Koyasan

As our final destination we had chosen Koyasan. It is a sacred mountatin in the Wakayama Prefecture. I had contacted Shukubo Association and requested a stay in one of the Koyasan temples. The stay comprises possibility to see the life in the temple, attend the morning service and enjoy kaiseki meals prepared by the monks and also their onsens. We had it all and it was indeed an unforgettable experience.

We got up at 6, there was a morning service in the prayer hall upstairs from 6:30 and after the service, around 7 am there was our breakfast being served. The meals were fabulous, never the same, vegetarian, full of delicious tofu, lots of seaweed and tsukemono types, all these tasty bits were served with such care and design we have never seen before.
During the time of our breakfast the monks invisibly made our beds (meaning rolled up the tatami and turned our two-room flat into an empty space again) our room had no lock, just the sliding doors on many sides :-) It felt so good, so fresh, fearless, troubleless...
I will remeber this stay for ever, especially one morning service, being seated in the middle of the chanting monks I felt completely cleansed. Hopefully, I will be able to make use of this experience in future, or better NOW :-)

Koyasan is a sacred place:

That is all for now, folks..... until next time and I believe it will be Japan again :-)

Linda and Petr, big lovers of Japan

Nara

I am finishing my blog from home, there was no time to write the posts in Japan and during the final days there was also no Internet connection. Nara used to be the capital of Japan once. It is just 20 minutes by train from Kyoto meaning most people make a one day trip from there to see The Great Buddha and they are done with Nara. I am glad we took things slow here. We spent long three days in Nara and it was a great time. The OBON holidays culminated at that time and Japanese know how to celebrate. As Obon is similar to Halloween or our All Saint's Day, it is a Buddhist festival commemorating ancestors who come back to home shrines as ghosts and that is why most Japanese return to their home towns to celebrate this holiday by lighting up candles at night and eating snacks and having good time, many of them wearing festive kimonos. We joined them partying in the streets at night in Nara and they did every single night for two weeks. Staying at a large and modern hotel with breakfast included we also enjoyed Japanese cuisine and were able to try many of their TSUKEMONO pickled vegetable and various types of edible seaweed. My most favourite one was daikon pickled in sake. Yummy!!!
Great Buddha was also great, despite the fact that the highlight of visiting his shrine is taking as many pictures of Lord Buddha and the visitor as possible. And believe me, there were many, as the light conditions were terrible. But Japanese love taking pictures and mainly being taken pictures of.

Just a few shots I have picked:

FUSHIMI INARI SHRINE

We did what not many people do, we came from Nara to Kyoto for one day. We could not manage to see all when staying in Kyoto and we had 6 long days to stay there. What we missed was the nr.1 place of Japan (according to the Trip Advisor's survey in 2014). When I realized this, I decided we cannot leave this place behind and so to Fushimi we went. Luckily Fushimi Inari is on the outskirts of Kyoto and quite easy to reach from Nara by train. Actually the shrine lies just outside the train station, how convenient :-) The temple itself and the toriis, the walks up and down the mountain (we did the whole loop, of course) are truly spectacular. Let the pics speak:

Takayama

TAKAYAMA - JAPAN ALPS
We spent three days in Takayama, the mountainous area and town, the resort and gateway to Japan Alps, onsens, Unesco villages and other lovely places. We were quite unlucky as the super typhoon has just hit the southern coast of Japan and the weather showed it well. At the same time we were very lucky to be further north of the coast and experienced only heavy rain and wind but no significant damage and no evacuation. Our biggest problem was we were soaking wet and we had to persuade ourselves to press the trigger on our cameras.
The last day was truly amazing. We experienced the real Japanese tour to to villages of Akinawa and Shirikawago, they both belong to the World Heritage sites, listed among Unesco sites. The houses are amazing both from outside and inside and their story, function, work around them helped us to see how closely can Japanese folk live to the nature and in harmony with it.
Let me show you some pics from the Gifa prefecture:

Takayama morning market

Takayama old houses

Takayama is famous for sake

Tea ceremony (chanoyu) museum in Takayama

Takayama temples

Shirakawago village

Hiroshima Day 8.6

We did not plan this. It just happened to us and I am glad it did, no matter how emotionally exhausting it was and how many times I cried here or was on verge of crying. We happened to be in Hiroshima on its most important day and the day before when al the commemorative events were being prepared and celebrations already started.

No wonder that we could not find a place to stay. We stayed in a bit more expensive hotel but it was worth it with all the service included.
The first day rained on and off but the rain was warm and pleasant. We spent the day in the Hiroshima museum and in the Peace Park. The museum was full of informative stuff, interesting and exhausting exhibits. We spent a long time there. Afterwards we walked the park and saw the monuments and the A-Dome again. I came across a leaflet in the Information center inviting the Hiroshima visitors for an evening of Peace Prayers in the seven shrines of Hiroshima, including Shakuhachi flute performance, Sho performance and tea ceremony. It was decided we would go.

