Feb. 17: Mt. Koyasan Area, Umeda, and Namba

We awoke early the next morning in order to attend the chanting ceremony of the monks.  Rushing to wash our faces in the freezing morning, we stopped short when we reached the outer corridors and found snow on the ground.  The temperature had dropped overnight to below freezing, so we were all grateful that we had packed our long underwear and scarves.

The monks chanted in a small, dimly lit room with crimson walls; tall, ornate lanterns; and huge figures of Buddhist saints painted on the walls.  We sat on the floor in front of the raised dais where the monks sat, breathing in the heavy incense in the air and shivering a bit from the cold.  The ceremony was amazing -- the monks chanted for about 45 minutes without stop, and most of them did not have any books or references beyond their own memory.  At one point in the chanting, the one native Japanese man watching the ceremony knelt before the pot of incense burning in front of the dais, bowed, added a pinch of incense to the pot, and bowed again.  He then motioned for one of our students to follow his lead.  Proudly we watched as our Wilcox student followed his lead, and eventually almost every student participated in the ceremony.

Upon leaving the ceremonial room, we were greeted with one of the most beautiful sights on the trip: a courtyard where the trees, sand patterns, rock sculptures, and rooftops were covered with snow.  The sun had risen while we were in the ceremonial room, so the new light reflected brightly off of the flakes of white falling softly from the sky.

We ate a quick breakfast again on two rows of trays in the eating hall, packed our bags, and said good-bye to our gracious host.  Then we were off to explore the town on top of Koyasan.  Our first stop was a square with several old wooden Japanese temples.  Our students splashed the cold temple water on their fingers in a ritual cleansing -- water so cold that it hung in icicles on the cup utensils.

Then we visited the largest temple, a huge orange structure.  A television camera met us at this temple, taping our rounds of the sites and occasionally asking our students to say a few words in Japanese, which they accomplished admirably well.  We entered the huge orange temple, looked around at the large statues of Buddha, and then rubbed spices on our hands as we left.

Our next stop was a tour of the cemetery at Koya, the largest in Japan with an estimated 200,000-500,000 graves.  This is a sacred site because it is nearby the cave where Kobo Daishi is said to be still sitting in a cave in meditation, praying for the world.  We spent a long time meandering through these graves, seeing such dignitaries as Toyotomi Hideoshi and Oda Nobunaga, two major figures in the civil war period before the Tokugawa shogunate.

We saw a well about which our tour guide said, "If you look in this well and do not see your face, you will die within three years;" luckily we could all see our faces.

We also saw a wishing-box: a large, sturdy wooden box with a hole big enough for one arm to enter.  In the box was a higher platform, a lower platform, and a large rock; if you could lift the rock with one hand from the lower platform to the higher one, your wish would come true (one of our young ladies was able to lift the rock, much to the chagrin of the rest of the group who was not able to lift it).

Finally we reached the shrine at the gates of the pathway leading to the cave in which Kobo Daishi sits.  We stopped for a few moments in contemplation, then started back the long walk to the cemetery entrance.  As we were walking back, snow began falling again, drifting onto our jackets and hair.

Coming out of the cold snow and long walk of the cemetery, we found a nearby ramen noodle shop, a real godsend out of the damp cold.  These noodles were probably the best we had ever tasted right after walking through the icy cemetery paths.  After warming up for a bit, we again hopped on a series of trains that took us back to Osaka.

After a little time settling down in our beautiful, clean youth hostel rooms, we again headed out for Umeda.  The main attraction at Umeda was a giant shopping mall with a huge red Ferris wheel at the top of the building.

Some of us spent some time quietly taking in the sights of busy, crowded, neon Umeda from this great height.



Others immediately began shopping in the six stories of stores.  A third group headed out towards the huge Pokemon store nearby.  When we met again a couple of hours later, everyone was happy, especially the Pokemon group, who arrived carrying huge bags of Pokemon plush toys.

Then we were off to Namba, another part of Osaka crowded with neon letters and brightly lit signs.

Although we were given free time to choose our dinner, most of us followed Will and Hurley Sensei to eat okonomiyaki, a kind of Japanese pizza made of a fried noodle pattie with delicious toppings on a hot plate.

Happy and full, we returned to the hostel and went to sleep.