Tuesday, May 22, 2007

holy adventures

lots to catch up, but that's ok.

after the zen temple, i had a couple days of rest. in this lull, i went with some people to see Spider-man 3, which was really funny in how bad it was. let's just say that Kara and I, being probably the only two americans in the theater felt so patriotic when Spiderman slid across in front of the conveniently placed American flag. Oh Spider-man! You truly are a patriot in the tradition of Paul Revere, George Washington, and all those guys and gals.

but then, one fine early morning i awoke to meet with juli, kara, and daniel at the train station at some ridiculous hour to plod our way through the mountains (with the assistance of a train) and finally make the ascent (with the assistance of a cable car) to the holy mountain of koya.


Oh why is this picture blurry!



It took us 20 tries to keep a straight face.


it was something like a two and a half hour journey which is why we left at an hour which is too early to be named. before we took the cable car to the top, i learned of the depth of daniel's fear of spiders. i had long known that daniel was afraid of spiders, but so am i so i figured it wasn't that big a deal. we both went to the restroom at the station and he goes into a stall and all i hear is "ahhhhhhh," like superloud. for those who don't know, many japanese toilets are no more than holes in the floor. i thought maybe he fell and slipped in. he was panting quite loudly at the point when i asked if he was ok. apparently there was a spider in there. i walked out of the restroom laughing to much to accurately tell the others. we continued to poke fun at him the rest of the day.




the entrance to koyasan if approached by foot from the mountains. we came in backwards because we took the cable car *shame*


hiking, there was some of this. found a shinto shrine. there's a rule of thumb in japan, if there's a trail to walk, there will be a shrine at the end/apex of the journey (and perhaps a few along the way). no better way to mark achievement right? we walk long, we see a shrine and hooting and hollering and high fives ensue. this is how it goes. the japanese generally just look at us funny. we also saw a demon trapped in a tree. it was held there by rope. that was some good rope. i don't think you can buy this kind of rope at lowe's.






what a good looking group


eating lunch in an "international cafe" (there was vegetarian food you see... kara often laments that she had to be friends with two vegetarians -- take that meat eaters! nrah nrah), it was a cool place. we sat in the lofted area above the main dining area on the floor. we each came up with our own mudras. a mudra is a hand position of Buddha in art. the different positions mean different things. there's a teaching mudra, a "do not fear" mudra, a knowledge mudra, a touching the earth mudra and so on. to the canon we added the total rock mudra (someone hand buddha the axe and he will melt some faces and shatter some worlds with his solo, trust me), the puppy mudra, the "that's a good cup of tea!" mudra, the "oh my gosh what have i done" mudra, and there was another but i can't remember it. from this i will use my cleverness to deduce it was the mudra of forgetfulness. but no worries, i have video evidence of all this.


It was also determined during lunch that I would make a bad ninja because I am afraid of heights. Not to mention tall and clumsy. (drawing by Kara)


after this was the main attraction, the gigantic grave yard in an ancient forest. we had already noticed that this was an ancient place by the sheer size of the tree. it took all four of us to hug just one tree.


note: half these people are ghosts!





a strange sign near a bathroom. i think the message is that cigarettes make the world cry and the eyes of the children burn.


people aren't all buried here, now, because they generally do cremation in this country. and in many cases it's not the entirety of someone's ashes interred in this graveyard. sometimes it's just a few. this graveyard has been around since the 800s C.E. now you may ask why do so many people want to be interred (partially) here. well, koyasan is the holy mountain of the shingon sect of buddhism. shingon buddhism is a kind of esoteric (secret!) buddhism. the founder was this dude named kukai and he settled koyasan in something like 819 c.e. At a certain point, Kukai decided that he wasn't going to die, but rather he was just going to meditate until the Maitreya Buddha came (the Maitreya Buddha is the "Future Buddha" that will come at the end of the world to wake everyone up. He's Buddhism's answer to the second coming of Christ... note, this is an exaggeration and a flawed analogy and ideas of the Maitreya Buddha undoubtedly precede the notion of the second coming of Christ please don't take me seriously too much). Then he'd tag team it with that Buddha. Well, people thus think that if some of your remains are near Kukai (who, in his eternal meditative state is called Kyobo Daishi) then you'll get resurrected first. It's actually quite cool because the head monks of Shingon still bring food to the guy every day (they've been doing this for like 1200 years now) and even change his clothes. they only let the super-advanced monks do this though. because, let me tell you, it would take some spiritual strength to see a 1300 year old dude with his clothes off.

despite that i'd been getting tired of temples, the temple in front of kukai's meditation spot was cool and filled with lanterns. we couldn't take pictures (this is esoteric stuff, afterall) but it was cool. before we got there, there was this box with a rock that, if you could lift it onto a platform, meant that your sins were light. all in our party tried it and it seems that Daniel is the only pure one among us. this is undoubtedly because he's scandinavian.

well, in hopes that we'd get good cred with the Future Buddha and Kukai, Daniel, Kara, and I dropped a hair near Kukai's box. so we're set. Juli opted not, but fortunately for her (oh Buddha bless impermanence) we're always dropping skin cells and hairs everyone, so i think when the time comes for the future Buddha to swoop down in eternal glory she to will be picked up by Kukai.

(note: i'm pretty sure this is not actually how it works, and that one probably has to deposit some remains post-death for this to work. but we're gonna hope kukai makes an exception. i mean, how could he say no to these faces)



Juli had a run in with a bear. He got her eye, but she got his teeth.



an unfortunately blurry picture in front of a kind of grave/monument for a rocket company of sorts. different companies had corporate grave/monuments. there was even a monument done by a pest-control company to honor all the termites they'd killed.


tired, we left after eating some tofu with ridiculously spicy mustard. that was a trip. i think if i ate a tablespoon of that stuff, i'd be enlightened. and my sinuses would be clear too. that'd be two birds in one stone (in one stone? i think that mustard affected me more than i thought... ).

we went and saw the giant stupa thing and a bell, and then we returned home.




