04042009 Koyasan

It started off as part of our program in Japan, to experience a Japanese home-visit. Stupid me then didn’t know that one part of the application form, where they inquired you about your interest was meant for this, so I ignorantly wrote down that I admire Sanada Yukimura very much, I do hope to visit Nagano sometime. It was very obvious I didn’t had a clue about how far Nagano was from Osaka at that time.

So when my host father brought out the application form and laughed at what I wrote, my face turned really red and I just wanted to dig a hole and bury myself in it.

But he kindly said, ‘We’ll go to Koyasan instead. You’ll love it.’

And indeed I did fell in love with it. The only downside was that it was raining that day, so it was very inconvenient for us to get out of the car. My host father drove me and my host mother all the way up. Along the way, we saw peach trees being planted, and the flowers were in full bloom. ‘We might be able to spot a deer or two,’ they both mentioned to me, but unluckily we didn’t that day.

Our first stop was at the foot of this giant sacred tree, with spring water rushing down by its side. My host parents quickly took out a couple of bottles and filled them. ‘This spring water is very delicious!’ she mentioned with delight.

Done with all the bottles, we got back into the car as my host father drove us around and introduced the places to me. Sadly my level of comprehension at that time was superbly low, and so I forgotten most of it. But one story which I do remember was him telling me the reason why Yukimura picked the rokumonsen as his symbol. In Japanese belief, once a person dies, they need to cross over to the otherworld, and you would need these much money to bribe the officers down there. In other words, it was a way of him and his followers knowing that marching into a battlefield, was the full knowledge and realisation that they would die anytime.

After a long drive and stopping to do some shopping, we got into a little snack house for hot green tea and traditional Japanese sweets. My host mother ordered a few, and asked me to come along and take a few pictures of the shop. Among the decorations they had in there, was this antique step-cupboard.

Koyasan, holding a burial ground for a number of damiyos makes it even more fascinating. Knowing my interest in old history and buildings, my host father then continued the visit in car, occasionally allowing me to take pictures, and even helped me to take a few. We even saw the last pile of snow melting away, to my delight, and he was very amused by it. Well, you can’t blame a kid who comes from a tropical country to get all happy over seeing a little bit of snow.