Partying at the Buddhist Temple

This weekend was Mitoku-san. (In Japanese, you call a mountain 'san'. It's the same as saying 'Mt.'). The idea was to check out an incredibly old temple on top of a mountain, or so was said. It's supposed to be one of the culturally amazing areas of the prefecture, and is in the runnings for becoming a Unesco World Heritage site.

Saturday starts with us waking up @ some ungodly hour – 10 AM – so as to make it to the train station and hit it up. Lo and behold, as many a friend will attest to, with nearly an hour to get ready, I somehow made it out the door with only ten seconds to spare. Perhaps I do take a long time to get ready... That's a mull for another time. We make it to the station; however I realize that I do not have enough coin to get me there and back and who knows if there's a bank @ a Buddhist monastery. A slight detour found me at the bank and before an ATM where frustration confounded me before long. I kept putting in my card, entering my pin, selecting withdrawal and the amount, and then the blasted machine would spit my card back out at me with no money dispensed. This happened maybe four or five times before I gave up in resignation, and was forced to borrow money from a friend (Jay would later inform me that one has to select withdrawal, THEN insert their card. Who knew?).

Needless to say, we in Kurayoshi without hitch after we caught the train. A quick reunion with all that other kids spread 'cross the prefecture and we were on our bus up into the mountains. The journey took only a few minutes, but reminded me of winding through the hills of Jamaica. Granted there are guard rails in Japan and the roads aren't as wide as a Mini, but I felt a little nostalgic.

We finally get to the temple, and then immediately set out upon our trek up the mountainside. It was an arduous affair of literally grasping for roots and rock to propel yourself up the mountain. At some points, there are no handholds at all, and it's almost like spelunking without harness – a tricky endeavour. So a few hundred meters up we go, tooth and nail at times, but the climb is pleasantly interrupted by sporadic Buddhist edifices here and there. A small shrine here, a temple there. And the thing is, you can walk around them, but there are no guardrails of any sort. So you've got about a foot and a half allowance before a drop of a hundred feet or more to the mountainside below. I got quite the case of vertigo peering over the side and thus remained as close as possible to the wall lest I feel dizzy and take a little spill. We eventually saw the temple itself that we came to see. Can't remember the name of it, but it was something in the order of 1,300 years old. I can't really describe it, so I'll hopefully be able to post a picture.

We descended in about half the time the ascent took, and returned to the visitor's centre for a shower and relaxation. Dinner soon followed, which rocked the llama's socks. All the while here, I think that the dinner's that I eat are twice as good as any Japanese food that I ever had back home. Seriously, if you want the best Japanese food in life, it isn't too much of a stretch to believe that you can find it in Japan.

After dinner, we had a band play for us, then each nationality that was there had to do a little cultural presentation on something that exemplified their culture. This was nowhere near the level of a formal thesis presentation; more for entertainment. The English played Blind Man's Bluff and sang a song, the Aussies and Kiwis gave a talk on how New Zealand has now become a part of Australia, the Americans did the Electric Slide, the German taught us how to cheers a beer, the Canadians sang, “If I Had A Million Dollars”, the Filipinos put on some sort of dancing game involving bamboo poles, and the French did a Can-Can.

This occupied most of the night, and for the remainder, we drank beer and sake until we passed out. For the most part, we all slept in a communal room, except for a few other smaller rooms that were filled. Thankfully I didn't snore (although I still don't think that I do), though Jay did right behind me, and I had to all but slap him in the head to get him to quit it.

We awoke at around 6 for meditation at 6:30. This was quite the effort as we retired around one or one thirty, and we'd been consuming many alcoholic drinks during the evening. Moreover, 6 in the morning is something that most of us usually know not of, so imagine our surprise when our watches showed us this fantastic hour.

Because of the number of us, we staggered meditation and breakfast: Half would do one, then half the other, and we'd switch. I ate breakfast first, which included white rice. I'm not accustomed to eating steaming rice at 6:30 AM, but when in Rome... Meditation was cool. The resident monk taught us about why they meditate and what it means to them, and followed this by showing us how to meditate. At one point, he slaps you on the back with this big stick, and it sounds as though he's tearing up your vertebrae, but it doesn't hurt all that much.

We then watched a slideshow on all of our countries that took a good two plus hours or so, to which we lost many to sleep.

Then we all piled into cars and headed home. The end. :)
Sort of an anti-climactic wrap up, but I'm tired of writing. I've been working on this post on and off for about two weeks. Frankly, I don't want to see it anymore.