Morning Prayer, Meditation and Kyoto, sushi

Yes, I know, its been a few days since Ive written, but they have been so full that Ive just been to exhausted to sit and write. Actually, weve been coming back to the hotel so tired and late that its all I can do to muster up the energy to shower and crawl into bed. So, back to Friday morning...

As I was saying in the last post, we wanted to wake up to observe the monks' prayer, which was to take place at 6:30am. Ori put on the alarm so we wouldnt sleep through the early prayer. Turns out, no need. At six am sharp the gong went off - many times. And up we were and on time at prayer. 

It was quite interesting - in the way that I felt like i was in synagogue. The main monk said something and the others repeated. they all chanted songs and they was some big metal bowl hit (ok, so you dont do that in synagogue, but stil). After prayer, all the monks but the head monk and our student monk left the prayer room (they took out the tatami sleeping mats out of the guests rooms and went to prepare breakfast). The head monk then led us in a meditation lesson which was translated (quite impressively) by the student monk (maybe english is becoming a job requirement?). Right hand is for Buddah and left hand is for you. put them together and thats how you take in buddah and wisdom into your heart. 

We then went back to our room and were served breakfast. Not as impressive as dinner but still fine. Soup, rice, tofu stuff, and of course green tea. Once we were all packed up we went to check out and were gifted with fortune bracelets. Bye bye Temple Yochiin.

We went walking and visited the famous cemetary in Koyasan - Oko-no-in. 

We then got on the bus to get our bags and head back to the train station - later Kyoto. Sitting on the bus, I was looking for our bus passes and couldnt find them. Ori and I have developed a habit that he carries some things and i others. Transportation passes are one of my things. I emptied pockets and my purse and couldnt find them. I asked Ori if he accidentally took them from the desk as the woman was explaining what each card was (they are not JR passes and as such not the usual comprehensive cards - no english). He insisted he didnt have them. As we were approaching our stop I asked him once again to check his pockets. Though he continued insisting that there was no way he had them, he stuck his hand into his pocket and what do you know? He first blushed and then out came his hand from his pocket with tickets. He smiled shepishly and even botherred to ask whether I had put them in his pocket. Oy. Well, at least they were found. 

Bye Koyasan. 

Back to the temple, to the bus, to the cablecar, subway, train, bus and hotel in Kyoto.

It was getting late by the time we arrived in Kyoto so we didnt do too much but managed to find a great sushi place. Probably nothing in comparison to to the quality of the fish market tuna that we had the other week in tokyo, but still yummy and the service was great and the place was full of locals as well as tourists. Later we found out that it was also recommended in the Lonely Planet book. 

Full on yummy fish, we went out to enjoy the evening. We walked around Gion and the area and even spotted a Geisha (fake up, explanation to come tomorrow).

More about the exciting stuff in Kyoto in the next entry. RIght now, Im pooped and going to bed. 

Theres so much more I have to write about - Japans toilets, and the toilet paper, womens obsession with heels, and so much more 

Stay tuned ....

Okayama garden and finally - The dreamland of Koyasan

Laundry still not dry by morning but that wont ruin our day. The sun was shining and we headed out to see one of three of Japan's finest gardens. 

As we walked to the castle and the garden, the humidity was horrible. Unfortunately, it only got unbearably worse as the day developed. The castle was very nice, traditional Japanese, but it drew less of my attention. We headed to the garden and as we entered, we were offered a free personal guided tour in English. Throughout the tour, we found out a little about our guide. He was probably some big shot general in the army running tours for the past seven years. Funny thing is that it took him a few minutes to warm up. And in those few minutes, I could feel Ori's slight frustration at agreeing for the tour. "Oy, what did we get into with this guy who doesnt know English. We're never going to get out of here within an hour." No, he didnt say any of this, but i could practically hear him say it in his head. But I'm glad we took him up on the offer of the tour as he quickly picked up the pace. He was full of interesting information and regarding the timing - he was right on. We walked through the entire garden, with visits to hidden little corners and were back at the gate within 60 minutes sharp. The Swiss ain't got nothing on the Japanese in terms of punctuality. 

I don't know what the other two (of the three best gardens in Japan) are like, but this one was beautiful. Amazingly maintained, full of history, functionality, practicality, serenity and just plain beautiful. 

After the gardens we quickly went back to the hotel, found that the laundry had finally dried, packed everything in and went to the train station. Koyasan here we come. 

But not so fast.

Subway to train. Train to another train.

Train to cablecar. Cablecar to bus. 