I don't know why I'm making this face.


the next week, after some classes, juli and i went to Ise which is some 3.5 hours east of here. Ise is another super-holy place in Japan. it's the number one shinto shrine in all of japan. all shrines are dedicated to this god or that, but this one is dedicated to the sun goddess, from whom humans (specifically the emperor) descended... or some such thing. most shrines are very colorful. lots of orange and white. but ise is different. it's in a forest and everything is natural. they don't paint the structures. also, each building is rebuilt every 20 years. the wood from the old buildings are then sent all over japan to be used in repairs and construction of new shrines. so pretty much every major shrine in japan is connected with Ise. this rebuilding has a practical purpose too. it keeps the traditional japanese construction techniques (i.e. no nails) alive.

we arrived and found a crowd of people dressed up in white (pilgrim's clothing no doubt). there was a guy playing a taiko (a large japanese drum) and another playing a flute. then some women danced. before this we had spotted this large wheeled wagon with three large logs on this. what was this, we thought. wood for a new building maybe. cool deal.


some kids and some old people doing some chants. enacting a kind of conversation between the elders and youthful generation. unfortunately, i could not understand what they were saying, but the significance of it, i could determine.


well after the dancing, the men all gathered round, pulled out the rope from the wagon and began hooing and hah-ing. i had seen one of the guys drinking a canned chu-hai earlier (an alcoholic beverage usually lemon flavored). after this, they began pulling the thing down the road. it looked like they were going to run into the crowd, but they didn't.

now i had heard the guy on the loudspeaker say something about going slowly. i'm not good with japanese but "yukkuri" i did hear. and they were slow, until they turned down the street at which point they all yelled out and began running like crazy with this thing. i understood now why the guy was drinking. he had to get ready to go crazy.

so that was awesome to see. we followed the wagon to where they were going to load the logs into a pool to then be used for construction. it was a hot day, so we were thankful when a man came around handing juice out to everyone.

we waited around, heard some "bonsai's" and then left to go enter the outer shrine (there are two, the outer and the inner).

it was rather cool, and felt different than other shrines. seeing these things before we entered gave me the feeling for the first time that for some there might be more to shinto than superstition and wishing (which is what it tends to be for most it would seem). we saw the outer shrine, left, got some lunch and then took a bus to the inner shrine.


Just outside the outer shrine


again we saw another wooden cart with logs, but here there were a lot more people. we crossed a bridge over the river and began following thousands of people clad in white pilgrim's clothes heading towards the inner shrine.


In seeing everyone gathered for the beginnings of construction of a new building I couldn't help but think about the Amish raising a barn.








now it should be noted that both with the outer and inner shrine you can't actually enter them unless you're important. this means that pretty much everyone just goes to right outside the inner shrine, does their prayer, makes their offering and leaves. it's super secret. we couldn't take pictures past a certain point, but outside the area i was able to snag a picture or two of the roof of the inner shrine in the distance.


Outside the inner shrine. Past this point, no pictures.



the roof of the inner shrine


we also stopped at the famous wedded rocks as they're called which weren't too far from the shrines. the sun was setting and we sat out by the ocean for a while before making the four hour trip back (after spending time at what felt like an abandoned train station hoping there would indeed be a train back).



then it was finals. yeah, finals, already. who knew. Juli and I both finished up on Tuesday and made one last trip to Fushimi-inari (she really wanted to go again before leaving). That was a nice trip.

wednesday we went to universal studios in osaka because, well, why not. it was a nice cool day and because it was a weekday we didn't have to wait too long for anything. Juli had never really been on a real roller coaster and had been traumatized by Tower of Terror with regard to free falls (well she had fun on that ride too, she told me, despite being scared out of her wits). so i decided naturally that she should go on the one at USJ (as it's known). the coaster was actually quite mild and i didn't hold on to anything the whole way, but she was rattled by it. again, she had fun, but i think she needs time to recover after these thrills. all in all, it was a fun day.

Thursday I went to karaoke with the swedes and kara and a couple japanese friends as our end of the year celebration. four hours of karaoke and my voice was broke. and we always end on bohemian rhapsody which is painful to sing (and probably more painful to hear!). i will miss karaoke back in the states.

Friday, I went with Juli, Kara and others to Osaka to America Mura where they were doing some shopping. It wasn't a very fruitful trip, but fun nonetheless.

And Saturday was my final day with Juli in Japan. She was going to stay overnight at a hotel near the airport so I helped her take her stuff there before going to Osaka to meet and say goodbye to a friend. Then me and her said farewell to Osaka on the Ferris Wheel and had a cup of coffee before she caught the bus back. yeah....

Sunday I went to a concert with a variety of local acts. Some were good. Some, not so much. I sat too close to the speakers. One of the bands Daniel is friends with. They are called Perfect Dancer and they are two Japanese girls who hold guitars, kinda sing and wear yellow hats. By all standards, they are quite awful. But we suspect that there's more to this than we can see. It's almost like a kind of joke, a piece of performance art that leaves people holding their ears, awkward, or laughing (sometimes with the two). At least, we hope and are pretty sure they don't take themselves seriously as musicians.

Went to a flea market yesterday, picked up a couple things but will go to another one on Friday with Daniel and Kara (as she is presently on the beach in Okinawa) and finish up gift shopping.

I hope all is well in your world. Things are a bit lonely here. My roommate just moved out so I've got the room to myself but with the year having ended I'm feeling less and less connected with things. But, only a week and a half til the family gets here, which means I need to get serious about getting plans together of all we're going to see. There's plenty to be sure, I just need to organize it all.