I exist only as a mundane human being.

Akutagawa Ryunosuke, “A Note to a Certain Old Friend”

14 March 2023

• Kofoku-ji Temple (10m)
• Nara Park
• Kasuga Taisha temple again (15m)
• Omizutori festival (15m)
• Sake @ Nara Izumi Yusai
• Onsen at hotel

Today took off with another slow start. I woke up at 9:30 and ate a konbini breakfast while looking at the view of the park from my window. My jeans from last night, dirty from sitting on the lawn in front of Todai-ji’s Nigatsudo (the site of Omizutori festival), came out clean from the washer. Yet the pink AIRism shirt I’d gotten at Uniqlo was ruined. Worn two times, and just like the HEATtech white shirt I’d worn in Hokkaido, became covered in stubborn stains from slurping (or rather attempting to slurp) noodles.

Very dangerous type of dish.

I hadn’t been able to find a good stain remover. Hadn’t seen one in grocery stores. Maybe I was missing something.

I had plans to meet the Polish tourist from Osaka. So I passed the time writing, until she arrived at 13:00.

Nara Park

It was a beautiful day, with no wind and a clear sky. The weather had welcomed Omizutori’s grand finale with open arms. No wonder tourists were flocking to the park.

We strolled around the park and fed the deer. It was fun, cute, and scary at the same time. They followed anyone with crackers and almost bit your finger off. But they were gentle too, somehow, and didn’t bother you if you had nothing to offer them.

The best thing was how, if you held a cracker and bowed before handing it to them, they bowed back.

We stopped by Kofukuji temple, yet another example of a pretty complex that required no more than a few minutes to explore. Then she wanted to see Kasuga Taisha, so I returned there with her.

While waiting at a pedestrian crosswalk, I nearly had a heart attack. There was a British woman who looked like J. K. Rowling. I thought I was standing next to my childhood hero.

By the time we returned to the park, it was around 15:00 – too late for lunch at the famous restaurant that was closed yesterday. Tonight’s festival was due to begin half an hour earlier, and being the grand finale, I figured the line would be huge.

So we went to the Kintetsu-Nara station area to look for some takeout. Nothing exciting much. Instead, we bought a bunch of snacks at a grocery store, and walked to the site of the festival (it was like 20-30m each way).

We did stop at a dango and matcha ice cream stall, because we were starving.

The time was 16:30. Knowing Japanese people and their love of waiting in lines, I grew slightly concerned two hours wouldn’t be enough.

They weren’t.

Omizutori Festival

We arrived not too long after the line to the yard underneath the balcony had closed. The German girl from yesterday, who had also returned for tonight’s ritual, told me she’d seen some people there as early as 13:00.

I was afraid to picture what Kyoto in peak blossoms would look like.

So instead of the yard, we marked our territory near the front row behind it by dropping our bags and laying out a towel I’d brought from my room to sit on.

I’d barely drunk any liquids today. It was hot and sunny, and I was parched. But I limited myself to a few sips. Budging from my spot would’ve cost me it.

Moreover, I’d only eaten breakfast today. Thus, it was fun, and nourishing, to sit on the road and eat snacks while waiting for two hours. We were squeezed tight by a throng of fellow tourists. A few elderly Japanese people were sitting on the tiniest foldable chairs in existence, which barely accommodated one cheek. It was like a Buddhist picnic.

Tonight’s ceremony was, as promised, more sensatinonal than yesterday. Shorter and more intense: they carried all the torches at once. The sight of all ten swirling and emitting endless sparks was unbelievable. But then it was over, as fast as it had begun.

Compared to yesterday’s long and laborious ceremony – a lot of silence and sandals stamping on wood in-between torches – tonight’s felt more like a spectacle. Which worked, in its own way. But the unbearable wait for each torch made it feel more Buddhist, in a sense. Pleasure mixed with pain.

Once over, the crowd applauded the monks, who handed out burnt sticks from each torch to a lucky few. Some of the monks looked younger than twenty.

Sake Bar

My final stop for the day was a famous sake bar. Nara was the birthplace of modern, refined sake, and this place had a glass for 250 yen. So cheap, I had to go there.

