From the top of a mountain to the bottom of the ocean
The morning started off bright and early with a 6 am Buddhist service. Part of the appeal of staying at a temple on Mount Koya is taking part in their morning service, which is quite an experience. Shojoshin-in, one of the oldest temples in Koyasan, was originally built over 1,150 years ago by Kukai himself (aka Kobodaishi, the founder of Koyasan), which made the service feel that much more authentic. The dimly lit temple was filled with laquerware boxes (that I assume housed scriptures), golden flowers, candles and other glittering ritual implements. The majority of the ceremony featured the monks chanting in unison and ringing an altar bell and cymbals. It was very peaceful and moving, more so than I expected it to be. Following the ceremony we ate a delicious breakfast and got the day started with a trip back to Okunoin cemetery.
It was great to get back here during the day when we could enjoy the beauty with the sun peeking through the trees and illuminating the 200,000 tombstones. There isn’t much I can say to explain just how amazing this place is, so you’ll have to check out the pictures. Seeing it both at night and during the day was the right way, the contrast alone was worth it.
After Okunoin we walked back to Kongobuji, the head temple at Koyasan, to enter and view the painted sliding screens that it is famous for. There were no photos allowed inside, but trust me when I say that the screens are well worth the few dollars admission. I love the style of painting, so simple and minimalist and yet so beautiful. One of the highlights of Kongobuji is the rock garden, reputedly the largest in Japan. It is said to represent a pair of dragons in a sea of clouds, and is impressive both for its scale and beauty.
From here we headed down the mountain on the long journey back to Osaka, where we checked in to our last hotel. Namba station in Osaka is HUGE, and is the most confusing station we’ve been in yet. It was no problem getting to the hotel (which is atop Namba station), but we’ve left the hotel several times since and each time has been an adventure finding our way back again. This station has multiple full scale malls inside, both below (two levels of stores) and above, which adds to the confusion. Pretty crazy. After checking in we made a quick trip over to Osaka Castle, one of the largest tourist draws in the city. It is a rather peculiar place, having been built in 1931 (originally built in 1580, it has been destroyed and rebuilt a number of times since), it looks like a real castle from a distance, but the closer you get the more you see the “modern” accents. We didn’t climb the steps to the top, but we did grab some ice cream and a bench to take in the action around the castle.
After the castle we moved on to Kaiyukan, Osaka’s aquarium which is one of the world’s largest. The aquarium focuses on the Pacific Ocean and is unique in that you enter on the 6th floor and then spiral down to the bottom around an absolutely massive inner tank. We saw a whole bunch of excellent critters, all of whom seemed out and posing for pictures.
By far the most impressive sight were the two whale sharks. I’ve never seen one other than in pictures, and they are giant! These two are the largest fish in captivity in the world. They were so big that you almost didn’t notice the rays in the same tank with 9 foot wing spans. We watched these guys swim around for quite awhile, they are so graceful for being such large animals and they seem to float in a beautiful slow motion.
At the very bottom of the aquarium was the second thing we came to see, the giant crabs. Looking like prehistoric spiders with legs that can reach 9 feet, they were certainly a stark contrast to the gliding whale sharks. From here it was on to the souvenir shop, which was excellent and very reasonably priced. Unsurprisingly they had a whole section devoted to snacks! Speaking of which, we left the aquarium in search of dinner, which was much harder to find than we expected. Osaka is known for its love of food, but everywhere we looked there wasn’t a restaurant to be found! I guess we were looking in the wrong places, so we headed back to our hotel where there are plenty of places close by. Sommer has been wanting a pizza, so we located an Italian place which was fun because it gave us a chance to see what the Japanese version of Italian is. For instance, apparently Italians love Doritos, because that was the appetizer. Strange. From there we did a little walking around the city, which is considerably different than both Tokyo and Kyoto. It actually has a very Western feel to it. Fortunately it didn’t take too long to find a robot, though.
The highlight of the trip back was definitely the drunk businessman on the subway, doing his best to remain upright. His friends weren’t much help as they had appeared to have been drinking alongside him. I am happy to report he was able to hang on and make it to his station.
