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!

Naoshima- the unknown island of modern art

Unless you're someone like Ori and do a thorough research job before traveling, you would have never heard of Naoshima. In fact, every Japanese person we've spoken to thus far had not heard of it. When we started planning the trip, Ori sent me a link to review and see if Im interested in stopping there.

This is what I saw - 

How could I say no? And island full of modern art -paintings, statues and architecture. Btw, I want to take photo credit for the above - its not from the above mentioned website. As every day of this honeymoon unfolds, I am amazed at all the things that we are seeing in person after reading about them and seeing photos on the internet. This pumpkin is but one such example. 

Though we saw it later in the day, you'll forgive me if I skip ahead and tell you about what happened here to make it all that much more surreal. As we are standing by the pumpkin, which is situation at the end of a narrow dock, there were a few other people there. We each took turns taking photos so as not to photobomb each other. There was the Japanese couple (currently unseen as they are on the other side of the pumpkin during the taking of this picture, and three Chinese women. Ori and I finished taking our photos and looking around and generally enjoying the experience. We turned away to walk towards the bus station and heard a big splash. I looked back, and as you might have guessed, one of the Chinese women had stepped backwards and stepped off the deck into the water. I quickly reached over and pulled her back up. The odd thing was that her friends, while standing around didn't reach for her purse, or glasses or jacket or whatever the other thing was that was under water by the time I saw it. The poor woman (and her friends) were shocked. But there was nothing else I could have done to help, so I went to Ori (who had been too far out during the excitement) and we went to the bus. Crazy!

Ok, back to the start of the day. 

We woke up early in Hiroshima and said goodbye to Masa and his family. His wonderful wife had made us breakfast to go because we were leaving so early. She even included juice boxes and a box of chocolate chip cookies (Ori was very happy with those cookies). We took the subway to the JR, the JR to a ferry and the ferry to the Island of Naoshima. The view from the ferry was beautiful - little islands and beaches spotted the water way. As we docked, we saw the first of the pumpkins, the red one. And the fun began.

We decided we could walk the entire route and didnt want to take the bus so that we would get the full enjoyment of the scenery. We sure did get the full experience. It was hot, and the route was mountainous and did I mention hot? A man pulled over and offered us a ride up the mountain. If it was further along the way, i might have said yes. But as it was the start and I didnt know how steep it was we politely thanked him and declined. We passed the water lilly garden - installed there in imitation of Monet's water lillies (displayed in a nearby museum), and saw crazy architecture. We walked around the Benesse art museum, which included both art in the form of paintings, statues, installations and architecture. And then we walked out to the beach and the park and picniced between the funky art.

After our picnic is when we walked to the big yellow pumkin and my life saving skills were put to action (ok, maybe her life was not in danger, but still).

We then wandered around the old town and visited some temples and saw tori after tori after tori.

We took the ferry back not wanting to get to Okayama too late in the day. We're really trying to make the best of our time here. Not only checking off touristy attractions but taking it all in. Sitting in a hotel room is a waste, but walking around town, seeing the statues. Watching people interact with each other. Continually being amazed at how clean Japan is. And so much more. Thats what our trip is all about. We see pegople cleaning the space between escalators - you know the gap between the upstairs and the downstairs ? They go over that with a broom every day. There are no garbage bins anywhere, but neither is there any garbage. Im just trying to think of what would happen if Israel got rid of the bins. Hmm, maybe I shouldnt think of that. Happy thoughts only on a honeymoon.

Anyways, back to the day. We got to Okayama and found the hotel. I wanted to send out our laundry to be done, but nope,wont be available until the following day at 19:00. But I could use the machines on the fifth floor. Great (NOT!) I took all our laundry, bought a packet of laundry soap and started the machine. 35 minutes later I came back to put in the dryer and though the machine had finished, it hadnt been emptied out. I waited, and waited, but the owner did not come back. I went upstairs, feeling silly sitting around in the tiny laundry room. I came back downstairs a few minutes later only to find the reception desk guy with a bag of my laundry. The rude guy who hadnt emptied the dryer had come back with a second load. He had the receptionist take out my stuff so that he could use the machine. I had to go down to reception to get the bags and come back to use the dryer. Go explain the situation in Japanese. I was furious. I told them all it was NOT NICE! Big words in Japan. They apologized profusely but did nothing to correct the situation. The fact I was hungry did not help the situation. And the dryer? It sucked. I kept putting in coin after coin and coming back every 15 minutes (that was all it allowed). FInally, I got so frustrated, I took out the heavy stuff to hang around the bedroom and split up the rest between the two dryers. And thats was I call and Israeli occupation. :) 

We finally went out looking for something to eat (i think it was 9:45ish). Both of us in our backpackin finery as everything else was being dried.  Who would have thought finding vegetarian or non pork would be so difficult? Vegetarians and Vegans out there (Kosher, ha!), do not come to Okayama - there's nothing to eat here. We finally found a ramen place that served chicken nuggets and noodles without the soup (soup is usually pork based). We draggedd ourselves back to the hotel and went to sleep, frustrated with the laundry but at least not hungry.

Plus, we were excited to get to Koyasan the next day. Another one of those experiences we'd read about and planned for so long that was going to actually take place. 

Unbelievable!