Weekend with monks in the mountains
Trip Start
Jun 27, 2009
1
14
47
Trip End
Jun 25, 2011
Koya-san,
Japan
Monday, November 13, 2006
Background info from Wikipedia (notice my citation mike! thank you very much! haha :)"Koya-san has had a very eventful history. Kobo Daishi founded the Shingon school of Buddhism in 816 on this mountain
01 taiji-town, they still eat whale here!
. He was a very famous religious figure and scholar and is believed to be simply resting in his tomb, in a state of permanent meditation, and awaiting the arrival of the Buddha of the Future.Monks bring him 2 meals of food every day, and even change his robes once a year! During the 11th century it became popular to leave hair or ashes close to Kobo Daishi's tomb to be one of the first in line when he awakens. There are now thousands of tombs around Okuno-in Temple."Now that you have the history of Koya-san...here's what we did while we were there:
Day 1:
3 hour drive on beautiful skyline road
tour of original temples
check-in to temple, meet other JET's who came from 6 other prefectures
vegetarian dinner made/served by monks
JET party in the temple
Day 2:
6am prayer service, incense smell made me feel so sick
zen meditation session with monks
breakfast, another meal of various types of tofu, miso soup, tea and rice
Touor #2: cemetery(largest in Japan!) and Kobo Daishi mausoleum
Drive down the mountain 2 hours, stop in small town Ryujin for homemade pizza/ famous onsen, water supposedly "makes you beautiful"
A little bit about the cemetery, I thought it was beautiful, definitely my favorite part about the trip:
-200,000 people/gods/monks buried here.There are so many small paths through the moss and trees which cover the mountain it's impossible to see every tomb in a day
02-shima playing with speaker in the police car
. Most of the monuments in the cemetery are stone tori gates, pagodas, or headstones. Many of the tombs are now dressed in warm hats and sweaters to protect against the cold weather. -Other offerings are left by pilgrims and relatives such as money, food, flowers, and of course..green tea! (see picture in photo album)
-Maintenance of tombs is the monks primary source of income
-There is a newer section of the cemetery where modern companies have purchased plots of land to memorialize deceased employees: One tomb we saw was built by pesticide companies in Japan to alleviate their guilt for insect genocide. Another one was made for the employees of a big coffee company, UCC, and looks just like a coffee cup, even has brown granite inside to represent the actual coffee! The most modern and out of place tomb was made by an aerospace company for its employees. Their design was protested after being built, but the company maintains that it is representative of a 5 story pagoda, merely because it has 5 "sections"...however it's clear to everyone that the tomb is definitely a rocket. SHARP (the electronics company) tomb looks just like a home theatre system and they chose a type of black stone that you can see your reflection in extremely clearly - supposed to represent the high quality of electronics you will receive if you purchase a product from their company
03-another amazing sunrise from my balcony
. Nissan even has a tomb for dead employees... if you want to work for Nissan in your next life, leave your business card in the mailbox to the left. Crazy, huh!?school observations:
-most schools have a smoking room for adults to use while at school, one school the principal just smokes outside the classrooms...so terrible, especially because the smell of smoke drifts down the stairs and right into the 1st and 2nd grade classrooms
-incoming 1st graders came to school today for: dentist check, health check and academic testing
-kids can whip up awesome origami in minutes, sometimes they just do origami during recess instead of going outside. boys make origami airplanes to fly, have memorized so many and always give them to me as presents: crane, squid, frog, ball, and pokemon characters
-kids were amazed i could actually play baseball, i like playing with them because the words are the same "out", "safe", "strike"-when i was up to bat, as a joke, i yelled "BACK UP!!!" (which also translates) and they all got a kick out of that...
-seem to think i don't like Japanese food b/c i bring my lunch, am asked almost every day if i like Japanese food
04-one of my favorite onsen, indoor part
. yes i do but I'm sick of it already! (guess they forgot i said i was a vegetarian when i did my intro speech)-sara was even asked the other day if she could use Japanese money!! haha riiiight...
-after lunch activities at one school: entire student body is grouped into 10 teams, each of which 'competes' in a different event each week. the events are so ridiculous: 1)trying to get paper airplanes to land inside a hula hoop, 2)balancing a rolled up newspaper on the palm of your hand while standing inside a hula hoop - like how we used to balance our lax sticks on our hands when we were bored at practice,
3)tearing newspapers vertically back and forth to create the longest snake like thing, 4)balancing milk jug tops on top of each other in a jenga-like game, 5) using chopsticks to pick up tiny beans from one small cup and transfer them to another cup (EVEN THE SPECIAL ED KIDS HAD TO DO THIS!!!! the saying remains true even for the kids with down syndrome and physical disabilities: the nail that sticks up gets hammered down!!)
That's the latest from Japan...won't be a huge update next time because I won't be travelling this weekend. Lily and I are having a party here..should be lots of fun :)
Next trip, Thanksgiving weekend: Hiroshima!!
