Koya San- meeting with an old friend

The journey getting there was a long one; it required me to get up at 400 am and make it through three trains to the first shinkansen heading out towards Osaka, getting there just in time for their morning rush and being happily pushed along by the sea of humanity towards my destination. For the first time in many days, I let go of any kind of fixed schedule and so the tide carry me where it would, catching my connecting train down through the city, then onto the the last true train meandering its way out of the city and up into the leafy mountains southwards. As I stared out of the trains large window and let my thoughts be caressed by the gradually enclosing sea of green, the last vestiges of Tokyo life slipped from my shoulders and I gave myself fully to the welcoming shadows of the mountains.

Five and a half hours later, I sat inside an alpine cable car that cranked a rickety audio history from its speakers, telling of the mountain that greeted me upwards and upwards: Koya San.

Without a doubt, it was the first time that I have felt free of Tokyo since I moved there near two years ago. And in that time I have come to understand how hard it must be for any human being, japanese or foreign, to live and thrive there. It is very easy to become trapped living a day filled with obligations and expectations and little hope of commensurate recognition, since the society itself treasures those that just inherently function and don't really stand out, so hard for foreigners trained to do just the opposite. That I can count the number of spiritually inclined friends on the finger of one hand just goes to show that it is easy to cut yourself off from other like minded people quite unintentionally.

For the countless motorcyclists that whir their way through the apparently sleepy town on their weekend rebellion from the congestion of the cities, it must appear to be little more than a blip in the sea of greenery- a few souvenir shops selling the essential and ubiquitous range of over packaged sweets, incense and prayer beads for the pilgrims who wear their white shirts of penance and purity, a couple of small restaurants and he well named shukubo temples, where for the cost of your average one night stay at a five star hotel, you can experience each temple's version of temple life, food and daily regimen, without the obligatory participation of say a zen temple.

But as I walk out the cable car station, I am struck with the essential ingredient I have so lacked for countless days: space, silence, sky. The bus driver meanders his way into the town with an ease and leisurely pace that must have been a special course at the bus drivers academy ( and the average Japanese bus driver must have failed). Green, green, browns and green, framed in stone and sky, my mind sways this way and that as we wind up and down the roadway, with not another car in sight. Ah... now this is living!

For I am on my way to meet an old friend and his companions, a person I have not seen for some eight years far too long, and it took me threatening my Japanese boss with my complete rebellion from company directives if he didn't acquiesce to my demand to leave.

To be continued....