Me with monks at the temple.

To Koya san (Mt.Koya)

Last weekend I visited Koya san (Mt. Koya). It is a sacred center of Shingon Buddhism. Kobo daishi (Kukai) lived and taught at Mt. Koya for many years until he finally entered into eternal meditation in 835. I was a bit surprised to know that two meals are offered to him everyday - he is believed to be still alive! It took almost 6 hours to get by car and four of us were all very tired when we got there. However, beautiful Autumn leaves welcomed us and a great view of Mt. Koya helped us feel better a lot. We first visited Kongobuju temple - it is a headquarter of Shingon Buddhism. We walked around the temple and saw many beautiful halls as in the photos. Then we moved to Rengejoin at where we stayed the night. We had shyojin ryori - vegetable diet dinner. I was looking forward to having monks' dinner. I can't say it was delicious but it was a very intereting dinner and was decorated very nicely. There was a tourist group from Australia and I took a bath with some of the girls on that night. It was a little shocking for me to see big tatoos on back of some girls... We all had to get up at 5:50 am (on Sunday!) like all monks do and were given some lessons about Shingon Buddihism for over an hour! It was so cold and we all had to sit seiza style - this was very hard. Then we had breakfast. It was a very simple breakfast but was very good after a long lesson! Four of us said thank you and good-bye to some monks and left the temple and visited some other temples in Koya. There were so many tourists on that day probably because it was a fine day. We left Mt. Koya at around 2:00 pm and arrived at Okayama 7:00 pm. It was a very interesting experience for me and I wish I could have stayed a bit longer...

A great view from Mt.Koya.

This was such a beautiful garden.

I really like the colour of Autumn leaves.

Beautiful autumn leaves in Koya. 

At the entrance of Kongobuji Temple. 

Huge tree! 

Banryutei Rock garden - this is the largest rock garden in Japan. The design is of a pair of dragons emerging from a sea of clouds to protect Okuden. The dragons are made of 140 pieces of granite brought from Shikoku and the sand is from Kyoto. 

Jodan no ma - important religious ceremonies are held here. The walles are covered with gold leaf! 

On the way to a dining room. Looks really Japanese.

This is monk's food - all vegetables.

cute! 

Dragon on the ceiling of a temple.

People pouring water to the statues. 

There are many huge trees at Koya. 

Okunoin. 

It was a very fine day and the sky was so clear.

This is "NU chayamachi" - newly opend shopping mall
in Osaka. There are so many restaurants and shops and
it was nice to walk around.
.

めだまのおやじ？

There were so many people and me and my friend got sick a bit... 

This is my yummy dinner. This knife looks good but it was
hard to use - too thin!

"Nu" at night - cool building!

Hmm... yum yum. 

It was a lovely autumn day. You can see Okayama
castle on the left hand side. I really like this time of
a year.

Miss. Ichigo chan (strawberry). A dog we met by the Asahi river.
She loves football so much and didn't stop chasing the ball for
a while.