Shikoku 88 – Days 27 and 28
What an intense day! The drive from my last overnight place on Shikoku back towards the main island of Honshu… and then up to Koyasan… the „headquarter“ mountain of Shingon Buddhism, the sect that Kukai founded, the reason people do the Shikoku pilgrimage…
The drive included going back over the beautiful bridges near Naruto and then Akashi, but then came endless highrised highways and bridges, sometimes 4 highways on top of each other and/or crossing each other, flanked by endless city scapes, industrial areas, harbors, container terminals, through the endless stretch of Kobe, Shin-Osaka, Osaka… until finally it got more „normal“ coming into Wakayama prefecture … and then leaving the highways behind, going into the mountains… and then up into the Koya mountain range…
Arriving here around 2:30 PM was perfect… I could talk to the very helpful and friendly Patrick at the tourist information (I remember talking to him 5 years ago when I was last here), could go to the Koyasan Museum, which was free today, and then experience a beautiful sunset around the Daimon, main entry gate of Koyasan at its western entrance…
Strolling back through the main Danjo Garan temple complex while the night was falling… and now I sit here in my van on the parking lot next to the visitor center, where (I asked) I can stay overnight, for free (yes, despite being such a touristy place, the parking lots are free), and the toilet/bathroom is heated! Luxury! But needed, Koyasan is colder than Shikoku, around Danjo Garan I saw small left over piles of snow…
The night was cold! I did manage in my car, but I wanted to drive to Okunoin at 5 in the morning to be there for 5:50 to witness the morning ceremonies, but when I woke up I realized, no way (as the rental car also had no scratcher), all windows were heavily frozen on the outside and the inside. So I went back into my sleeping bag, stood up at 6:30 for kombini breakfast and hot coffee, and then walked calmly to Okunoin, taking many pictures on the way in the rising sun… Okunoin is a very old, very large, very famous, but for me most importantly a very beautiful and atmospheric cemetery, a coupe kilometers long, and leads up to the temple where reportedly Kukai is still sitting in eternal meditation. This is where every Ohenro goes to finish their pilgrimage… What an experience. After the whole Shikoku round, and now here. I sat, after the usual ceremonies, a while longer in front of his mausoleum in meditation… there was no-one else around for quite a while… beautiful.
With the final calligraphies in my book, from Kongobuji, the Shingon main temple, and the Okunoin, my pilgrimage is now finished. And as I was walking along Koyasan, I realized that there was nothing more here for me to do. Also, I had been here twice before, each time for 3-4 days, so everything felt familiar. And it was so full of tourists! So few pilgrims. It is funny how relative our perception is, isn’t it? A few years ago, during our normal vacation travels, I felt Koyasan to be spiritual. Now, after Shikoku, it feels touristy. Strange. Also, the temple lodgings were all fully booked, the few vacancies went for 300€ and up on booking.com… so I could not last minute book into a temple lodging, and it is so cold at night, and that with no public onsen… Long story short, I went down from Koyasan this afternoon, near Hashimoto, went to an Onsen, and have now parked at a nearby roadside station.
I have only a few days left. I think I will spend these more in nature, the forests and mountains near Yoshino and Nara, and maybe Lake Biwa… before I go back to Osaka on Sunday…