The bar was tiny. There was room for maybe seven people to stand and drink. It was just us two and like four other Japanese patrons. One of them heard me speak Japanese with the bartender, and gave me a guidebook about Nara. (“Too late,” I said, “I’ve already seen everything…”)

The Polish tourist and I shared two different kinds – the clear, light, slightly apple-y one I’d had yesterday, and a strong, milky white. I liked the latter so much, that I asked for another round.

Then I walked her to the station. She giggled because I couldn’t walk straight.

Earlier today, before heading out at 13:00, I asked the receptionist how to get to Koya-san the next day. Since this inn doubled a visitor center, the receptionist consulted them while I was out and about. When I returned at 21:00, a staff member had a whole folder for me with information printed out: 2 possible routes (with a JR pass or without), bus timetables, information on a free pass, QR codes, maps…

I ended the day with a soak at the hotel’s Onsen. A 75yo Osaka native entered it with me. Apparently, he had cycled all the way to Nara on his bike! He told me I reminded him of John Lennon. I’d only heard this one time in my life before, in ninth grade, from my grandpa.

Todays highlights: feeding deer; Omizutori festival; and getting tipsy from that strong sake.

Random thoughts:

• Japanese people are adorable. They keep telling you to be careful: there’s a car, be careful; it’s cold, be careful; it’s dark; it’s slippery; please walk slowly; please take your time…
• Every vehicle of public transportation in Japan announces which side the door will open. They love saving everyone’s time and planning ahead. They wait in line to board the train way in advance for crying out loud. Everything is organised.
• Every accommodation in Japan takes a photocopy of your passport.

15 March 2023

• 9:10-9:45 Kintetsu-Nara station to Osaka Namba station train, 10:25-12:00 Nakai Namba station to Gokurakubashi station train, 5min cable car to Koya-san, 10m bus to Koya town
• Lunch: Tsukumo (vegetables and goma-tofu, AKA sesame tofu, a local specialty)
• Daimon, Chumon gates; Garan temple complex; Reihokan museum (30m); Kongbu-ji temple (all took me 2h)
• Dinner: at the temple (Shojin Ryori, AKA Buddhist vegetarian cuisine)
• 19:00-20:30 night tour of Okuno-in cemetery

Every day, I’d been telling myself: “Today I will go to bed early. Today I will catch up on my sleep.”

It was 6 short hours, yet again. I ate breakfast hurriedly while enjoying the outlook of Nara Park from my window and then packed. This might’ve been the nicest room I’d stayed in: huge, traditional, with lots of spare blankets, and a phenomenal view.

Oddly enough, it was the first time I’d had a shower instead of a tub. And in a Japanese-style room, of all places. But the shower was big and modern, with lots of features.

Nara was also the first place in Japan where I heard more English than Japanese. An extremely popular day trip from Osaka or Kyoto. Japanese tourists thronged in the festival area, while foreigners flocked to take pictures with deer.

Koya-San

I left Nara – practically a ghost town at 9:00 on a post-festival weekday – and took the train back to Osaka. Even though I was continuing south, it was faster than taking local trains. I stopped by 7/11 for food and an ATM (temples only accepted cash), and wrote all this on the long ride to the mountain.

At one of the stops, the train conductor told the passengers at the back (myself included) to get out of the train and re-enter a car at the front. They might have detached some of the cars from that point onwards.

It was impossible to walk from the cable car to Koya town. The road was reserved for the bus only.

The first thing I did after dropping my bags at my temple was head to lunch. There was a tofu restaurant both Google and the German tourist had recommended.

It was temporarily closed.

I stood outside the restaurant, trying to figure out why Google Maps had lied. Then I heard someone call my name.

“I must be imagining,” I thought, “no one here knows me.”

I was wrong. Across the street was the Tasmanian couple I’d met in Nara two days ago. They’d just eaten lunch at a meaty restaurant down the road. And they’d eaten lunch at this tofu place yesterday, when it was open.

So that was my luck. A quick Google search showed another tofu place nearby. It turned out to be a tiny shop without much to buy. Great.

I ate at the meaty restaurant for lack of a better alternative. It was the closest one, and I was dying of famine. I got rice and vegetables and a block of sesame tofu, which was very slimy.

