Day 10 - Koya

A lovely, relaxed day today.

Osaka was as bright and sunny as ever, but we didn't have much time to enjoy it. We were packed and out of the apartment by 9, heading to Namba to catch the big train to Koya.

Koya is a mountain top town/temple complex and is one of the most significant Buddhist sites in all of Japan.

In order to reach it, we had to get the train, then a funicular, then a bus. Lots of effort, but totally awesome - the funicular was particularly impressive... We climbed 300 meters vertically in 5 minutes. The town itself is some 850m above sea level, so we are pretty high up!

There are two main regions of Koya - the temple region in the West, and a massive graveyard and mausoleum to the east. The town itself has only come in to being because of the two major religious sites, and the pilgrims and tourists that head here because of them.

Our accommodation was right in the middle of the two making exploring very easy.

Almost all the places to stay in Koya are monastary lodgings - our rooms are part of a functioning monastary and are run by monks. It's really beautiful and an amazing place to stay.

We headed up through the graveyard first as we had read it was very impressive. Again, we've found the the pictures don't do justice to the size, scale or magnificence of the 2km walk through to the mausoleum.

The mausoleum itself was truly breathtaking, it was surrounded by lanterns (apparently, 2 of them have been alight for the past 1000 years!) and candles and there was a load of incense burning. One of the "religious" highlights of our time here. On the other side of town, the temples were... Temples. Although there was finally a Pagoda we could go into and it was definitely worth the wait!

Dinner was served at the monastary at 5:30, so we were back early for a quick soak in the unusually deep bath, then monk dinner. This mostly involved cold vegetarian stuff although there were 2 hot soups. We had heard excellent things about the temple meals, but, seeing as I hate tofu, being served 3 big chunks of it was not ideal! However, following Ant's lead with the sushi earlier in the holiday, I gave it my best shot.

After which, we came back to our room for a lovely evening of reading, playing games and generally hanging out. An early night is in order as I hear the monks wake up EARLY!