Osaka to Koya-San, Day 2

Today we traveled from Osaka south to Koya-san on the 9:00 am, express limited.  We are now two of a group of ten plus guide, Jamie.  There are 2 couples from Australia, a couple and single women from San Francisco (friends) and another single woman from South Africa, Stellenbosch wine area.  We meet the others at 6:30 pm last night, immediately went to a "lively izakaya restaurant" for a dinner of snacks, rice and fininshing with coffee jelly.  Then snacks included eggplant chunks in broth, grape tomato with mozarella, pumpkin cube, little seashell meat, fish chunks and green peppers, raw fish with salt, chicken balls and Japanese radish, and grilled chicken with more peppers.  According to Jamie, rice is the main part of the meal and i served last; the rice was topped with seaweed and baby sardines.  After dinner, a few of us walked through the main "eat till you drop" section of Osaka, that was a buzz with young locals.  Jamie explained that this is area where the Mafia operate (though they avoid anything to do with foreigners) and where women (escorts) try to lure men into drinking high priced whiskey in bars.  The women "wipe the sweat off the patron's whiskey glass" and converse.

After breakfast and sending our luggage two days ahead, we rode the train for an hour and half to Koya-san.  It is a village town high in the mountains (3,000 ft) that is a sacred site for Buddists.  It includes the mausoleum to Kobo-Daishi, the founder of the Shingon Buddist sect.  Offerings are still made to him 1,200 years after his passing.  After arriving on the train, we along with hundreds of others got on a cable car that took us up another couple hundred of feet to a bus stop. 

We then rode a bus for few miles to an entry point to the village.  It was also the cloest point women could come to the site for most of its history.   So, the women made a trail that encircled the village, thereby allowing them to view ithe sacred area and to pray without actually entering.  We hiked this trail around the village today, pausing partway for lunch.  We ended up at a large cemetery/memorial park in which the founders mausoleum sets.  We walked up past thousands of what looked like gravesites, but are actually memorials to families, famous, wealthy and otherwise.  Today, memorials continue to be built but by large companies, such as Nissan, Panasonic and the like that honor employees who have died.  

The site includes Buddist temples, statues, and other dieties, all of which have certain specific rituals for the faithful.  The entire site is shaded by 400 to 700 year old Japanese cedar trees, which are kin to sequoias.  They are massive.

We walked through the temple, around the outside (past the mausoleum) and down into the basement.  No photography was allowed.  In the basement, there 50,000 2-inch high Budda statues, given in memory of someone.  We walked the length of the site to the center of the village and on to our inn for the night.  It is a Buddist Monastery, called Ekoin (http://ekoin.jp/  -- check it out).  We have a 12-foot square room with sliding wooden doors and paper covering.  

We will be sleeping on a tatami mat floor, on 2-inch thick futons and a "bean bag" for a pillow.  We had dinner of Buddist vegetarian fare, whcih was good, while sitting on the floor.  Betsy and I shared a hot sake.  

We then each got to join other members of our same sex for communal bathing and soaking in a heated pool ("onsens" - natural hot spring fed pools).  The pool here is naturally heated water but is pumped up from below ground to the pool, possibly not a true onsen.  Before entering the onsen/pool, one "showers" sitting on a stool - another first.  No photos of these activities.