After that, I had 2-2.5h to sightsee Koya town before I had to return to the temple for dinner. It was all the time I needed.

Garan Temple

There were two formidable gates, symbolising the entrance to a holy place. Then, Garan temple complex, where huge Buddhas made of solid gold sat indoors. Pictures and sketches were obviously banned.

Very few tourists were around. Most of them were walking with private guides.

Even though it was like 13 degrees, I noticed some residues of snow.

Another thing I noticed was monks. Everywhere. You could see their orange robes from afar. Even monks waiting at the bus stop.

One monk at Garan was standing outside with his eyes shut and hands clapped. He looked so peaceful as he was praying at the sky. Birds were tweeting; shoes were stepping on gravel. It was one of those cultural shock moments that were so unexpected, so dazzling in their depth and simplicity, that I stared at him.

He reminded me of a moment from March 7, or rather two small moments that happened within a span of a minute. I was at the Inner Shrine, the holiest shrine in Japan. There was a red bridge with a nice view of a river – a pretty spot the tourist information centre had recommended. After taking the picture of three high school girls, they ran back to the complex, giggling all the while. They passed through a grey torii gate, turned around, bowed, and continued to run.

Right after the torii gate, there were four or five high school boys. One of them kept running back and forth between them and some giant tree. Probably on a dare or something, because they also kept laughing. I walked past them. The student ran beside me and halted next to the tree, shut his eyes, and began to pray.

I’d been thinking about this moment every day since. This combination of laughter & silly fun on the one hand, and respect & spiritualism on the other. How both could co-exist, the latter not cancelling the former in demand of a stern atmosphere.

The monk from today may have belonged to a different religion, but the impression I got from him was similar. A combination of everyday life, and something that went beyond it. Boarding a bus; stopping to pray in a patch of sunlight. A balance of the mundane and the sublime.

I didn’t know if there was any other place on Earth where people practiced this balance the same way.

Reihokan Museum

I continued to Reihokan Museum. Even there you had to take your shoes off. Everywhere in Koya-san. I shouldn’t have worn my hiking boots today.

The museum, despite being miniscule, housed the best Buddhist artworks in Japan. There were around three other visitors. Pictures were forbidden…

There was a sculpture of Kobo Daishi holding a golden ornament and a ruby necklace. It really affected me. This ancient being once lived and did things that changed the course of history. He touched the lives of millions, at the very least. And now all that remained of him was a sculpture holding expensive jewellery.

I wasn’t sure if he would’ve approved of such a depiction of him. But who knew? Humans were weak and hypocritical creatures. We claimed we didn’t need nice objects or some company, but we did. Ideals and real life were vastly different worlds.

There was a sculpture of Kujaku-myoo riding a bird. All sparkling gold. It was too much, a bit like Rococo. It made me think of excessiveness and being too much of something, whether a sculpture or a person. Being overwhelming and crossing the limit of propriety. Our attachment to earthly delights was a burden, a liability we couldn’t rid ourselves of.

Such sculptures might be religiously significant, but they were also a means of dazzling us, educating us, entertaining us. Toys didn’t have to be children’s playthings, they could be artworks and shimmering golden sculptures and experiences and people we used, only to discard. We sought attachment but formed very few meaningful connections. The world was largely superficial, and it might be because it was so big and plentiful. It was hard for something or someone to stand out from such variety and multitude.

Kongbu-ji Temple

On the way to the last temple, I ran into a Red Jizo sculpture. Its pedestal included bottles of water, fresh vegetables and fruit, and a strawberry Pocky. As I learned later today, people offered nourishment to such sculptures on a daily basis, out of belief they were still alive.

Inside Kongbu-ji temple, there was more gold. Golden sliding doors with breathtaking paintings of nature. Golden ornaments and incense offered to Kobo Daishi’s portrait. And so on.

The rock garden was the largest in Japan. The dedication and attention to detail – the gravel being perfectly straight or circular – again made wonder if monks were guilty of attachment.

I returned to my temple for the night. Every few hours in Koya-san, you could hear deep gongs coming from a temple.

The woman who checked me in had a shaved head.

