As homework for my Topology of Japan class, Nicky and I climbed the
famous mountain in Kyoto that hosts the giant fire “大” every year.
On
Wednesday, during a lull between my general classes and my Business
class, Nicky and I made our way in the direction of the Silver Pavilion
in Kyoto to climb Daimonjiyama, a mountain to the far east of Kyoto that
hosts one of the five kanji characters that are set on fire during
O-Bon, the Japanese equivalent of Mexico’s Day of the Dead. The kanji,
when lit up, can be seen from miles away, and are meant to usher in the
souls of those that have not yet found their way to the other side.
We missed the O-Bon activities this
year, seeing as we were in Tokyo at the time, but we should be able to
see them next year. It is unfortunate, but the mountain is still
beautiful even when the festival isn’t going on. It reminded me a lot of
Mt. Tamalpias, and Muir Woods, because of the sheer amount of stairs
you have to climb to gain elevation. It was a fun hike though, as every
time we ran across someone else, everyone exchanged words of
encouragement.
Eventually, Nicky and I got to the
top, though, to be fair, we were far more interested in the tiny bug
life we had been discovering on the way than the view. This is partly
due to the fact that the view was obscured a lot by haze and clouds, but
my camera managed to cut out a lot of the haze, so we can see the view
better from the photos than we could at the time, strangely. You can
view all the photos in my gallery.
After making our way back down, we
strolled around the market leading up to the Silver Pavilion (we didn’t
have the time actually visit the temple this time around since I had
class and by this point our legs were literally shaking uncontrollably
from the climb back down) and got ourselves a potato tornado and some
ice cream.
All in all, a really great day~ I want to climb the other four mountains now!