Saturday 30th June - onward to Hiroshima... with a bullet!

I was up at the crack of dawn the next day at Henjoko-in... well 5am, anyway, because at Koyasan there are morning prayers at 6am which visitors are allowed to sit in on, and it wasn't something I was going to miss - unlike my neighbour who completely overslept and missed practically all of it. I chatted with her briefly later and was left wondering why she'd come to Koyasan at all, since she didn't seem to have liked the place or the food very much - and honestly, I didn't find anything that differed from what you should expect having read plenty of travel reviews, so... I suppose it takes all sorts.

Buddhist prayers take the form of a lot of chanting and a great deal of incense - personally I found it all pretty captivating. Not being a Buddhist myself, I didn't kneel on the tatami mats nearer the front, but instead sat cross-legged at the back throughout the half an hour or so the prayers lasted. Afterwards, the  more senior priest, who had a bit of English, took us on a tour of the room and explained some of the statuary and art. He was a complete sweetheart actually - in my head I wanted to nickname him Yoda, despite the eyeglasses.

By the time we got back to our rooms it was breakfast time - another way-too-large for me meal delivered to the room, though thankfully it was slightly lighter fare than the night before with a good amount of fresh fruit, so I managed to eat most of it. When the Black Coat came to take away my trays, I asked him if I could please see the Japanese Garden before I left, and he actually seemed very pleased I had asked, escorting me all the way there and leaving me to contemplate it in my own time while he went about his business. I didn't actually go out into the garden as I had no outdoor slippers with me, but I did sit on the steps down from the verandah and admire it for a good while. It's largely a courtyard water garden style, with many plants and rock features. But it's set off nicely by the mountain itself which rises up steeply behind it in a burst of greenery at this time of year, and there's the constant sound of water, frogs, dragonfly and carp to bring it all to life.

Unfortunately I had to keep my eye on my watch, since I had trains to catch, so I couldn't stay as long as I might have otherwise. Also, before I left Henjoko-in, I wanted to make a donation to their roof repair fund, which I had established they were collecting for from some information sheets they had handed out during my stay. I have NO IDEA if it is rare for foreign tourists to make donations, and it was only 1000 yen since I had no notes smaller than a 10,000 at that point, but had a couple of 500 yen coins put by (for B-T concert drink tokens actually but this seemed like a good cauise)!. Anyway, when I explained to the Black Coat as I was checking out that I wanted to donate, he led me back to the hallways just newar the entrance and ushered me into a room (luckily I remembered to step out of my slippers). Rather unexpectedly I was confronted by four of the priests sitting round a low table all smiling and nodding/waving at me to sit with them. Haha, talk about not knowing what to do or say - they clearly were minimal on the English and I was obviously EXTREMELY minimal on the Japanese. Anyway, I rather awkwardly assumed the best seiza kneeling position I could muster (not a very good one considering I had sprained my knee a little in Nara walking up that bloody mountain), put my donation in the provided envelope, filled in the information on it in as neat a hand as possible and then handed it over (with both hands - I remembered that bit of etiquette)! In return, they presented me with two pairs of chopsticks in a box, which I wasn't really expecting but accepted gracefully (I hope) all the same. They were all really nice guys, and I made them all laugh when I plainly had trouble getting up from kneeling and made a face indicating I was too unfit for this kind of thing.

Before I had the chance to embarrass myself further, I made a (hopefully) unhurried but efficient escape, then finished checking out. Since I had paid in advance before arriving in Japan, that basically just involved telling the Black Coats I was leaving now, then thanking them and saying goodbye. Then it was off for the bus and the long train journey back to the busier urban sprawls.

This time, I switched at Shin-imamiya to a train for Osaka, rather than Kyoto, which provided me with some great views of the Pacific side of the coast and of the ocean as the journey progressed. It was the first time I had actually seen the ocean from a train, since the train to Kagaonsen earlier in the week didn't offer those views due to the landscape (even though I know it's quite near the Sea of Japan). As on the previous day, the skies were amazingly blue as we left Koyasan, with cloud formations that were a dream to photograph. I don't know whether it's the high altitude or I just got lucky but it made looking out of the train window well worth it in both directions.

