First night in Koya-san

Today, four trains followed by a cable car ride then a bus brought us to the remote mountain village of Koya-san. Unlike Tsumago, which exists purely as a tourist destination, Koya-san is an active religious destination for the Shingon sect of Buddhism. This means that it is more authentic as compared to Tsumago, which thus far has been a mixed blessing...

We're staying in a practising Buddhist temple, meaning spartan rooms and traditional Japanese shared baths. Breakfast and dinner are shojin-ryori, vegetarian cuisine dominated by tofu and bean curd.


Delightfully prepared and presented, this cuisine basically consists of different varieties of foul-tasting, slime-covered mush... and, sadly, lots of it. Getting through dinner was a struggle. Fortunately, our camera battery died just as dinner was served, otherwise this blog posting would consist of nothing but shots of pained facial expressions as we tried to force ourselves to swallow. We have two more breakfasts and one more dinner of this to look forward to - we might manage to lose a little weight while we're here. Back in Tsumago, the "adventurous" part of our dinner consisted of wasp larvae cooked in soya sauce; tonight we go to sleep yearning for the subtle delicacy of wasp larvae.

Tomorrow off to explore Koya-san to find out if it was worth it...