Japan Summer Trip 2018 Day 3 (4/6)

After putting first two days of clothes into the coin operated machine (400Y for 1kg of clothes) and waited for it to dry at near 1am, I finished my blog for the second day and turned in. 

We went into a random izakaya near Ueno station for lunch

I had wanted to wake up early at 6am for a jog at the nearby Ueno Park but the snooze bug overpowered my will to wake up again. We only went downstairs for breakfast at 9.30am as J wanted to snooze as well. The breakfast set was really simple, just a choice of bagel/pancakes/hotdog bun with a drink of choice. We decided to just takeaway the food so that we can go back to the room to pack up for checking out. In the meantime, Y and his gf TJ had arrived at Tokyo, we decided to meet at Ueno station for brunch. 

Shinkasen area in the station is much less crowded

My japan rail pass for the 7 days

Wefie before we start our long journey

We will be heading to a old temple Taiyoji for a shokubu stay. It is something quite different for all of us and I look forward to experience it. There was still plenty of time before we need to board the train, so we went to get the reserve ticket we will need for traveling together later. We also went New Days (common convenience store at train stations) to get some snacks. I got myself a variety of cheese and onsen egg. That was my first ride on Shinkansen but it was just a short ride of 38 min and we soon alighted at Kumagaya to take a long long ride on the local Chichibu railway to the temple. 

Showing off the ancient looking ticket on Chichibu Railway

The streets looked deserted when we arrived 

Very small and simple station (rushed to toilet before monk picked us)

Taiyoji is actually in Saitama area and we only arrived at the last station Mitsumineguchi Station around 4pm. The station is quite deserted so we assumed the other few ladies waiting for us were also going to the temple. Soon, the monk drove up in a 6-7 seater, loaded up our luggages and we set off for the temple. The ride to the temple was about 20 minutes, it went up some winding road as we got higher up the mountain. As I was about to feel a little unwell about the ride, the van stopped and we have arrived.

Front building with French name looked out of place here

Our luggages left in front of our shared 'room' for the night

The inside of the room, with tatami flooring

Temple lodging (know as Shukobu) is getting popular with foreign visitors in Japan, it provide a different experience for people who are curious like us and all of us were keen to try it out for this trip. Taiyoji is few hundreds years old but it is rather well maintained and clean, just like every other part of Japan. The monk who picked us up seemed to run a one man show, but there was also another obasan who helped him prepare meals for us. That's it, just two of them and many dogs/puppies in the premises.

The 'main office'

My dear friends listening to the monk's briefing about sutra copying

The monk showed us to our 'room', which in fact was a big hall where five of us will share for the night. There were two other groups of people staying over with us, four Japanese ladies who share another big room and two caucasian ladies who arrived before us, I assumed they are Americans. After we left our luggages in the room, the monk started to brief us about our first activity, which was the sutra copying. He emphasized the concept of emptiness or 无 mentioned in the sutra, we are supposed to focus really well and think of nothing, I find it really hard as my mind always drift to random stuff.

Tables were set up outside the main hall so that we can copy looking at the zen grounds

We prepared tea before we start and this is the tape for writing names

My teacup during the stay

After we first arrived, the monk told us a few times that we should try to go to the bath before the sunset at 7pm as it might be cold. There is a outdoor bathing area and a rotenburo but we decided to go and check it out while the rest of the travelers started writing their sutra in the very zen environment. We planned to let TJ go to the bath first, then the guys, then J and me (as I'm not really afraid to shower in the cold or the dark). The rest of us went to get our materials and started our sutra copying.

The rotenburo looked pretty good

The materials needed

And I started writing

The surroundings were so quiet that the guys chatting while they bathe were echoed around the place and we could hear them talking and laughing. No wonder the rest of the ladies threw us dirty looks after our little recce to the bathing place, we were discussing about the bathing arrangement loudly then and I guess it really spoilt the whole 'mood' of the place. We tried to keep as quiet as we can after that so that we would not disturb the rest of them anymore.

Sutra chanting time

Photo of the monk taken from E's FB

The equipment used for chanting sutra

My masterpiece! Cant see all the flaws from far

At about 6pm, it was time to take a break and we went to sit around the prayers hall for a sutra chanting session. The monk even prepare copies of the sutra with some translation and the 'phonics' of how it sound like so that we can follow what he was chanting. It was quite a short session of 15min, I went back to my sutra copying after that so that I can finish up my work before dinner. Soon, the sky turned dark and I finally finished the sutra, I got a little impatient and wrote faster towards the end. It got even harder to totally clear my mind then.

The oishi shojin ryori, Buddhist vegetarian dinner

At 7+, it was time for dinner. We moved all the tables in and prepared the main hall for dinnertime. Everyone was famished by now. I was kind of looking forward to the meals there as I'm very keen to try out vegetarian cuisine, especially one that is prepared Japanese style. Everyone gobbled down their food quickly, I finished all the other dishes and took a few mouthfuls of the rice. We helped to return the tray and by this time, it was already dark outside and the weather got a bit chilly, everyone started to put on their jacket but I was still feeling fine.

Very cute illustrations of the activities

Soon our beds are all laid out

Striking a pose for the photographer

Luckily for me, the summer night weather was quite okay for an outdoor bath, I did not feel cold even though I was the last among the whole group of 12 to go for the bath. The facilities at the temple was considered not too bad as it already hosted many travelers for the past few years. At least the bath facilities were considered decent and all we had to bring was our slippers and towels. Our router could not get signals in the mountains so it was really fortunate that there was even Wifi at the temple.

Shortly after my bath, we gathered in the prayers hall for a sermon session by the monk. He explained about Buddhism in simple English and also get us to ask questions. We realised that he used to be business man and only took over Taiyoji ten years ago. It helped a lot that he can understand and speak simple English, or it'll be quite difficult for him to repeat the same routine daily. We realised that it was quite difficult to be granted this stay in Taiyoji and TJ actually made some overseas calls to him to confirm our stay in advance. There were also some friends of E who had wanted to try this but there was no availability.

As there was nothing much we could do after the sermon session, we prepared our room for bedtime. We were already lying down by 10+ and it was way too early for my bedtime but we decided to get some rest since we had a really long day. I was used to outdoors and camps so it was not too difficult for me to fall asleep. I got up again at 11pm+ to put on a jacket and socks as I was sleeping nearest to the door leading outside and the temp had dropped a lot, so cold that it got too uncomfortable for me.