It was weird as hell being plunged into the chaos of Shin-Osaka station after Koyasan - it's a major bullet train hub and landing there was like going between a sleepy countryside station in rural England to Kings Cross. After reserving a seat on the train I wanted to catch later for Hiroshima, I went off and found a cafe that served half-decent coffee and better snacks so that I could kill time for an hour or so and get away from the milling crowds until I adjusted to them somewhat.

This was another time when I kind of wished I had been less strict about my travel timings - I had been half-inclined to add in some daytripping in Wakayama prefecture between Koyasan and Hiroshima, but concern over whether I would make the train times I had set myself had held me back. As it turned out, I had plenty of time, and was scheduled to arrive in Hiroshima way earlier than I needed to. Ah well.

I got my first sight of a bullet train - one of the superfast Nozomis (which the JR Pass does not cover) as I walked up the stairs to the platform I needed to catch my regular Sakura-style train. It was actually quite exciting, and I'm not even a railway buff. They really are an aesthetically pleasing design, and I had absolutely no shame about taking pics, just like everyone else.

Typically for Japan, the trains ran to almost perfect timings, and I didn't have to wait long before mine was ready for boarding (Shin-Osaka being a terminal, many journeys start and end there, so we all had to wait for the train to be cleaned and checked before we boarded). Only one and a half hours to Hiroshima, which if you look at the distance travelled on a map, is pretty bloody impressive.  And when I boarded I unexpectedly found that I had been upgraded to the Green Car (first class) despite not having a Green Car JR Pass. On the one hand it was nice because the car was only half full and the seats are exponentially bigger and have more leg room than the regular class, but on the other hand it reduced my people-watching opportunities immensely since the only other people in there were businessmen and fellow tourists. I bought a snack from Shin-Osaka to eat on the way - just some sandwiches from a small concession at the station, but they were tasty anyway - tuna and crab salad, I believe.

It wasn't long into the journey before I realised that the rainy season had finally caught up with me, despite my charmed life with it up to this point. After the glorious sunshine for the past few days, I had barely seen any rain since the day I left Tokyo, except for a few drizzly evenings that never turned into anything much. But the coastline to Hiroshima was as grey and rainy as you could imagine, and I was slightly regretting that I didn't have an umbrella , especially considering that I had a tram-trip and a walk ahead of me.

But, as luck would have it (and my luck on this trip for the most part was pretty amazing, weather-wise), the rain had stopped by the time we actually arrived in Hiroshima. Apart from the morning I left Tokyo,  my entire holiday had been pretty dry, and I'm grateful for it. It made sightseeing much easier and less hassle not to be grappling with a brolly and wet shoes while trying to take photos and travel around the place. I would have managed fine I am sure (I went mentally prepared for rain) but I wasn't complaining about the fact that I didn't have to deal with it after all.

Public transport in Hiroshima is by streetcar/tram, and while it's very comfortable and frequent, it's certainly not the fastest or most efficient. You pay as you get off, so everyone has to walk up from the back of the tram (they can be four or so carriages long) to get off by the driver at each stop and drop the required money into the machine. You have to give the correct change too - there's a conductor on board whose sole job is to give change. Go figure. The system is fine if it's not crowded, but a bit of a pain if it is. Also a pain if you have too much stuff to carry, I noted, as everyone squished up to get off at the busier stops. Still, it was pretty cheap at 100-200 yen or so a ride in the city limits, and I quite enjoyed the times I used them while I was there - just be aware that it's all a bit confusing when you first get on, though at least the stops are announced in English as well as Japanese and Chinese/Korean.

My hotel, the Daiwa Roynet, was out by the Peace Park, which is about 20 mins. by tram from the station. However, the journey took in the shopping/city centre areas of Hiroshima on the way so I got to see plenty of it from a comfy seat.

It was only around 4pm by the time I arrived - though the rain was threatening to return. Given that and the fact that I really, really wanted to use Hiroshima as a staging point to catch up on laundry, email and other personal admin. before hitting Tokyo in three days time, I decided to spend the afternoon making good on that intent. Luckily the Daiwa Roynet had one of the biggest rooms of my trip (barring the tatami rooms) and lots of hanging space, so laundry was a breeze (just as well since as I was about to find, the heat in Hiroshima meant that laundry-time was not going to be a one-time thing as I had hoped).

