- Sunday, October 11th 2015 -
Today we left Kyoto and headed up into the mountains for Mount Koya (also known as Koya-San). We were staying at a Buddhist monastery called Shojoshin-in.
That morning when we came down for the Kyoto breakfast, there was a line out the door and past the elevators for the buffet. We went up to the main desk and asked if we could get money in return for our uneaten breakfast. Having a time table to be up and out by, we didn't really have time to wait on this breakfast. The Daiwa staff was wonderful and gave us back our 2,000 yen (around $20) and we headed down the street to the cafe we had the first day in Kyoto. Delicious pastries with maple syrup were had, and more coffee. Then we headed on back to the hotel to finish packing and getting ready. We didn't have a particular train ticket time, but it was a long journey and we wanted to arrive there with some daylight. Using the Kansai "thru" pass, we headed off to the station!
Unfortunately we bumped off the time tables provided very quickly, but we still managed to get out to Koya-san without too much waiting around. The Namba station is HUGE! I commented as we were wandering around it "This will be our hub next time". The amount of tickets we had made things a little confusing, I misplaced my Limited Express ticket and apparently needed that to get through to another line. Anyway, everything was found, and the staff around the station was very helpful in finding our way around. To give you an idea, this is what our transfers looked like.
Hankyu kyoto line ltd Express to Umeda
At Umeda, transfer to the Osaka City Subway Midosuji line (main street!)
Take the Midosuji line to Namba
From namba, find the Nankai Koya Line Express and take that one to Hashimoto
Change trains at Hashimoto to the Nankai Koya line
take the Nankai Koya line to Gokurakubashi
From gokurakubashi take the Nankai koya-San Cable car to the top (Koya-San).
THEN!
From The top of that, take the bus bound for Okunoin-mae and get off at Okunoin-guchi. The Inn was just up the street from that bus stop. But what a list of transfers! Multiple times the transports were crammed full with barely any breathing room. The bus up into Koya had lots of twisty turny roads. It was beautiful, but I didn't get any pictures of the journey.
Checking in wasn't difficult, and it's basically like you'd imagine. Take your shoes off outside, walk through this huge wooden building and up some really really steep stairs in slippers that don't work well with socks... oh, but we didn't have to haul our luggage up, there was a luggage elevator! Toilets were at the end of every hall, most of them western styled. There was a public bath, and a gender separated bath (where you wash yourself outside of the tub, and then climb into the tub to relax).
Our room had a lovely view of a garden, a cute tea set, and more beds on the floor. Anyway, we dropped off our things and headed out. I wanted to see the Okunoin Cemetery.
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| Bus stop and to the cemetery! |
It was cold outside and getting ready to rain, if the weather had been a little nicer I might have tried harder to go see it at night.
Check out some information about it here: http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4901.html
Beyond the cut is more photos and Osaka day 1