My First Temple Stay

My room was enormous, way more than I’d assumed, and featured a kotatsu. Finally, I could try sleeping while using one!

Dinner at 17:00 was Shojin Ryori, completely vegan, and designed to feature five flavours, five cooking methods, and five colours. It included a grilled dish, a deep-fried dish, a pickled dish, a tofu dish, and a soup dish. For example, Koya-Dofu (freeze-dried tofu) and a tofu skin filled with mochi.

Everything was delicious. Time after time, I was reminded how staying at a traditional place that included meals was the best way to eat in Japan. All my favourite meals had been like this.

After dinner, I encountered the warmest toilet seat as of yet. It was so cosy, that I didn’t want to leave the restroom.

As I wondered how much such a washlet would cost, I noticed the tip of toilet paper had been folded to form a triangle. Needless to say, it remained unused.

I continued to the temple’s hot bath. A monk showed me the way; I bowed my usual 15 degrees as a thank-you, and then noticed that he was bowing 90 degrees. Might’ve been rude of me not to mirror him.

The bath was tiny and empty. Then two Japanese men with shaved heads showed up. The only other male guest tonight was Czech and white.

I must have taken a shower next to monks. 

Okuno-in Cemetery

Then it was time for my night tour of Okuno-in cemetery, the largest and holiest cemetery in Japan, because that was where Kobo Daishi had entered eternal meditation.

I walked to Eko-in, the biggest (and best) temple temple in Koya-san offering accommodation, where the tour would depart. There were 117 temples in town, 50 where you could stay; my temple had seven guests including me, while Eko-in had at least fifty. (In the Edo period, there were around 2,000 temples, but most had burned in thunderstorms since.)

Koya town was very easy to navigate. There was no need for a smartphone. It had one main road and a few side streets. Even waking alone at night wasn’t creepy.

The night tour attracted many visitors. I joined the Japanese language group first. The monk-guide was confused by that. So I went to the English group instead.

The cemetery was frigid and sombre. Lamps were occasional, so the guide-monk carried a flashlight. There were 2,000 overground graves, plus 3,000 underground. Anyone could be buried here, regardless of religion or ethnicity. (Renting 1 sqm for fifty years cost approximately 1 million yen.)

Japanese cedar trees lined the path, on average 200-600 years old. The oldest one, and the most menacing, was 900 years old.

It was as eerie as I’d hoped it would be, and ironically enough, I felt myself coming to life. The guide gave detailed explanations with a spark in his eyes; very enthusiastically, and quite charismatically.

We heard the high-pitched, rasping squeak of a flying squirrel. Out of Japan’s 250 samurai clans, 110 had tombs here. Stupas with five symbols, called gorinto, were omnipresent: earth, water, fire, wind, and space – the elements of the universe. The sixth symbol, consciousness, was invisible.

“Everyone goes back to nature,” the guide said, “that is the meaning. We are from the universe. And we will go back to the universe.” He smiled.

The lamps had a moon-shaped opening. “Our mind is shaped like a moon,” Kobo Daishi once said, “because it changes in shape every day.”

Also omnipresent were small statues of Jizo wearing a red bib. He was the protector of babies, hence his small and childlike appearance. Red symbolised fire, to repel evil.

Instead of flowers to the dead, people offered them pine leaves. Koya-san was the only place in Japan where they did that, due to its cold climate.

We washed the feet of several Buddhas before the third bridge and bowed to say hello to Kobo Daishi. He was believed to still be alive and meditating in his mausoleum, whose inside no one had glimpsed since 921. From here on, photos were forbidden.

There were a thousand lanterns lighting the darkness, and a monk chanting some ancient sutra in front of the mausoleum. He might’ve started a few minutes before we arrived, or hours. He went on and on without taking a break.

Kobo Daishi was the father of Japanese culture. He’d done a lot of things, which included (the ones I remembered) bringing Buddhism and udon to Japan, inventing Hiragana be Katakana, opening the first public university, finding onsens and mines, etc. Every day, he was served breakfast at 6:30 and lunch at 10:30. Ancient monks hadn’t had dinner.