The other nice thing about the Daiwa Roynet was that I was offered a selection of toiletries from a basket at reception when I checked in - among which were some bath fizzer/bath salts things. One of those was the only thing I took, since for the most part I was self-sufficient with toiletries plus there was always a set of basics in every hotel room anyway (shampoo, body soap, toothbrush etc.). It turned out that the Daiwa bathrooms (and so, the baths) were bigger than most and perfectly ample for a decent soak - hence the bath salts, no doubt. I still have no clue what the scent of mine was supposed to be (mint or herbs, perhaps?), but it was pretty nice and turned the water a very satisfying marine green. If you ever stay there, give them a try! The other smart thing that the Daiwa provided against other places was a multi-adaptor for charging mobile phones and Apples devices, which was in the same drawer as the Internet cable. If I'd been staying there after I lost my iPhone cable there would have been no worries at all!

Anyway, apart from doing laundry, having a long soak in the bath and catching up on a ton of email, photo downloads, blog updates, direct Twitter messages and Facebook stuff, I deliberately did absolutely nothing else of any moment - not even dinner. And while I planned out a sightseeing schedule for the next day, I also knew from the fairly reliable weather report online that it wasn't due to stop raining until mid-morning. So, since I'd had a large breakfast, sarnies on the train, plus relatively little exercise, I settled for just having a quick snack then taking to my bed at a pretty early hour, and for once on this trip I didn't even set my alarm.

• Pictures of Koyasan and Hiroshima are on my Flickr here
• Today's choon is of course, Ride a Rocket by Lithium and Sonya Madan, in honour of my first trip by bullet train!

Friday 29th June - another day, another mountain

The next day dawned pretty hot and humid in Nara, so I wasn't entirely sorry to be leaving for higher altitudes. Fortified by a Comfort Hotel continental breakfast (not bad considering they were free), and with one bag safely on its way to Hiroshima ahead of me, I was at the station and waiting for a train by 8.30am.

A quick big-up for the Comfort Hotel in Nara here by the way - it was one of the nicest rooms I had through the trip, the included continental breakfast was decent and varied on the two days I stayed (Cocopops, oh yeah baby!), there was free wifi and also free coffee in the lobby (or to take to your room) from 3pm to midnight. The staff had mixed English skills but we managed to get by between us and they forwarded my luggage with no issues whatever. Also it's literally just across the road from the JR station. If you go to Nara and you don't mind chain hotels, you could certainly do worse - I filled in the comment card that was left in my room and told them their staff were  both efficient and lovely, which was absolutely true.

Anyway, advert break over.... the trip to Koyasan from... well most anywhere actually, is a little convoluted and also a little long, due to the fact that you have to switch from the national JR line railways to a private line, which means changing stations and buying an extra ticket or two day rail pass since you can't use your JR Pass on the private lines. But, I knew this in advance and had decided that it was also totally worth it ifor the prospect of staying in a Buddhist monastery and trying some of their unique vegetarian cuisine - shojin ryori. This was the single most expensive night of my trip in terms of accommodation bill, but since it came with a full dinner and breakfast, actually worked out very reasonably.

First leg of the trip was to Kyoto (on which ride I saw my first and only dude of my trip going about his business in a yukata and geta - women in kimonos I had encountered a few of in Kanazawa, and a Buddhist monk/priest sat next to me on the train to Nara, but regular dudes in traditional clothing as an everyday outfit seem rare). There wasn't much else notable about the trip since I was covering similar ground to the day I arrived in Nara, and so most of the time I spent listening to music and checking my itinerary.

After we arrived at Kyoto,  I was double-checking my train  to make sure it was the one I wanted for my next leg - Shin-imamiya - when a youngish Japanese guy (totally looked like a "works in the media" type) came up to me to ask if I was lost (I wasn't) and remarked that he had seen me get on the train at Nara and hoped that I was enjoying Japan. His English was pretty near excellent - I have no idea why he didn't speak to me at Nara or on the train since it wasn't crowded, but maybe he was shy of approaching me till the last moment. Who knows. Anyway, it was only a quick chat since he was catching a train himself, but he did confirm to me that I was on the right platform for the train to Shin-imamiya, which saved me some kanji-comparisons and mucking about with notes, so I am grateful to him for that.