And finally - walk to the temple at which we were to stay the night. We were greeted by a lovely young monk in training who spok great English. He showed us our room (Ori's name was printed on a piece of paper above the sliding door. The room, or I should say rooms, or suite, was huge. We had a living room, a bedroom, and a little room with a table and chairs to enjoy the internal garden. Across the hall from our room entrance was another beautiful garden. 

We dropped our bags and ran out to tour Koyasan during the few remaining day light hours. We had to be back by 6pm for dinner, which was to be served in our tatami area (the living room). 

Koyasan is not what Ori and I imagined. I thought it was a tiny little temple in the middle of the forest to which we get to by a cable car (as thats what they call it, when in fact its actually a fenicular). Ori's imgine was alittle closer to reality, in such that he didnt realize how advanced and populated the area was. There were tour buses and souvenier shops and restaurants. Wifi in one cafe that we know of (made the mistake of going there the next morning - overpriced and bad coffee, not to mention the green tea - oy! 1000 Yen for coffee and tea - Starbucks costs less here), but probably more, seeing how many tourists there were. Its not that it was crowded, actually we didnt really feel the presense of too many people, but I imagine that during weekends and holidays there is the ability to host many more. 

We crossed the street to the Garan complex and did not expect what we saw. 

Huge temples. Massive shrines. Colours everywhere. Trees hundreds of years old. We even saw an old cherry tree which was over one thousand years old! 

The tree leaves were starting to change colours and the mix of green, red and orange just added to the special attmosphere of the place. People didn't shout, or whisper, but still, everything was quiet. As we go to some of the sites where tourists tend to go, I am happy we didn't take this trip in the spring. While I am sure I would have enjoyed seeing the cherry trees in bloom, I know I would have quickly become frustrated with the endless lines that people talk about when they speak of the spring. We are enjoying the exact oposite everywhere we go. Luckily. 

We got back to the temple just in time to take off our shoes at the temple entrance and get to the room for dinner. As we were relaxing in our room, there was a lght tap on the door - excuse me, may we serve dinner? Two monks walked in with a tower of red trays piled up. One moved the coffee table aside, set up two pillows on which to sit. They then set up two red trays in front of Ori and two in front of me. And a fifth tray on the side with a pot of tea and a covered bowl of rice. I can't properly describe how impressed and suprised Ori and I were with the beauty, colour, and quantity of food there was. There was Miso soup, Koyasan tofu in soya sauce with a bit of wasabi, vegetable tempura, something that sounds like cognac but is actually fake meat, three different relishes, different types of tofu, red beans, raw vegetables, cabbage and carrot salad with sesame sauce, and Japanese pears and grapes. And the presentation was unlike anything I had seen before. On of one of the vegetable dishes was a colourful shape of a maple leaf in something tofu like. The monk who served us went over the meal explaining each impressive dish and went as far as to explain that you eat the rice out of the rice bowl and then drink the green tea from the same bowl afterwards. 

There was so much food, even without the rice, that we couldn't finish it all. We only hope we didnt insult anyone by not finishing it. We both laid backwards for a bit after the meal as we couldn't move. 

After recovering from the meal, it was bath time. Temples dont have individual showers but shared ones. I had no idea was to expect. I took the cotton robe and belt supplied by the temple and walked to the women's bath. I had comicly referred to it as a mikveh in the past, and now, having been in both a mikveh and a Japanese bath, I can say that the Japanese take their bathing even more seriously than we do Jews. I walked in and stripped, putting my clothing in a straw basket happy to be alone in the room. Walk into the next room (sliding door) to see a big jaccuzzi at the other end of the room and before it shower heads, bowels, shampoo, body soap and upside down buckets along the two sides of the room. One is supposed to thorouly scrub and wash the body before entering the bath. There is to be no soap in the bath itself. Having done that, I tried stepping into the bath only to find the water BOILING! It took a long time to actually get into the water up to my shoulders. But once I succeeded, it felt wonderful. Think jaccuzzi inside a sauna. If it gets too hot, you step out, cool off a little with a cold shower and step back in. I don't know for how long I was in there, but when I came back to the room, I felt exhausted, red faced, but totally relaxed. I sent Ori off to do it as well. 

By 9 pm the entire temple was dark and quiet. Unbelievable that we went to bed so early, but thats exactly what happened. Not that it was such a problem. We were exhausted and had to be up to see the morning prayer at 6:30. Ori, worried we would miss it, put on the alarm clock and an alarm on his phone. We figured it wouldnt bother anyone as they would be up anyways for the prayer as well. 

Little did we know that we would be up with the hitting of the gong at 6am!