Last Friday was the Japanese Labor Day, so we were very lucky to have a three day weekend after Thanksgiving. Heather and I decided to visit Mount Shosha which is one of the mountains around Himeji. It’s also the site of much of the filming for The Last Samurai. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, everyone in Himeji has a Tom Cruise story.
Heather and I started out our adventure with lunch. We went to an okiyomiyaki place for lunch. Okiyomiyaki is often described as an omelet, but really, I’d say it’s more like a crepe piled high with cabbage and smothered in mayonnaise. It’s not bad, but the real reason we went to this restaurant was the potatoes and cheese dish on their menu. After making it very clear to the waitress that we did NOT want spicy cod roe on it, we also ordered a corn dish and a chicken dish (I think we were still on a Thanksgiving dinner high).
Then we headed to the bus station to buy our bus and ropeway tickets. The bus was packed with other tourists (apparently everyone else in town had the same idea). The bus passed the long line of cars waiting to park at the cable car station, and we hopped onto the cable car. It was a nice ride up, even if we were packed like sardines into the cable car.
On top of Mount Shosha is the Engyoji Temple complex. It’s really quite large and it was a bit of a hike to see everything. We can’t claim to have understood everything we saw. There were a few signs in English but they didn’t really clear things up for us.
For example, this sign is for something called Benkei's hand stone. "According to legend, the two child geniuses came down from heaven and landed here on this stone to protect the temple". Who is Benkei? And what's the story with these child geniuses from heaven?
Another sign: "Legend has it that a young priest drew on Benkei's face while he was napping. When Benkei woke up, everyone was laughing at him, and he didn't know why until he looked in this well to see his face. A fight then started and the temple is said to have burned." Makes you think there has to be more to this legend, doesn’t it… 
And we have no idea who this guy is, and why everyone is swabbing his head.
And we were a little bit confused by these statues called the Thousand Armed Kannon. Kannon is the goddess of mercy. But clearly she doesn’t have a thousand arms. In a guidebook description for a site in Kyoto, I read that one can use a “nifty Buddhist mathematical formula that 40 arms are the equivalent of 1000 arms because each saves 25 worlds.” That just muddies the waters further - she still doesn’t have 40 arms. And what 25 worlds? And I thought Buddhist didn’t have “gods” exactly.
So it was a day spent in confusion, as many are here for me. But it’s a good lesson in going with the flow, something I thought I had perfected while in Kenya, but I guess I need a bit of review. Or maybe it’s a lesson to hire a tour guide? Nah, confusion is more fun!
Heather and I started out our adventure with lunch. We went to an okiyomiyaki place for lunch. Okiyomiyaki is often described as an omelet, but really, I’d say it’s more like a crepe piled high with cabbage and smothered in mayonnaise. It’s not bad, but the real reason we went to this restaurant was the potatoes and cheese dish on their menu. After making it very clear to the waitress that we did NOT want spicy cod roe on it, we also ordered a corn dish and a chicken dish (I think we were still on a Thanksgiving dinner high).
Then we headed to the bus station to buy our bus and ropeway tickets. The bus was packed with other tourists (apparently everyone else in town had the same idea). The bus passed the long line of cars waiting to park at the cable car station, and we hopped onto the cable car. It was a nice ride up, even if we were packed like sardines into the cable car.
On top of Mount Shosha is the Engyoji Temple complex. It’s really quite large and it was a bit of a hike to see everything. We can’t claim to have understood everything we saw. There were a few signs in English but they didn’t really clear things up for us.
For example, this sign is for something called Benkei's hand stone. "According to legend, the two child geniuses came down from heaven and landed here on this stone to protect the temple". Who is Benkei? And what's the story with these child geniuses from heaven?
Another sign: "Legend has it that a young priest drew on Benkei's face while he was napping. When Benkei woke up, everyone was laughing at him, and he didn't know why until he looked in this well to see his face. A fight then started and the temple is said to have burned." Makes you think there has to be more to this legend, doesn’t it… And we have no idea who this guy is, and why everyone is swabbing his head.
And we were a little bit confused by these statues called the Thousand Armed Kannon. Kannon is the goddess of mercy. But clearly she doesn’t have a thousand arms. In a guidebook description for a site in Kyoto, I read that one can use a “nifty Buddhist mathematical formula that 40 arms are the equivalent of 1000 arms because each saves 25 worlds.” That just muddies the waters further - she still doesn’t have 40 arms. And what 25 worlds? And I thought Buddhist didn’t have “gods” exactly.
So it was a day spent in confusion, as many are here for me. But it’s a good lesson in going with the flow, something I thought I had perfected while in Kenya, but I guess I need a bit of review. Or maybe it’s a lesson to hire a tour guide? Nah, confusion is more fun!
1 comment:
Wow, you weren't kidding about the food being smothered in mayonaise!
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