I got up one more time and walked/jogged along the Kamo River and saw my old dude playing wiffle ball. Thought again "could I live here"? I remember in my days working up in Tri-Cities Washington i loved jogging along the Columbia River. Brought back similar feelings. I should get out more at home and jog along the Provo River.
We left on a long bus ride to a place called Mt. Koya. It took most of the morning. We made a few pitstops each pit stop was at some type of rest stop/convenience store. One item that is absolutely ubiquitous throughout Japan was the vending machines. Funny enough before we left we had two specific targets on vending machines. One was from my neighbor Duane who served in Japan and told us to buy some corn chowder hot from a vending machine. The other was Mike's friend who had visited a few months prior to buy some Grape Red Bull (apparently only available in Japan). These targets became our obsession on every vending machine we saw. I did see and learn quickly that the vending machines in many cases do in fact offer both hot and cold options (the hot was mainly for coffee). We unfortunately learned that both these items were likely seasonal and we didn't find them anywhere- not a vending machine nor a 7-Eleven/convenience store- despite looking basically at every opportunity. I did have a cup of corn soup one morning served with breakfast and it was honestly pretty good! Bummer we could never find it in the vending machines.
The pit stops had both vending machines and regular convenience store snacks. We joked that we just shouldn't stop because we would all just load up on treats we didn't really need. Lots of tasty pastries and ice cream!
We stopped for a lunch that had some warmers. I found that if the lunch had the warmers that was a bonus. Typically just a soup or broth with items in it and they'd light a little torch underneath and let it all heat up during your meal. Much easier to enjoy heated food than pure cold/room temp food was my finding especially when eating things i'm not familiar with.
By our lunch spot was a cemetery called Okuno-in. It was a large cemetery up in the mountains in the thick of a bunch of super tall and old cedar trees. This was a stunning cemetery and honestly most of us found ourselves discussing "why aren't our cemeteries back home up in the mountains like this?" One unique item was many of the shrines were sponsored by big Japanese companies (Nissan, Komatsu, etc.) and if I understood correctly employees of those companies could come spread their ashes at those shrines in that cemetery.
At the back of the cemetery (area prohibited from pictures) was a bigger temple and that area housed the Kukai (aka Kobo- Daishi) who is the Buddhist master founder of Shingon Buddhism founded here. They still take out 2 meals per day to his mausoleum while he remains in an eternal meditative state. There were other Buddha's there that we could pray to (and take photos of hence the below). You would splash water on the Buddha which is symbolic of cleansing and say your prayer. The entire area, the trees, the shrines, and the grave shrines were amazing to see and super peaceful to walk through.
This entire area had multiple shrines/pagodas. We toured the Konjubi Temple that had more fabulous rock gardens and then walked up through a bunch of pagodas. The Konpon Daito was my favorite. You couldn't take pictures inside but it had 5 massive Buddha's inside and some incredible artwork.
We arrived in the early evening at Fukuchi-in Monastery. This was truly a unique experience we had a small traditional room on tatami mats. The bathrooms were all communal you didn't have your own bathroom in your room. You had to wear slippers throughout the monastery so you just left your shoes at the front door. We left all our main luggage on the bus and only brought in an overnight bag.
One big tradition we learned about here is "Onsen". Onsen is essentially hot springs and is a very popular activity in Japan. This monastery had some onsen baths and we were encouraged to partake in the experience. One key factor in onsen is you are not clothed- no bathing suits allowed! It was separate sex locations so any initial nerves there were removed. Honestly it was just enjoying a hot tub soak but you weren't allowed to wear your bathing suit. Rachel was quite nervous about doing it for herself and once she went down to the baths she said she actually had a great relaxing experience! I of course participated in onsen I do basically every Friday morning at the gym (with bathing suit at the gym for clarity's sake!) but am always interested in a good hot spring soak. Good times!
We walked around the area/town after dinner (it was probably only like 8:30 at night) and it felt like 2 AM the entire area was basically dead. There were additional monasteries in the area from what I can tell so we weren't expecting a hopping nightlife but it was interesting to note how quiet it was at such an early time.
This day had a ton packed in. On the surface most these days appear to only have 2-3 target location visit but each site had multiple items to take in!
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