Shin-imamiya is where the JR Pass reaches its limit. You can buy a "World Heritage Pass" at one of several stations - that one included - which gets you train trips to Koyasan and back, plus discounts to some of the attractions and free bus travsl in the town for two days, so that's exactly what I did. I actually upgraded to the Express version while I was about it because that shaved a good chunk of time off the trip for the sake of under a tenner.

Pass duly bought and paid for, I had a bit of a wait at Shin-imamiya, since I had overestimated the time it would take to sort my tickets and so forth. But unexpectedly, there was free wifi there (this seemed to be a random but surprisingly common thing at some of the more rural stations I passed through - go figure). If you happen to find it while travelling in Japan, it'll show as the network "wifine" and you need to open your browser and say yes to it before it works on all apps - took me a couple of goes to realise that. Anyway,  while I was mucking with my iPhone, a Japanese businessman came and sat next to me and asked if he could make conversation to me, which was quite sweet. His English was very limited, but in the short time before his train arrived he managed to ask me about my trip a little and ask where I was from. Clearly this day was the day for random encounters!

The trip from Shin-imamiya is to Koyasan is a fairly unremarkable trip to start with, but once you get to the mountainous parts, t's quite lovely - Wakayama seems like an interesting area and it was a shame I didn't get to explore it more. The train line is single track up the mountain so trains have to wait and pass each other, but there are beautiful views on the off-side which I was, luckily, sitting on.

The last part of the trip starts when you get almost to the top - the train terminates and the summit can be reached only by ropeway - cable car - only this one travels on the ground. Anyone who has been to Scarborough has probably travelled in mini versions of these going up and down between the harbour and the Grand Hotel. They're quite common in Japan in all forms, but this is the only one I got to travel on since I have a phobia of the actual dangling-from-the-sky versions. After THAT you have to catch a bus into Koyasan town itself from the ropeway station at the top, because walking between the ropeway station and the town is banned due to the potential for accidents. Now you can see why I only wanted to be carrying one bag for this excursion! All in all I think the trip took me just over three hours from Nara, but it honestly felt shorter, and I could have saved time if I had known more about Shin-imamiya in advance, but oh well.

Koyasan itself is a thriving town with schools, hospitals and shops, despite also being home to around 50 monasteries and temples, plus a few world heritage sites. There were of course coin lockers in the town centre where I dumped my bag for 300 yen (yay, it fitted into one of the small ones - I was so relieved) and that gave me most of the morning and afternoon to check out the sights I wanted to see before early check-in and dinner at Henjoko-in - my monastery for the night.

I had the free bus pass as part of my train ticket, but actually for the most part, Koyasan is pretty walkable and relatively flat. I used the buses there mainly just to save time, as opposed to effort - they're all clearly marked with destinations and if in doubt, there's an excellent tourist information centre right at the crossroads in the middle of town, near one of the main bus stops.

First stop of the day was the Danjo Garan, a temple complex that contains the Konpon Daito pagoda, and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It was an absolutely beautiful day - hot sun and blue skies but little to no humidity at the higher altitude, so I took my time wandering the area and taking a lot of pictures. It's hard to convey the scale of some of these building in photographs, especially when it's not crowded with people, but the Konpon Daito is truly magnificent in size and beauty, and I can see why it's so highly regarded both within Buddhism and culturally.

From there (with the assistance of a passing local lady and no thanks to another artist-impression type tourist map) I muddled my way over to Kongobu-ji, the head temple of the Koyasan Buddhism sect, for a look at their collection of beautifully painted door screens and their extensive rock garden. I took no pictures of the former (not allowed) but some of the latter - it's the largest rock garden in Japan, and it's very impressive. I debated walking up to the Daimon - the gate that guards the entrance to Koyasan - from there, but in the end my stomach was reminding me that I had not eaten since 7am, so instead I walked the short distance back into town for sandwiches and coffee.

