Jack and Niamh's Sabbatical Adventures

Monastery trip

Written by

Niamh Broderick

in

Before heading to Koyasan for our stay at a monastery, we checked out Kyoto castle

Some lovely cherry blossom already starting to show, and lots of little birds drinking from the flowers

We were craving Italian food so after careful research we picked a place that didn’t seem to only do ketchup on pasta. They quizzed us when we arrived on whether we knew it was Italian so clearly have had some confusion in the past 😂

The food was delicious and they even had nice wine

Then we started our journey to Koyasan, the sacred mountain

We had to get two trains to start with
Then a “cable car” which was actually a funicular (cable cars are called ropeways here)
And then from this station at 827m we got a bus along a very windy road to the town which has over 100 monasteries
At the top of the mountain everything was shrouded in clouds which made the temples even more magical
Lunch
Our traditional Japanese accommodation with paper walls and a table with a heater underneath
Jack was pleased with the vegetarian feast we were served for dinner
After dinner we walked around the cemetery
Our futon beds were ready for an early night before 6am prayers the next day
The cemetery had even more to see in the daytime, including the temple where the founding monk is supposedly still meditating since the year 859, and this pyramid of mini buddhas
You can just about see Osaka in the distance . . . Which was our next destination

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