More Mountain Musings

Since Wednesday was a national holiday Yuka and I decided to do some exploring. We opted for Mt Koya, which is between Osaka and Wakayama. Koya-san is very famous as a holy mountain and it has many temples and shrines at the top, as well as a huge cemetery. The cemetery is fascinating as many companies have their corporate tombs there so that you can enjoy your eternal rest in the bosom of your company, how sweet! Many of them even have statuary to depict what it is that the company does, UCC Coffee has a coffee cup but this one was my favourite, you will never guess what they build... Also many of the tombs have little letter boxes so that you can post your business card in to let your former colleagues know that you dropped by! The mountain is naturally very popular with pilgrims and they take tours with guides in traditional pilgrim dress and are often dressed alike themselves.
Upon leaving the cemetery we went to the Kongobu-ji monastery. The main complex on the mountain. There I saw my first real zen garden...
And some amazing old screen paintings from the late sixteenth century.
Finally we visited the Garan which was garish to say the least. Some really love old buildings surrounding it though.