Overnight in Japan's Most Sacred Place (Sleeping in a Monastery)

This morning we are heading somewhere incredibly unusual to do something completely different and we've never done before. Today we are starting the Japan Express tour across the land of the rising sun with G-Adventures. Traveling to Japan has been a dream for us for as long as we can remember so we absolutely can't wait to share this unique experience with you starting with this incredible adventure. So, let's go! We're heading out early this morning because we have quite a long day ahead of us so we grabbed our essentials aka snacks from 7-Eleven and took the metro to Osaka train station. As this is our first day we spent the entire journey getting to know everyone else in our group and chatting with them the whole time and a few hours later we arrived here. Beautiful isn't it? Snow makes everything more beautiful. So a two and a half hour train ride, a 10 minute funicular and a 15 minute bus ride later we are here in the town of Koyasan and we are going to a local monastery where we're actually going to be spending the night with the monks and finding out how they live, what they eat and i think we're having a vegetarian meal tonight right? A really special meal. We're having a vegetarian meal tonight and we're having breakfast with them so excited. I'm really curious if we'll get to ask them questions which i think is going to be rude. I don't know. I'm so excited! Honestly of all the things we're going to be doing here in Japan this was one of the things we were most excited about. This is going to be so so incredible. I've always been fascinated. I don't know why but monks specifically. I hope that in the future as well we can have experience of living with them for a longer period of time but as well am i allowed to stay with them as a woman? I don't know if there perhaps would be separate sections or no. I'm not actually sure on that. I need to ask because i was being curious about it because i've always seen men monks. Perhaps it depends on what strand of buddhism like from what country. This is the sacred town of Koyasan, the center of the Shingon buddhist sect founded by one of Japan's most significant religious figures Kobo Daishi. This architecture is absolutely beautiful. It's like straight out of a samurai film. Absolutely beautiful. Just like Kishinel. Heading into the monastery and slipping on our traditional slippers we weren't quite sure what to expect to be honest. How basic would we be living for the next night and what would our room be like? Turns out it was lovely and we would be sleeping in a traditional Japanese tatami room. I did not expect this. I didn't expect anything to be fair. That's the door between the rooms. Look at this. How cozy. And we've got a balcony. Is this? Look at the view out of our window. Oh my god. I could be a monk. I'm not sure the monks would be living in such luxury. We just checked in into this beautiful monastery and now we're about to head out and explore the area. The population of the town is 4,000. A little less than 4,000. Among them 1,000 monks. So every family is a buddhist monk's family here in Koyasan. And in Japan buddhist monks can get married. That's a difference. You know Japanese religion is very tolerant. Not as strict as other Asian countries. They can drink. They can go to the bar. They can do anything. They are the richest person because they are tax exempt anyway. Anyway I'm not sure but the buddhist monks are sending the normal life just as we do. About the religion in Japan. You know we have two religions. As we continued walking through Koyasan, our guide Kozo explained to us about the religion here in Japan. Japan has two official religions Buddhism and Shintoism. However many people in the country follow both religions with the amount of followers of each religion totaling 100 million people each in a country of 130 million. Religion here in Japan is incredibly fluid and Japanese people often also pray to natural sites. Sometimes once in a while they become a Christian when they get married. You know usually Japanese people get married in a Shinto style. Not a buddhist style. But the many young couples these days become a temporary Christian. Only one day. Only one hour Christian. Okay and they get married in the Christian church. Okay they invite the Christian priest and they do this. I don't know why they do this. And an hour later they forget about everything and they go to the banquet room to have a party. It's a fascinating insight into the relationship between people here. How they live their lives and their faith. Before heading into the sacred forest we had to purify our souls. Demonstrated beautifully here by Julia. You're supposed to go around this side. And the ladle. Generally purified. The forest path we're taking finishes in one of Japan's most sacred sites. The mausoleum of Kobo Daishi, the founder of Shingon Buddhism and one of Japan's most revered people. It's believed that Kobo Daishi never died but is actually in a state of eternal meditation. Do you think it's so spectacular to us because we're completely not used to that? That's what I love doing. I mean that probably answers the question. When you see locals amazed by the place. The trees are just unbelievable. They're so massive, so wide and the smell here is amazing as well. It's so fresh and you can smell the pine cones, you can hear the birds singing. The atmosphere is inspiring. You just have to watch where you go. At the end of the path we arrived at Kobo Daishi's resting place but we weren't allowed to film inside. After visiting the resting place of Kobo Daishi we continued on exploring Koyasan and its gorgeous and completely varied temples. To be honest we don't need to say too much about this place. Just look for yourself. So we're back in our room here in the monastery and we're just about to go and have a traditional Japanese meal. But we can't really go out looking like this so ready for some sake. Sure I am. We headed from our room across the monastery towards the dining room where the rest of the group were waiting for a unique type of meal. Oh we've all got matching uniforms. Give me a little peek in there. Oh yes. This looks so good. Enjoy. Enjoy the atmosphere of the Japanese room. Okay cheers. Cheers. Arigato. Kampai. Wow this soup is delicious. It's a beautiful bismuth soup with seaweed. Squirrels we've got here. We've got rice. They've got pickled radish I think. We've got fake sashimi. Yeah sure. Vegetables. And we have tempura vegetables We'll have some bing. Yes we do. This is local speciality. We eat it with wasabi and dip it in soy sauce. There you go. And what else do we have here? I'm not gonna lie I thought it was a cheesecake. Me too. We've got some beans. And we've got some desserts. Quite a spread. Greens. And some fruit. I'm not sure what this is. Something pickled. Smells good. I am starving. Whoa they're heavy. Which one is that one? I'm gonna drink the soup. Did you need your chopsticks for that one? Yeah so sophisticated. I really want to try this. I'm being very generous probably. Yeah you could regret that. It's a little bit oily but it's not greasy. Isn't it? It's really nice and light. It's really delicious. What is it? It's a carrot. Oh okay. It's tempura. Yeah. A tempura carrot. Lovely. So this monastery is pretty unique and the monks actually make their own sake. The meal was amazing as was the sake and the company of our group. We spent the rest of the evening chatting with them and enjoying the moment until later on crashing in our tatami room. Good morning from Koyasan. This morning we went for a walk in the gardens and also went to the monastery to see the monks pray which obviously we couldn't film. And now we are all packed up and we are ready to leave this place onto our next destination which is going to be equally incredible, totally different. I love how this tour is just like so different day to day. There's totally different activities we're doing, totally different places, totally different sides to Japan. We're incredibly excited. I'm about 10 minutes late so yeah thanks for watching. We'll see you in the next one which we're going to start filming straight away. You were filming. I was.