Thousands of paper cranes - Peace park

Hiroshima Museum

The bomb blasting above Hiroshima

Shakuhachi performance in the shrine - the walk of the seven shrines

DAY TWO - HIROSHIMA DAY

HIROSHIMA DAY

We got up quite early to make sure to be at 8:15 by the Genbaku Dome which is very close to the epicenter, where 69 years ago the A-bomb went off 600 meters above the ground. The immense amount of energy generated by the explosion completely destroyed everything apart from just a few buildings, out of which the nearest standing building was the dome designed by a Czech architect Jan Letzel. All the people inside the dome died instantly, the others, mostly children summoned in the park area to assist house demolition there were badly burnt and crawled to the river to quench their thirst where they all died there. The river was filled with corpses. Altogether 140.000 people died. This is just a short summary of what happened immediately after the bomb exploded above the centre of Hiroshima. Today we are standing on the very spot, below the imaginative bomb but you can feel its presence in the people here, the survivors, there are still more than a thousand of them alive, and also in the youngest generation. All wishing and praying for the world peace and nuclear weapon abolition. Exactly at 8:15 the bell struck and a then just silence, nothing else... I was crying, sorry for what happened to these people and moved to tears by how many people still gather to remember their loved ones and to express their opposition to war. Immediately after the silence finished the monks started praying, the flowers were placed at designated places, the events of remembrance started and they went of till late night, people still queueing to pay tribute to the perished ones placing white and yellow chrysanthemum beside the memorials. By night there were piles, or better hills of flowers and wreaths.
We escaped this mourning and visited the beautiful and serene Shukkeien gardens, but you can never escape the A-bomb in Hiroshima. The gardens themselves were destroyed completely by the heat wave. It is incredible how they look now, almost 70 years later, how peaceful they are and what they bring to people's minds...

8:15 Genbaku dome

Shukkeien Garden

Tea gardens of the Shukkeien temple

Floating temple

Final Hiroshima day ceremony - lanterns floating on the river

Hiroshima

KYOTO TO HIROSHIMA
We said goodbye to Kyoto, the temples, their green and rock gardens, the palaces and the tea and we headed for Nijo station (on foot again, what an unusual mode of transport after biking in Kyoto in the past 5 days) and from Nijo to Kyoto station, there we changed for the Shinkansen section of the building and as the trains for Hiroshima depart every 10 mins we managed to catch the one which terminates there.
Shinkansen looks cool from outside and the interior resembles much spacier and more comfy airplane board. We departed on time, what else could you expect in Japan. Imagine the excitement of a train lover like Petr. The speed is not really recognizable from the inside but it must be very fast. We went from Kyoto to Osaka in 10 mins and our total journey time is 1 hour 42 minutes. The distance covered is 380 kms. Cool!!!
When leaving the urban area of Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe I could feel the speed in my ears :-)
The journey was soon over, I even did not have time to write my diary. And we could not enjoy the view much because of the tunnels.

Shinkansen to Hiroshima

Shinkansen front or back

Uji, the tea city

Day 5 in Kyoto - aka Fifty shades of Matcha
It was difficult to make a decision about how to spend our last day in Kyoto. There are so many possibilities, so many temples, gardens, rock gardens, walks, hikes and sights in Kyoto. Possibly that is why we decided to spend our last day out of Kyoto and visit the city of tea - Uji.
Anyway, we love tea, so this is the place that we should not miss.

In Japan trains leave to almost any destination every 10 - 20 minutes. You arrive at the station, manage to buy a ticket and board the train before it leaves. And if you miss your train, there is another one leaving very soon and at least you have a chance to find a seat.

Uji is a small city by the Uji river, south of Kyoto. It is famous for the Byodo-in temple and for tea cultivation.
The temple is one of the few examples of Heian-period architecture and the building shape resembles  the shape of of the bird - phoenix, which is considered to be a protector of Buddha. You can see the temple on a 10 yen coin.

Byodoin Temple

After visiting the temple we dedicated our day in Uji to tea, tea ceremony, tea sweets, tea jam and many more. When speaking of tea, it was mainly Matcha. We haven't drunk so much Matcha in our lives as we have in Uji today. We felt tea stoned but it felt really good :-)
Let us take you for a tea ride in pictures:

Uji tearoom

Tea ceremony - demonstrated and explained

Uji Bridge

Uji houses

Matcha dessert

Sushi and tea in the evening - tea must go on...

Kyoto shrines and gardens

It is very hard to write a blog when the days are so busy and we have so much to cover. We spent two days in Kyoto and did not see much of it. But sometimes less can be more, as we have learnt today in the Zen gardens of Daitoku-ji. We went through most of them totally astonished by their beauty and were sorry to leave a garden for another one. These places should not be limited by visiting hours...
We visited four temples, three of which had stone gardens and one was the green garden. I remembered the magnet I bought when visiting Villa Tugendhat in Brno - 'God is in the detail' and it is true here as it was in the Brno architectural jewel. The only difference is that in Zen there is no God, just the detail :-)
I will stop talking here, as pictures speak thousand words and reality (in this case) much more.

Here are some of our attempts to capture the beauty, the detail, the Buddha...

Rock Garden of Daitokuji

The Smallest Rock Garden