Day 5 – Koyasan to Tokyo 

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The beds on the floor were far more comfortable than we expected and despite having to wake up at 6am, we had a good sleep. 

Morning prayers were at 7am so I had time to quickly wash using the Onsen, a traditional Japanese public bathing house. You must be completely naked to use the onsen and first wash yourself in the shower before soaking in the bath. You then get out, was yourself as normal and then get back in to relax. At minus 2 degrees it was freezing outside and onsen warmed my body so much it kept me warm for a good 2 hours after. 

We then went to morning prayers where we listened to the chanting of the monks and the sound of cymbals and a singing bowl. We were invited to do a shoko by the monks where you bow and burn incense as a tribute to our ancestors and to receive the smoke which will purify us. It can possibly be compared to taking holy communion. 

After was the fire ceremony, we had to go to a different temple outside to see this. Yesterday we had written our wishes onto some sticks which in this ceremony, the monks would burn. Again they chanted the Heart sutra and the main monk burned piles of wood. It started small and then the flames began to get higher and higher. He then placed all of our wishes onto the fire and we saw them burn in the flames. After we all had time to respect the fire and to pull the smoke onto our bodies to purify ourselves. It was such a wonderfully calm and meditative experience. 

Buddhist monk performing the fire ceremony


Breakfast was served after in our special dining room and I’m sad to say that it wasn’t to my taste. Seaweed, yam and miso soup for breakfast wasn’t well received but it looked amazing! I ate a few bits of rice and then unfortunately, we had to leave. It was time to catch our train back to Tokyo. 

We went along again the same way we came up, down the funicular and back on the old fashioned train line until we reached Osaka and boarded the Skinkansen back to Tokyo. 

Once we arrived back in Tokyo we quickly dropped our bags at the hotel and then headed to Shibuya. Shibuya is similar to Times Square of New York or Picadilly Circus of London but better! It is famous for its crossroads which you may have seen on TV. There are five different ways to cross and there are around 1000 people crossing at one time. I expected it to be overwhelmingly busy and pushy but it all seemed so calm and orderly. The Japanese adverts were plastered all over buildings and making a lot of noise. We went over to Starbucks to the second floor where we could get and aerial view of the people crossing. 

We then went for dinner. Tokyo is famous for its themed restaurants with varying experiences and it took us a while to chose but we finally settled on Alcatraz E.R, a medical prison themed restaurant, supposedly with zombies. All the food and drink was themed such as brain juice and blood transfusion. What we failed to realise is that these restaurants all have an element of Kawaii meaning “cute” and there is a lot of sexualisation. So there was also condom juice and sperm juice and dildo pussy juice. Not quite an experience I wanted to have with my parents, brothers and sister-in-law….. it was what we would call type 2 fun, the kind of fun you can laugh about after!! 

Half way through our drinks, all the lights turned off and there was a crazy show with weird music, screaming and hard naked people dressed up with masks running around with baseball bats. We decided it was probably best to finish our drinks and head somewhere else for dinner!! I’m glad I’ve crossed it off my bucket list but I’m probably not going to be going there again! 

We decided instead to have some normality for dinner so we went to a sushi restaurant where your food was delivered via monorail. You had to que for your seat and then you were given a card with a barcode and taken to your “table” which were in rows and looked similar to the slot machines. It reminded me a lot of Pokemon when you’re in Pokemon tower playing on the slots!! You had a screen in front of you and you were able to order anything you wanted and it would arrive on a rail in front of you! It was an incredible experience and I ate a lot until I was full and the whole thing only cost £8!! 

By the time we had finished dinner we were exhausted and it was time to head home to bed. What a strange day! Waking up in the serenity of a Buddhist holy place, to being lost in the craziness of Tokyo all in 24 hours! 

Day 4 – Kyoto to Koyasan 

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A little hangover was felt this morning after the karaoke fun last night. We packed up and checked out and stopped for a quick breakfast in a bakery. We picked up some lunch supplies for later and headed to the station to catch a rather convoluted route to Koyasan. 

We eventually ended up on a small old fashioned train travelling along a steep cliff edge winding through The Valley and up the mountain. We arrived at a small station at the end of the line where the only place to go was onto a cable car.


 We caught the venicula up the mountain until we reached the base of Koyasan. From there, we caught a bus to Eokin, our temple and room for the night. We took of our shoes and were given slippers and shown to our room. It was incredible! It was a small washitsu room with paper and bamboo doors and windows, bamboo floor mats, a balcony with bamboo table and chairs and a floor table in the middle with a blanket under it. You could plug your table on to make it heated so when you sat on the floor underneath the table, the whole thing became heated. 