By this time it was about 2pm, and I was keenly aware that I needed to be checking into my temple between 4 and 5, so I wasted no time in hopping on a bus to the main reason I had come to Koyasan in the first place - Okunoin. Okunoin is the largest cemetery in Japan, and probably one of the most beautiful - the pictures of it online were what initially caught my eye about Koyasan, before I ever knew you could stay in temples there or how easy it was to visit. It also contains the mausoleum of the founder of the Koyasan Buddhist colony, but I was honestly less interested in that (not being a Buddhist) and far more interested in the cemetery itself, with its moss-covered rocks and wood and incredibly tall and ancient trees. I feel like I am getting a bit boring describing things as beautiful, but what else can you say about a place like that? For the most part, due to the high tree cover, it's cool and damp, and slightly dark in places - very atmospheric. And the graves range from the very old to the very new (I have no idea whose the grave is with the silver rocketship on it, but wow, it was impressive). In a lot of cases there is no trace that I can see of who was buried there, but I do know that the place is full of famous, historic people, and that corporations buy graves there for their workers or, in one notable case - an extermination company has a memorial there to the insects it has destroyed. There are also a few darker sides to Okonuin, like the stairs that you'd better not stmble on if you want a long and happy life, or the well of which it is said if you can't see your reflection in the water, you'll be dead within 3 years (here's a tip, don't look into it on the closest side to the path because you'll block the light).

I could have stayed there for hours, but I only had two, so I wandered it from end to end with occasional forays off the main path into the woods, where there are yet more memorials, in nooks and crannies between trees and rocks. By the time I emerged at the far end, it was past time for me to be getting to the temple to check-in, so instead of walking back to town as planned, I ended up getting another bus back to the place where I had stored my bags before walking to Henjoko-in.

Finding it was a little tricksy, since I had already established that my ability to identify kanji from print against kanji carved in wood is a little limited. Also, there was nothing in particular in the photo I had to distinguish it from other temples nearby, but with the assistance of a kindly monk who jovially offered basic directions to my query (pointing to the left and holding up two fingers - so two temples along to the left, then) I rolled up to find I was still in time to check in and indulge in a long bath before dinner, which was a relief.

The monks who took care of the tourists (there were a handful of us there overnight) seemed to be quite junior, but all had sufficient English to deal with most questions, if you didn't ask them in a complicated fashion. Throughout my stay, they were completely pleasant to me, and very unobtrusive beyond the fact that they did have a tendency to open your door after knocking if they wanted to get your attention to I learned to keep the intermediary screen door shut if I was changing clothes. I'm not especially easily embarrassed,  but I really don't think a poor Buddhist monk needs to see that sort of horror before dinner. My room by the way was huge - two rooms and a private toilet, in fact, plus a covered verandah that looked out over a wild corner of the grounds. It was in the newer block of the temple, so sadly didn't overlook the Japanese garden, but I had no complaints regardless.

After taking a bath in the communal ladies bathing area (which I had to myself since there was one person leaving as I arrived, and one arriving as I left - a  non-Japanese Asian lady who I actually had to explain the routine for the communal bathing to - I suppose I was approaching "experienced" on the subject by then) I returned to be told that dinner was imminent. Sure enough it was brought to my room shortly after by one of the guys I mentally dubbed Black Coats, with apologies to Butlins, since they all wore black samue and seemed to be solely in charge of the visitors' wellbeing.

The food was indeed amazing - tofu in an astonishing number of forms, plus rice, noodles, broths, fresh vegetables and fresh fruit. There was absolutely no way I could manage it all, but I did attempt to try everything on the three trays it arrived on, until I couldn't eat another morsel. The tempura vegetables were particularly delicious, as was what I believe to have been freeze-dried tofu.

It was so filling that I went for a brief walk afterwards back towards town, because I was worried I would get indigestion if I just sat around doing nothing. I had to be quick though as the temple closes its doors at 8pm, so there was just time to walk off a few calories and buy a couple of cold drinks from a vending machine to last me the evening, then back to watch my futon bed being put together expertly by the youngest of the Black Coats. I complimented him on his speed at the task, even if I cheated a bit once he was gone and rolled out the second base-mat from the cupboard as extra padding due to the stiff back and shoulder that had been bothering me on and off since Kanazawa. And by 9 o'clock I was tucked in with alarm set for 5am and the screen doors to the verandah open so that I could sleep in fresh air for once (sleeping in air conditioned rooms inevitably either makes me cough or sneeze at some point). But thanks to the protection of the mosquito nets on the verandah I could get a night's sleep without worrying about being bitten to death if I kept the window open.

• Pictures of Okonuin and other sights in Koyasan are over on Flickr in relatively correct order
• Music for the day was David Sylvian's Red Guitar, among others.