Photos are back!
Thanks to Ross, we are back in full technicolour! If you want to catch up on the previous blogs with the addition of photos before reading this one, look no further:
Shikoku Part 1 is here and Part 2 here.
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The end of September was one of the most cultural, historic and even spiritual (!) weeks we’ve had on the trip so far – which on reflection is saying something given some of the places we’ve been fortunate enough to visit since we set off in April.
Since coming to Japan to visit Matt in 2006 I’ve always wanted to visit both Nara and Kyoto which I missed out on the first time so I was really excited on arriving onto Honshū via the ferry from Shikoku that we were closing in on the historical heartland of Japan.
Having had Nara and Kyoto in our sights from the get-go, we only found out about Kōya-san, know as Japan’s most intensely spiritual place, via our Uchiko WarmShowers hosts Will and Tami. Kōya-san is a mountain-top town almost entirely dedicated to countless Buddhist temples and Japan’s biggest cemetery, on the site of a crypt in the forest (the Oko-no-in) where one of Japan’s most important Buddhist teachers, Kōbō Daishi, is said to be in a state of eternal meditation.
The mountain-top didn’t put us off (much) albeit we did take the opportunity to park ourselves at a campsite near the bottom of the valley for two nights to make the visit up the mountain an easier day ride without the bags on (joy of joys!).
It really was a very special day. Hard to explain, but the place really was magical. Visiting Oko-no-in itself involved a beautiful walk through what felt like endless Japanese tombstones/graves with mini Buddhas dotted everywhere, many of which were sporting red bibs. We read that this is a traditional way of marking the death of a child, as it is believed that doing so will assist the child in the after-life, as they will be alone and so need all the help they can get.
This really got me very emotional in a strangely intense way. I not only thought about children who have been lost too soon (and the parents who have lost them), but also about our unborn or unconceived child (or even children?) who were only ever twinkles in our eyes. I’m no expert in Buddhism but I hope they’re somewhere and they have the protection and love they deserve (maybe in the before or never life).
Anyway, I digress… Suffice to say, we loved the place and found it incredibly calming and soothing which is saying something from a lifelong atheist! The only slight oddity (this is Japan after all so there is almost always something unusual) was that there were parts of the cemetery which were sponsored or had been bought by big corporations (think Hitachi, Nissan etc) which we guessed provide a suitably elevated resting place for some of their most senior Executives. Nothing wrong with that I suppose, but the company branding in amongst the intense spiritual vibes within the forested cemetery was… well oh-so-Japanese I guess.
Onwards to Nara and we had a sizzling day in the saddle zooming through the valley to arrive in Japan’s first capital. Matt had very happy memories of visiting Nara on more than one occasion when he lived in Japan – his prediction that I would love it was correct. The biggest Buddha in Japan (the Daibutsu) in one of the world’s biggest wooden buildings is here and it properly made my jaw drop to the floor with its size and scale.
The bowing deer which can be found in Nara were also impressive (in a very different way) and I loved the Kasuga Taisha (Shintō shrine). The way Buddhism (and many different schools of Buddhism) coexist with Shintō-ism in Japan is interesting to both of us and Nara shows-off well this unique combination of religious and spiritual beliefs.
We also visited a Mont-Bell shop (a Japanese outdoors brand) and despite the sizzling heat I convinced Matt that he really did want a warm jacket for his upcoming birthday (a couple of weeks later and everyone is delighted we made this prescient decision!) Once we’d supped on the most delicious okonomiyaki (Japanese cabbage pancake) and soba (buckwheat) noodles yet, our Nara visit was complete. Onwards to Kyoto.
As someone that likes to visit, read and learn about places of cultural and historic interest, everyone (i.e. me and Matt) were a bit worried about going to Kyoto. By all accounts it is the motherload when it comes to places of cultural and historic interest. How would we fit it all in?!
Luckily we had booked three nights in a hotel (thank you to Matt’s parents for our joint birthday presents, only equalled by my parents generosity in funding birthday related hotel stays!) The first night I merrily marked up what seemed like an impossible number of places of interest across the city on Google Maps. Matt reviewed the next morning and looked a bit alarmed. ‘We won’t be able to do all of this you know’, he says.
Well readers, we did. Day 1 and 25km of walking later we had visited I don’t how many temples, shrines, old houses, historic streets and more. Every temple in particular was very different in terms of architecture and location, with many using Kyoto’s location alongside a lush set of hills and mountains to great effect with nature, architecture and the smell of intense combining in a way that is hard to express. Suffice to say it was amazing! And also utterly exhausting in a way that riding the bike just isn’t.
Day 2 and we didn’t walk quite so far but did conquer a mini mountain with more tori gates than either of us have ever seen before at Fushimi Inari-Taisha as well as having a delightful conversation with an older Japanese gentleman at a temple who turned out to be a retired Professor of the Philosophy of Linguistics (of course his English was waaay better than even Matt’s now rather good Japanese).
Day 3 and we rolled out of the city via the Golden Temple (Kinkaku-ji) more tired than we arrived (oops) but thoroughly satisfied, awe-inspired and blown away by the richness of Japan’s history and culture.
I suppose more cycling is now due though?
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