squirmelia | Kôyasan

We counted ferris wheels spinning in the distance on the day we left Tokyo. From the window of the shinkansen, we watched patterns and colours blurring amongst the houses in the towns we sped past. Every town has a ferris wheel somewhere, we concluded. Sometimes even two.

After changing trains at Kyoto, a few hours later we were on a train that stopped at tiny stations amongst the dense forest, and then after that, a cable-car carried us into the mountains and we arrived at Kôyasan.

We had decided to stay at a temple that night, as Kôyasan is home to many Shingon Buddhist monks and apparently has over a hundred temples. We stayed at the Shojoshinin Temple, which was close to the Okunoin graveyard, Japan's largest graveyard. Before dinner, we wandered around the mossy graveyard, peering into hollow trees at effigies, looking at rows and rows of tall stone columns, and wondering who was buried there.

After dinner (shōjin ryōri - vegan food without onions or garlic), I adorned a dressing gown and headed to the women-only communal bath. Before bathing, it was necessary to wash underneath a shower type tap, but after that, I soaked naked in the large deep bath.

fluffymark apparently got to share his bath with a group of French men, but I had the female bath all to myself.

Later that night, back in the graveyard, we stumbled across a wishing tree, with yen driven into it. The main paths in the graveyard were well lit, where as other paths were dark and somewhat more spooky, hiding the red frogs we had seen earlier, as well as the insects that bit our foreheads.

At 6.30am the next morning, we attended morning prayers. The monks sang their prayers and banged gongs, amongst ornate gold decorations and incense, while we sat on a bench at the back of the room and quietly watched.