Oh, What a Beautiful Place!

Koya-san is an area in the Kii Mountain region. It's a little over an hour and a half from Iwade by train. Koya-san is on top of a mountain. It is the home of a 1,200 year old school for Buddhism. A Buddhist monk named Kobo Daishi established the school in Koya-san with the purpose of training and practicing Buddhism. It is still the headquarters for this school. If you want to be a Buddhist monk, this is the place to come. If you want to see a beautiful place, this is also where you should come. I traveled here with 20 other Wakayama JETS this past weekend. We had the privilege of staying in a temple and having one of it's priests serve as tour guide for two days. We also just caught the end of the fall foliage. It was in the process of dropping from the trees. Being from Oklahoma and never venturing near the east coast, I have never seen real fall foliage like this before. The colors were stunning. I couldn't believe it. Pictured above is me in the garden of our temple/hotel.
An unidentified hand, Peter, Hannah, and Gemma under the fall foliage. On our way to visit The Great Stupa. Click here for photos and to see The Great Stupa for yourself.

Sunset viewed from Koya-san. Unbelievable. I took a ton of photos. There are two albums. Click here to see day two of Koya-san. I did put comments on all of the photos so you know what you are looking at. Quick summary; cable car up the mountain, many temples, 5:40 AM buddhist ceremony (amazing and memorable), the lack of real sleep, Kobo Daishi's shrine, the huge Okunoin Cemetary, traditional buddhist dinner and breakfast, onsen of course (I'm addicted), the cold day and need to bundle up, oishikatta manju, and wonderful company.