Washitsu bedrooms in our temple


We went for a quick walk to see a few more temples in Koyasan and we found one with another good fortune “game”. You had to pull down on a large set of prayer beads three times and the beads would fall down. After the third time, wherever your hand was left, that marked your fortune. I had a medium fortune. So hopefully something good will happen soon! That’s as if you say I’m not having lots of great things happening now! 

Before dinner we had a meditation session in the meditation room. We were guided by a monk to begin but after a couple of minutes we were left to meditate alone silently for around 20-30 minutes. It was a difficult task with so many people in the room and having an extremely over active brain!! The idea is as soon as we have a thought enter our head, we don’t dismiss it but instead picture it as a small stone in a big garden and it is one of many stones which is less important than he bigger picture. Thinking like this and counting my breaths made it easier to achieve a meditative state although I think a bit more practice may be in order! 

After we had dinner which was in a separate room because there were so many of us but it was just as nice as our bedrooms. The amount of different foods served was incredible and because busdhists are vegan, it was all vegan so Emily, my mum and I didn’t need to pick through it all! It wasn’t my most favourite of meals but definitely the most interesting so far. And the experience was incomparable to any other.

After dinner we met for a walk through the cemetery. It is the largest cemetery in Japan with over 200,000 bodies mostly of monks. It’s set in a huge forest with tall, thick troubled trees. We were given lanterns to carry through as we walked and it was a little eerie with all the statues and minimal light. We walked for what seemed a very long time until we reached the Mausoleum which is dedicated to the important monks of Koyasan. We were lucky as it was a special night and therefore a special service was taking place in respect of the monks. The mausoleum was incredible and although freezing cold inside, it had a warm glow from hundreds and hundreds of wooden carved lanterns on the ceiling of all different sizes. 

Koyasan is the birthplace of esoteric Buddhism in Japan. Kobo Daishi built the monastery in the mountains away from the cities to allow a place of calm and to train monks in 835AD. There are around 1000 young monks practising in Koyasan at one time. It is believed that he is still alive today and the history, respect and calm felt there is indescribable.

After we went back to our room where we practiced calligraphy. This wasn’t an artistic event but a meditative and spiritual event. You must cleanse and purify yourself before putting on clean clothes which was a like robes/kimonos. You must then say your prayers before writing out the verse in Japanese characters with a calligraphy pen. While doing his you must also repeat your wish in your head continuously. The whole thing took around 30 minutes and a lot of concentration. You must do all of this and finish your verse or it is bad fortune. After we had finished we have them to the monks for them to bless and burn in their next ceremony. 

My Japanese writing of the heart sutra


And by this time I was ready for bed, it was late and we had morning prayers at 6am the next day. What a weirdly wonderful and calming experience!!

Day 3 – Kyoto

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We had a big lie in this morning before grabbing a quick brunch and setting off for a wander around Kyoto. 

We found a few cute shops, one where we saw them making rock by hand and lots of cute little boutique shops selling origami papers and charms. I bought a pair of earrings made out of origami cranes. In between the shops we found a small shrine dedicated to the god of eyesight. Part of Buddhism blessings is to pour bamboo scoopful of water over a statue of the god to bless them and ask for good fortune. As I have pretty bad eyesight myself, I blessed him a lot.

We then went to a Buddhist temple and found incredible gardens and artwork. On entering the temple, there were gardeners trimming the trees with a pair of scissors, cutting off small pieces bit by bit. And on the floor was another gardener picking up each pine needle and fallen maple leaf one at a time. The precision, concentration and patience was outstanding. The gardens were beautiful for it though and most impressively was the way they were raked with precision and kept so beautifully peaceful and calm. 

Road to peace


We then climbed up the hill to another temple on the mountain side. It was busy and full of people and it almost felt like a village fayre was happening. There were lots of little things you could do to find your fortune. One where you shake a box of sticks and see which comes out and another where you have to walk between one rock and another with your eyes closed. If you can do so, then you will have good fortune in love. Needless to say, I gave it a go! 

Sun shining behind a temple


Around the temple were scattered lots of little stone carvings of people with clothing put on them. To my understanding, the small rocks made to look like people represent children. The clothing put on them, mostly aprons and hats are there to keep them warm. People put these clothes onto the statues when they have had a miscarriage, still birth or a young child dies. 

We had to rush down from the temple and catch a taxi to get to our tea ceremony. We went down a small alley and into a little place where we were greeted into a small room which had a tokonoma in the corner and a hole in the floor where an iron “kettle” was being heated. A tokonoma is probably best described as an alcove in English and will always have some kind of hanging scroll and flower arrangement. It is there for artistic expression and should never be used as a storage facility. When joining a formal tea ceremony, you should enter the room and appreciate the artwork in the tokonoma before sitting down. 

