Arrival at Koyasan

So we get to Koyasan at the top of the cablecar and all the public transport guys hats are on hooks. We got on the bus, headed for our accommodation: IchiJo-In.

The IchiJo-In is a traditional ryokan and in this case it is temple accommodation which means we could expect onsite monks.

When we got to stop five, we alighted and looked at the map and the road and realised that the IchiJo-In on the map was not ahead and to the right, but behind and to the right so we walked down a small street and began our hunt. Being Buddhist temple accommodation, we took the view that he IchiJo-In was not the sort of place for a flashy sign but having walked the entire length of the street without being able to locate it, we began to believe that the subtle Zen of accommodation location was being lost on us. This is probably a terribly crass thing to say; Koyasan is the head of Shingo Buddhism and (to the extent that Buddhists dislike things at all) they probably don’t appreciate random Zen references.

Anyway.

We began to think that the bus guy was right about going ahead at the lights and not backwards but before conceding defeat, we decided to walk the street again. This time, we found an entrance marked IchiJo and used it.

To say that it was a bit of a hike would be to do it an injustice. If Buddhism is about accepting struggle, it’s fair to say, we immersed ourselves in the approach. After forging our way up a dirt path past a carpark, we came upon a set of incredibly steep downward stairs each only a foot or so wide and set into moss. The perilous descent was balanced out by an excellent view of a beautiful garden with a pond containing very large koi fish. It seemed that the end was in sight, however the complete absence of any signage and the sheer difficulty of navigating the stairs made us pause. We believed more firmly than ever that the bus guy was onto something and that at best, this was the back door. At worst, it wasn’t the IchiJo-In at all but somewhere with a very similar name in Kanji that was intended as a kind of survival challenge course for people with heavy suitcases. It's hard to see on this photo, but the building in the top right of the photo is where we came in and the bottom left is where we needed to be. You can click on the photo to expand.

Having come this far, we dithered: should we navigate the steps or return back to the road and go round to the possibly existent front door? Or should we send one of us down to investigate without the suitcase and then revise our options? Not wanting to prolong the dithering, I set out decisively on the most difficult option: stairs with suitcase. There was no turning back.  I also made a mental note not to recommend the place to anyone with mobility problems.

Once down in the garden, the fish remained attractive but it was now discernable that the wooden veranda around the building did not actually have an entrance from the level we were on as it was surrounded by wooden railing. This was a matter of great disappointment to us. By this stage it was about 6.45pm, it was starting to get dark and there was no way we were going back up the stairs.

We managed to climb up some ornamental boulders and move one of the railings to get onto the walkway. We padded our way to the sliding doors near which was a sign facing inwards which we couldn’t read but almost certainly said, “It is forbidden to go into the garden.” We slid the door, which miraculously was open and cautiously picked our way past the vase of hydrangeas which were artfully placed next to the door.

We were in.

We turned left and found ourselves in a hallway which looked like a set of one of the early episodes of Oshin: rice paper walls, wooden walkways leading to rooms with rice paper walls and tatami mats. We made several turns ensuring that we were entirely lost. The place had that feel to it like in early nineties computer adventure games where you keep turning and the graphics are recycled for each bit with small variations (eg a picture on the wall but otherwise identical). Eventually we made it to a dead end containing a large sign that said lavatory so we turned back in the other direction.

We started to feel extremely uncomfortable: not only had we walked extensively inside with our shoes on but if this was not IchiJo-In, we had potentially broken into some random large house and were just aimlessly walking around in it. We came upon a guy who said “konnichiwa!” before disappearing into one of the rooms. This was encouraging but we couldn’t discount the possibility that he just saw a lot of crazy gaijin and wasn’t phased by our misconduct.

Finally Buddha/the Universe brought the testing to an end and we made it to reception. I was too exhausted to locate the sentence “We got lost” on my Ipod translator so we just threw ourselves on their mercy.

The lovely fellows didn’t even ask us our names (which seems wildly trusting to me) but did look alarmed at our footwear and told us to take off our shoes and put on some unattractive brown vinyl slippers by way of punishment. We complied ashamedly so they showed us to our room. The room was a large ricepaper/tatami affair which was empty except for a table that had cups on it and a small cake each. There was an extra level of foot attention involved; you can’t wear even your slippers in the room. A charming young ryokan dude explained a range of important information to us in English and best of all, asked us whether we would like a beer with our meal. We said, we’d like two. He also told us that prayer was at 6am. He didn’t specify whether this was a compulsory part of the experience and we were reluctant to ask in case he said yes.

He took us to another room where our meal was all laid out in beautiful laquerwear. Koyasan is famed for its vegetarian food which to a western palate is downright frightening. The food is said to use five colours and many textures. There were many, many things done with (or possibly more accurately, to) tofu. It is hard to put into words just how crazy the food was. I started with some squares of a hard jelly type substance in various shades of green. I moved on to a clear liquid that seemed to have bits of a juicy version of rosemary floating in it (Jess believes this may have been a dipping sauce). Jess was encouraged by some black shiny olives which turned out to be beans but were very tasty. There was a viscous orange paste which was entirely unlike mango, which it resembled. There was a miso soup that contained large mushrooms and come to think of it small ones as well. The beer came in long necks and I drank it quickly as I tried some soft tofu in syrup, topped with a generous blob of wasabi. Each new thing we tried was pretty much as crackers as the last and all of it looked like it was really hard to make and would have been impressive to a connoisseur.

After Jess and I had polished off most of our long necks, we were pretty exhausted and decided to retire to our room which had been magically changed so that the table was pushed to the side and replaced with futons and quilts with hard-ish pillows that were a tiny bit confronting.

It was time for a bath. Jess was momentarily (and understandably) a bit reluctant regarding the shared nude experience but overcame her misgivings and we made our way there in the robes and slippers provided. We disrobed and scrubbed ourselves on the tiny wooden stools that left a pink demi-circle on my larger than Japanese bottom. After ensuring every last drop of soap was off us so we didn’t again trample ryokan customs, we hopped into the very hot large pool/bath. It was a brilliant way to soak off the stress of hours and hours of travel.

We made it back to the room without ostensibly offending any cultural mores and hopped into our beds. I was ready to sleep almost immediately and only woke briefly when Jess asked questions in her sleep until the alarm rang at five to six. We’d decided to go to prayer after all.

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Ha! This strangely mirrors my arrival in Tokyo and how I had to navigate Shinjuku station to get to Nikko. Trouble! So excited for you though - and a little bit jealous, too... Squeal! Visit 100 Yen shops like nuts - I stocked up on trafficable quantities of cute and stationery. Kawaii!

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