Vegetarian Treats and Cemetery Creeps – Koyasan Japan at night
October 21st, 2009 by Mariel.Clayton
Flight Centre’s Mariel Clayton continues her travel blog series from Japan. This time Mariel arrives at the temple she will call home for the night, enjoys (?) a vegetarian feast for dinner, visits the historic Okunoin cemetery… and ends up a wee bit spooked. Thrilling vacation tales, so let’s turn it over to Mariel -
It’s a long day of travelling, and even though I’ve not been the one doing the hard slog, I feel tired and restless. Getting off the bus I am another few minutes’ walk away from the temple, and I’ve never been so glad to see a monk in my life. The temple is richly decorated on the outside, but inside is sparse and dark and jumbled. Hidden alcoves where snarling statues lurk. Dingy paper scrolls hang limply on the walls. There is a neglected austerity to everything. The ‘office’ where I introduce myself and check in looks like a tornado blew through it. There are stacks and stacks of papers everywhere, looking like they will topple over at the slightest breeze. You could lose a monk or three in there, easily.
The abbot himself welcomes me and shows me to my room. There are no airs and graces, and he is not too good to escort a weary girl to her little den of solitude at the other end of the temple. I follow him as best I can, but rotund as he is, a little walking Buddha, he moves quickly across the threadbare carpet and squeaky wood floor, and I find myself falling behind. I always try to mentally map my way in a new place, but trying to keep up with the monk leaves me little time to take note of landmarks. I’m going to get lost I know it. The corridors wend and wind and dart off to the side, behind dark wood doorways and curtained entrances.
He shows me my room, it’s just beautiful, again with a little ‘foyer’ and private bathroom (nothing communal here except for a long bank of basins in the main corridor) that leads into the main section of the room, where my futon (urgh… again? really?) has already been laid out.
The abbot tells me… well, tries to tell me, that dinner is taking place in 10 minutes in the main dining room. I thank him profusely, hoping that I will even be able to find the main dining room, but at this point, I’m just apprehensive about even leaving my room, worried that I will be swallowed up in the maze of corridors, only to burst out Monty-Python-hermit-style 50 years from now.
He toddles off back into the gloom and I settle myself in. There is enough time for me to wash my face, give the futon a kick and head out for dinner. The breakfast from this morning sustained me for ages, but now I am hungry again. There’s just once hitch, a monastic mountain is not exactly kind to the famished. Staying with monks means embracing completely their lifestyle – a vegan lifestyle, and I am not exactly a rabbit. Herds of cattle have been known to stampede in fear when I light up my grill. At least I know there will be rice, and I can do rice… no problems.
Ok, one problem – finding the main dining room. It takes a few tries and turns, but I follow the path of the other diners until we are all snugly seated at a long low table in a long narrow room. The walls are painted with green flowers. The table is set, like at breakfast, with many little bowls and plates and morsels. The abbot appears again, to tell us to enjoy our meal, then while another monk, or acolyte perhaps, serves up steaming bowls of fluffy white rice, the abbot comes to each of us in turn, and ties a braided bracelet round our wrists; bracelets to protect and guide travellers, so that our journey will be blessed by the Daishi himself, and we will come to no harm. He thanks us for staying and leaves the room. We tuck in, as much as we can when it’s shojin ryori. I try a little bit of everything… the pickles, the wilted yet crunchy greens, the hard, gray ‘konnyaku’ which both looks and tastes like a school eraser, actually, I think a school eraser would be more appetising. Then there is a big blobby white… thing… in a bowl. I end up having to spear it with a chopstick and take a bite. There is no way to describe the taste… so let’s just say, I didn’t take another bite. Thank the Daishi for tempura vegetables and rice, and for the bag of seaweed crackers I have stashed in my bag for emergencies.
After dinner we leave our lovely little narrow room. As soon as we move out, the monks move in to clear up, and I am embarrassed for myself and the other guests at the amount of food still lying on plates and in bowls. I guess vegetarianism, like Shingon, is an acquired taste, but the food that is laying untried and untouched leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
Back in my room, the sun has already gone down and it’s getting colder by the second. Being so high up and close to winter, the nights get frigid early on. But I’m heading out into it. Part of my plan for being here was to go to Okunoin cemetery at night. It is the largest and oldest cemetery in Japan. Feudal Lords, modern politicians and celebrities all vie to be buried in Okunoin, close to Kobo Daishi and his temple. There is an arterial path that runs for nearly a kilometer through the graveyard from the entrance to the temple, and it is lined with markers and graves and offshoot plots and lanes. I am going to do some night photography there.
I am not normally a superstitious person, but I refuse to think that just because we cannot prove empirically that something exists, doesn’t mean that it’s not there. I am always open to all possibilities, no matter how illogical they may appear to be now. As I enter into the graveyard, it’s like I can feel the weight of the souls of the dead. There are layers upon layers upon layers of time and history, so thick that it’s almost tangible.
I will admit, I do feel a little on edge. Mostly, because there is no sound at all. Not a cricket, not a bat, not a bird makes any noise. Only the gentle stirring of a few leaves tells me that this is a living forest housing the dead. Growing up in Africa, you learn, that when the bush goes silent, it’s because there’s a predator about. What does it mean when a cemetery goes silent? What’s lurking in there?
If necessary, my solid-metal tripod can be a weapon in a pinch.
I go further and further into Okunoin, stopping at opportune moments for some Long-Exposure shots.
At a certain point, my nerves take over. It’s probably just the dark, it’s probably just my imagination, but I am suddenly feeling apprehensive, wary, like there’s something there – just beyond my vision. How does that saying go? Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. The night is getting blacker, like I’ve immersed my head in a vat of India ink. I can just make out shapes of tombs and gravemarkers. Jizo statues, once so cute and inoffensive in the light, seem malevolent in the thick darkness. I walk back along the path, and even though I know it’s just my imagination, it feels as though something is following me. I can hear a low rustle to my right at odd intervals, and something moves under the bridge I cross over. I feel like I’m walking in a tunnel, but there is no light at the end, but it’s a tunnel of my own making.
I leave Okunoin, go back to the Temple, turn on the lights, draw the screen over the door and turn on the TV. The reception is patchy and crackly, but it’s comforting because the volume beats away the ominous silence.
There’s a show with a bunch of Japanese men in sequined Speedos huddled together in a see-through tub filled with warm water. Thank goodness for normality.
Koyasan, Japan is highlighted on the Flight Centre travel map.
Looking for more information on traveling to Japan? Contact Mariel Clayton, an Adventure and Sport Specialist with Flight Centre based in Oakville, Ontario who can be reached at 1 866 704 5366.
Interested in more of Mariel’s great posts? Click here.
Categories: Destinations