We sat in the room on carpets on the floor and the lady dressed in a kimono explained to us about tea ceremonies. Traditionally it was mainly for the powerful men such as samurais who would practice a tea ceremony but now it is more commonly women. It is a place to share together and to be friends and never for business or negativity. When you are invited to a tea ceremony, you must always bring a fan which is placed in front of you when you kneel and you bow as a sign of thanks and respect. You must also bring a small cutting knife to cut the sweets your guest will offer you and a piece of paper which will be used to place your sweets on and also to wipe the bowl after you have drink from it and before you pass it to the next person. 
We learnt the methodical process to making tea. In all of Japan, it is important to be pure and clean so first you must purify everything in the room and all your utensils. And then you make your tea, extremely precisely, which I won’t go through but make sure you whisk your matcha thoroughly until it has a froth! We drank our tea, ate our sweets and learnt a lot. 

After the tea ceremony, we went in search of a restaurant, we found one which looked as though you could cook at your table. It turned out the chef cooked it for you and it was put onto the heated table in front of you. It was amazing! Such wonderful food and it was fun to see it all sizzling in front of us and taste the changes in flavours as the dish cooked more. 

After dinner we weren’t quite ready for bed and we also needed something sweet so we decided to kill two birds with one stone and head to some Karaoke! We paid about £25 for 2 hours, all you can drink, eat and sing karaoke! So we loaded up on ice cream and snacks and placed an order for enough drinks for 10 people (there’s 6 of us!). We had our own little room and room service so the drinks kept on coming and we sufficiently had our money’s worth.

Some of the family singing karaoke


The karaoke was hilarious and we only sang the first minute of each song or the chorus, whichever came first. Apparently this is a trick of the Japanese to make sure you can get your money’s worth! By the time our 2 hours were up, we were adequately inebriated and we wander home to bed ready for an early morning.

Day 2 – Tokyo to Kyoto 

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Due to jet lag, I awoke early so went out and bought pastries and orange juice for breakfast. Matthew and Emily arrived late in the night so we met them and had a quick breakfast on the balcony before rushing over to the station to catch the skinkansen. 

Shinkansen train which travels around 200mph


The Shinkansen is one of the fastest trains in the world and we travelled in plush seats at 170mph across from Tokyo to Kyoto. Along the way we caught a good view of Mount Fuji and there was barely a cloud in the sky. Apparently this is quite a rare thing to see the mountain in front of blue sky and we are extremely lucky. The train journey was an amazing experience but at 170mph I did start to feel nauseous with the buildings flashing by. 

View of Mt. Fuji from the Shinkansen


When we arrived in Kyoto, we went straight to the hotel, dropped our bags and went out to find the Fushimi Inari Taisha shrine. It’s famous for its orange posts which have been donated for hundreds of years by various businessmen and scholars. The temple is as old as 800AD but feels almost new. I believe part of the Japanese culture is to really look after, clean and nurture their environment and the shrine seemed well maintained. We walked through the long walk way of posts through the forest and along by the flowing stream for about an hour. We would have liked to have continued climbing the mountain but it had gotten dark and we wanted to see the bamboo forest light show. So we climbed a little further to see a beautiful view of Kyoto at sunset and then descended to catch the train to the bamboo forest.

Orange posts donated to the Fushimi Inari Taisha Temple


We were lucky once again because there was a light show for 3 nights only for the bamboo forest and we managed to see the spectacular bamboo trees lit up by lanterns. We walked through lantern lit pathways and each lantern was made differently by what looked like local school children. It’s difficult to describe how incredible the trees looked with big bamboo stalks growing high above our heads. It was a pandas all you can eat buffet!! 

Lights shining in the bamboo forest


By the time we had finished the bamboo forest we were all hungry and tired and had walked 10 miles. In Japan there are vending machines on every corner and rows of them at that. So we had a quick vending machine snack of: corn soup, banana flavoured condensed milk, vegetable broth, hot lemon, green tea and coffee! 

We then caught the train back to our hotel district and wandered down by the river to find a nice restaurant. The streets were dainty and narrow and reminded me a lot of the Chinese hutongs. We found a small restaurant were once again luck was on our side. It had a small room to the side perfect for 6 people to eat on a small table nestled on the floor. We had our first taste of proper Japanese sushi and ate extremely well. 

We wander back through the small streets and stepped into a bar for a quick drink where I promptly fell asleep. It gets cold here but all the buildings are extremely well heated and as soon as I step inside, the eyes close. So we soon went home and slept