In Koyasan's Buddhist lodgings, guests are invited to participate in the morning ceremonies starting at 6:00 am. First we went into the main temple building where there was much chanting and drumming. We were invited to come up to the front individually as well and offer some ashes but I'm not exactly sure what it was all about.
Next we went to a second temple area for the fire ceremony. Here we were invited to write our wishes or blessings on wooden sticks and then burn them in the fire (accompanied by more chanting and drumming). We didn't burn anything up. We did have a good seat, though.
After this we had another meal prepared by the monks. It was the same idea as in Magome, deconstructed sushi rolls with little pieces of seaweed, but everything was vegan.
After breakfast we headed back down the mountain to Nara, Japan's first permanent capital city (from the 700s). Our hotel was across from the main train station. Staying near train stations is the best overall decision I made in planning this trip - it made everything so easy. In Europe train stations are often not in great neighborhoods but we didn't find that to be the case in Japan.
While we were in Kyoto I discovered somehow that most hotels in Japan will forward your luggage to your next hotel for a small fee. We had our suitcases delivered directly from Kyoto to Nara, so we didn't have to drag everything up to Koyasan. It was terrific! They were waiting for us in our room when we checked in.
We picked a random ramen restaurant for lunch.
The Google Translate app was often a life-saver, but only sporadically. Sometimes it was puzzling.
Mmmm, ramen.
Then we set out to walk down the main street to Nara Park, where most of the big sights are located.
Here's some more complicated toilet instructions.
One of the things Nara is famous for is its herd of tame deer. They were everywhere, and they couldn't have cared less about people swarming around, likely because tourists feed them. We didn't, though. Only pets.
Look at this little guy! What's he doing?
They're pretty aggressive toward people who have food! Just like Doki.
It had started to rain.
The other big sight in Nara is the Great Buddha, slightly bigger than the one at Kamakura, which sits inside the largest wooden building in the world. We had seen many, many temples by this point, most of which were huge and old and beautiful, but both of us audibly gasped as we came around the corner and saw this one. There has been a temple here since 752. This one was built in the 1690s.
The Buddha was, you know, big.
It was really raining hard by this point. We had an umbrella but had left it in the hotel, so we bought one for ~$4.
As we walked back to the hotel the rain let up a bit. We saw some deer hanging out by an office building.
We'd been seeing these melonpan shops for a few days and wanted to try it. Melonpan is a sweet bread that's crusty on the outside and soft on the inside.
This place served it with ICE CREAM. This is the only gluttonous dessert we had the entire time in Japan. It's hard to eat poorly there.
!!!
For dinner, we headed over to the main street and picked the first place that looked acceptable from the outside. They gave us a cozy little table and some menus, which had no English on them whatsoever.
The google translate app was not very helpful, either. We did manage to piece together that this was more or less a Japanese tapas restaurant, with lots of different small plates. We ended up pointing at some of the pictured items, and then picking some other ones that seemed like they'd be good. Everything was great - this was one of the best meals in Japan.
Tempura:
Wagyu beef:
This was three types of yakitori but we ate one of them before the picture.
Some kind of sushi roll made with rice paper.
And steamed dumplings. Thumbs up to this place, whatever it's called!
Our hotel in Nara didn't allow shoes inside, and considerately provided lockers just off the reception area so you could lock your shoes up.
We bought a lot of candy in Japan. Every time we were at a store buying anything else, I always picked up a bunch of candy too. By this point we had quite a selection.
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