Snowy Mountains and Boos Boos turns Ni-Ju-San

After a series of trains and a cable car we arrived in Koyasan, which is a small town on Mt Koya near Osaka. Around the year 834 a monk named Kobo Daishi started to build the town, the first structure to be built was a temple which still stands there today. This is an amazingly peaceful and serene town. As we had gone up the mountain, it had started to snow, and amazingly didnt stop all night. The snow added a strange air of mysticism, as the sight of snow covered trees is pretty special in itself.

There are no hotels or hostels in Koyasan, we stayed in one of the many temples run by monks. Sleeping on tatami floors and having a curfew as the monks do.

The view from our room.

There is a graveyard in the town that goes on for almost 2km, and is filled with tombstones and shrines for any monk who is worth his salt - coming from all over Japan to be buried here for the last 1200 years. As well as the all important shrine of Kobo Daishi where Buddhists believe he still lays there meditating awaiting the advent of Miroku Butsu - which from our understanding is the arrival of the next Buddha. Many tombstones and shrines are covered with thick layers of moss and there are trees several stories high that tower over us like giants.






Although a lady should never reveal her age, Boos Boos turned ni-ju-san the next day on the 11th and it was a birthday she will never ever forget. In Koyasan the previous night it had snowed about 20cm, so it started out as a freezing morning. We went to the main temple area of the temple we were in and took part in the morning meditation with the monks for half an hour. It was enchanting sitting there in the dark candle-lit listening to these amazing deep gutteral tones they made as they prayed.



We had to leave quickly to catch the bus back to the cable car station to then catch a series of trains down to Shin-yamaguchi. For some reason the bus driver just looked at us standing there freezing our bits off in the snow and just kept driving!! Bastard!

Plan B: we ran back up to the temple and asked the monks to call us a taxi. It is quite strange the same serene monks getting on the phone calling a cab - bizarre. The taxi ride up was interesting, Boos Boos thought we were going to die because the roads were so icey with big cliff drop offs along side. Despite our efforts and significant taxi charge we missed the cable car and in turn missed the first train. When we finally arrived back in Shin-Osaka to catch our connecting Shinkensan south...we missed it by no more than one minute! We were so pissed off at that bus driver.

The view from the cable car going down after the snow the previous night.

When we finally arrived in Shin-yamaguchi we met up with an old family friend of Doodles, Yoko. Yoko was an interpreter for many of the trips bringing Japanese artists to Australia, and that was were she met Christine and David. She is the most kind hearted lady we have met so far on this trip. After we checked into our hotel and had a nap, she took us to meet her daughter Asako and four grandchildren. Doodles had met Asako when he was 6, and she was 15, so it was strange to meet her now with 4 kids!

Knowing it was my birthday Yoko had bought a green tea sponge cake and some little delicate desserts. Kids will be kids no matter where they are from, their eyes lighting up when she opened the box. They put some candles on the cake and sang me happy birthday in Japanese. Yoko's only grand-daughter who is 8 years old, had made me a present, girl to girl she said. She gave me a hand decorated card with a message on the back - all in japanese so I had to get Yoko to translate it for me. The children put on a little musical show for us playing the recorder and the piano - and yes Doodles couldn't resist, he just had to get on the piano and do his thing.



Leaving there, we headed to meet Yoko's husband; Motohiko, for dinner. They took us to a japanese 'pub' which to us just seemed like small restuarant, nothing like the Caxton. They order plate after plate of food to ensure that we would have enough to eat.


The Japanese love sake, and Motohiko was a sake connoisseur - going on and on about how we had to taste this sake from one region, how it was better than that from another region. All in all Doodles and Motohiko tried almost 8 different types of sake - by the end of the dinner they both could barely talk or walk, we women had to look after our drunk men. We had the best time talking about everything and anything, from religion to politics, whaling and about Hiroshima, getting a great insight into all these things from a Japanese point of view. On the topic of whaling, Yoko and Motohiko told us that when they were kids at school, it was the cheap lunch meat - everyone ate it. Not so these days, but it is still around, though super expensive. A Japanese pub is a very intimate experience - the chef is like a friend who comes to the table to bring us food, have a chat and recommend another type of sake.


The next morning Yoko took us to meet two brothers who are ceramic artists that Christine and David (Doodles parents) spent some time with when they visited Japan 20 years ago. He showed us photos of them from their visit - what spring chickens they were back then! Hot stuff!


Yoko had also got in touch with Toshiko, who was Christine's sensai, teaching her the art of handmade paper which fed Doodles for many year of his life! This woman is 77 yrs old, and looked about 50 - she had a spiky little mini mohawk and was full of energy and life - very amazing for someone that age... gotta be something in the water in Japan we started to realise. She told us stories of her many years living in Brazil, where she would travel around for 3 months sketching, then hold an exhibition that would earn her enough to travel around the world for the next 3 months, and repeat the process - very inspiring... pity we cant draw...


The previous night Motohiko, hearing Boos Boos is a nurse, offered to take us to the hospital for a quick tour. Pretty standard stuff really - the notable exception being that on the top floor they have a mini temple/church/cold room where the family can come and view their loved ones body for days after their death and perform any rituals they want to say goodbye. Definitely don't have that in Australia.

Later in the afternoon - Yoko (never tiring -she is mad!) drove us 2hrs away to a town called Hagi, where she grew up on the coast of the Sea of Japan. A small seaside town, we checked out some very old Samurai houses, also some exhibitions of Hina dolls, which used to be a gift to a girl when she was born, hand made by the women in the family. These (pics below) are simply amazing - so intricate and would have taken ages to make - very cool. Doodles struggled in the Samurai houses, honestly being about a foot too tall for any door or walkway - hilarious stuff to see and got many looks from the locals.





Back to Kokura that night, Yoko had gotten wind that we had yet to take part in a Japanese tea ceremony, so she took us to her local place where they teach the women the correct way to make the tea and hold the ceremony. Needless to say we needed a LOT of guidance, so we were happy to have both the teacher and Yoko to interpret for us so we didn't offend them too badly. There were many intricacies of the ceremony, knowing which hand to hold the cup in, asking your neighbour if they would like to drink first, examining the bowl after you have drunk to take notice of the handiwork - a fair bit to remember - and we didn't even get close to making the tea!

Overall, we were really glad we had gone back down to see Yoko, we had some great conversations that we hadn't really got to have due to our crap Japanese, so it was well worth it.

The next day, we were on the Shinkansen, bound for our final stop before heading back to Australia - Tokyo...

Peace and Love
Doodles and Boos Boos.