. That do spiritual stuff. And other important things like . . . euhm.
It is important to be properly respectfull in a place such as this. You should purify yourself with water. And then purify the resident buddhas.

No demeaning or disrespectful manners should be displayed while in this sanctuary. Damn, buddha is FUCKING METAL man.

One should always try to be like buddha. Which, I suppose explains a few things in Thailand.

While Raph still had a 3rd day to spend I would be reporting to work at 08:30 the next day so we had to leave this blessed place behind and return to Osaka for one last night together. And the chance of some vegan icecream.

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They say travel broadens the mind, I reckon I could pull mine out of my ears and knot it under my chin

- Nanny Ogg

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 1:32 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.