Hieizan

I spent last Friday (a holiday in Japan) hiking Mount Hiei near Kyoto. I met a group of about 10 other foreigners in 居橋 (Osaka area) around 10am and we started our long trip to the holy mountain. It was great!

The mountain, called 比叡山 or Hieizan in Japan, is famous for the temple of Enryaku-ji. There is a rather large temple complex at the top (reminded me a lot of Koyasan), but the whole mountain is actually considered part of the temple. This was the first Japanese outpost of the Tendai sect of Buddhism, founded in 788, and the temple complex was built in 1571. They chose this site as part of a military strategy because it was the highest point in the Kyoto area (it lies on the boundary of Kyoto and Shiga... I think the Shiga peaks are higher). The warrior monks of the time would carry building materials to the top wearing full armor. Even today, they hold a marathon on the mountain to celebrate the practice of running and excercising as part of the process of training to be a monk. The temple also remains the Tendai headquarters today.

Here you can see the mt. peak in the distance and changing leaves, a glimpse of Kyoto over the tree tops toward the beginning of the hike, and a little bit of what I saw for the first hour or so...








At the first resting point, we met a group of old women, stopping to have lunch. Here is one of our new friends pointing out the famous Arashiyama to us (you can also see the cable car lines going up). We also ran into some pretty serious mountain bikers... looked like fun! We didn't stop too many times (it was too cold once the sweat set in), but here is a sign that we encountered along the way ("Warning, do not stray off the path or we will rain down fire upon you".... umm, or something like that...).









The first part of the hike only takes about an hour, and we stopped at the cable car station to have lunch (bought beforehand), including my head-sized apple. A little further up from the station, the trees open up and the views become spectacular. You can see all of Lake Biwa (the largest lake in Japan) and snow-capped mountains in Shiga from the top. Before reaching the main temple complex, we also passed many small shrines and cemetaries (?) along the way...

Here is a view of the first temple we saw (there are a lot of buildings as part of the complex, including a watch-tower with great views of Biwa and newly-built hotels, staffed by monks). You will often see statues, especially of foxes, at temples and shrines, but I thought there was something charming about this ox. It was a bit different (you can't tell here, but it is actually to scale). Finally, this is us on the cable car on the way down. It was a pricey ride (about ￥840 each way), but we had to get back to the station somehow and it was impossible to hike all the way back down when the sun sets at 5pm.