While the guide was explaining all this in front of the mausoleum, and the monk was chanting loudly to no end, two tiny Japanese women began walking back and forth around us. There was a stone pillar on each side of the mausoleum: they touched one, walked to touch the other, and then back to the first, a hundred times. Such a task took worshippers 2 hours on average. The effort they put into achieving this would impress the Buddhas so much, that they would grant their wish.

Our guide asked us to close our eyes, clap our hands, and face the mausoleum. Then, focus on one wish.

He started chanting the heart sutra. The other monk continued to chant his. It was dark, cold, and loud, with chants and the hurried steps of the two women. You could feel the greatness in the air – not of an allegedly immortal being, but of the notion that there was something greater than us. Something that stressed how feeble and mortal we all were. I focused on my one wish and started crying. It was one of the most powerful moments of my life.

“The most famous sentence from the heart sutra,” the guide said, “was: color is void, void is color.”

We crossed the bridge back to the cemetery and bowed to bid Kobo Daishi farewell. I was having an out-of-body experience when the guide ran a joke. Apparently, Nintendo had accidentally set up a Pokémon Go stop at the mausoleum, and the monks had complained to them about visitors using their smartphones.

As we walked back to the entrance, the guide showed us huge tombs shaped to represent the companies behind them: rocket ships, TVs, socks, even the logo of Nissan.

I, meanwhile, recalled how in Tokyo, there was a famous cemetery where people did hanami in the spring. I resolved to dedicate an afternoon for a picnic there, and finish off at night. I just needed to find a companion, and then I would fulfil my Mary Shelley fantasy.

Finally, the guide showed us the mausoleums built for victims of World War 2, as well as devastating earthquakes like Kobe 1995 and Fukushima 2011.

“I am from Kobe,” he said. “I was 11 when it happened. Two of my classmates died. So, please be thankful for being alive. It is a miracle.”

At the exit, there was a sign that read: 生かせいのち – make the most out of your life.

The bus dropped me off at my temple ten minutes before curfew.

My Happiest and Saddest Night

I laid down my futon near the kotatsu and stuck my legs under the heated table. Buddhism was completely different from Shinto, I reflected. More organised and systemic as opposed to the less defined Shinto. Monks chanted sutras loudly and gravely without stopping once to catch their breath. People walked back and forth between stone pillars a hundred times. It all felt very serious.

But then there could be moments of something lighter than this. A monk basking in the sun, or talking about impermanence with gusto. Like schoolkids running around a sacred temple, laughing one moment and then praying respects to gates and trees the next.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I wanted to rid myself of attachments the way monks did. At the same time, I yearned for affection and approval. I stood firmly by my values and dreams, refusing to budge from them despite their fruitlessness. And I wondered why I’d been doing that, when none of this would matter in the end.

Even the most revered figure in Japanese history turned to dust. It all came down to the same thing. There wasn’t any reason for me to travel like this; wasn’t any reason for me not to. No reason to write all this, nor for anyone to read it. I felt irksome for insisting on writing everything I was doing and making the two people who’d been reading this blog hear it. I was guilty of attachment and being too much and expecting too much in return.

I knew I was prone to saying the wrong thing; that I could be tactless at times; that I could screw up. I thought about silly sentences that had come out of my mouth in the past few days, and how I regretted them soon after.

Still, it was strange how friendships came and went, how intimacy could be won and lost. One moment someone cared about you, the next they no longer did. Sometimes I doubted if it was genuine, or out of politeness. If people sought my company, or were just being nice.

It was hard, interpreting signals and deciphering another person’s mind. I could spend the rest of my life trying to befriend people, or stand alone in a courtyard with my eyes shut and let light caress me, without uttering a single word ever again. I could be normal and conforming, or weird and rebellious. I could be too little, or too much. I could be annoying or fun, a nuisance or a source of delight, a liability or the apple of one’s eye. I could live my life in the shadows, or disappear into the sun.

I took melatonin and read a copy of The Teaching of Buddha that was in my room. It didn’t take long for me to fall asleep, the happiest and saddest I’d been.

Today’s highlights: the sunbathing monk from Garan; the museum; that dinner; the night tour of the cemetery; the warm toilet seat; and sleeping with a kotatsu on.