Osorezan to Noheiji

We were up early (about 4:30) this morning, me to fix the bikes, Sumi to walk around the temple grounds once more before the service. I drew quite a crowd of interested workers, who were scrubbing the sulfur off the tiles near the lodging. Apparently, they'd never seen anyone change a tire before, They oohed and aahed as I pulled the wheels off, slid the tire and innertube off, etc.

The cooler morning air yielded a great deal of steam rising from the covered pools in the grounds.

Red pinwheels placed by people in remembrance of the deceased

Rather majestic looking main gate

Temple grounds are peaceful when not crawling with tourists

View from the main hall

In the corner of the temple grounds is a large Buddha. Coins left out were completely blackened from the sulfer

After all was set, we had a mandatory 6:30 service in the Jizou-den (Main hall). It was fascinating. This was the first service I've attended where they integrated taiko drums, chimes, bowls, and chanting. It was much closer to a performance piece than a service (the non-musical part was about 2 minutes of the head monk reading something). The service started with one monk ringing a bowl chime a number of times, then chiming once until it had almost stopped ringing, then hitting it again in the same pattern until the rest of the monks appeared. One monk sat by a bunch of instruments and would keep an insistent beat with the taiko, punctuating occasionally with a large bowl chime, all the while all of the monks (and some worshippers) would chant in a nasal style that blended together to create some overtones. As the chant continued, the beat would get faster, the chanting would get slightly higher, until the last words would slide down in pitch, indicating the end. This happened three times, with different chants, the entire service lasting about 15 minutes.

We then were allowed to walk back to the inner part of the temple (which we are normally not allowed to do) and see the carvings and idols contained therein. It was very interesting. After that, there was a second, smaller service in a side building in remembrance of the deceased (a recurring theme here, as this area represents the gates to the afterlife). It was similar, but shorter. A small plate of incense was passed among all the attendees, and we each added a small pinch of incense to the burning pile on the plate. This is when the praying to the dead occurs, I think. Anyway, fascinating stuff. I'm very glad we could take part.

After morning service was bath and breakfast. The bath was, like everything else, enormous, looking out into a rather desolate-looking scenery.

I was the only male in the lodge at the time, so bringing a camera in didn't seem weird

Even though we were the only people in the lodge, they gave an official announcement over the loudspeakers, as if it were full of people and they all needed reminding. Breakfast was in the same, large hall, and the same monk came and serenaded us with his pre-eating prayer, and we worked our way through a different set of vegetables and fruits

And finally, after much preparation, and a warning about being careful of the animals, like bears and the coming thunderstorms (which worried me more than the bears), we were off! 

The six Jizou outside the temple, each representing a different area of protection

Ready to roll! We couldn't ship our trailers from the temple (We were so remote, no one would come pick them up!). We stopped in Mutsu town at a konbini and shipped them.

Old-style bridge over the river flowing into Lake Usori.

The first half hour was spent climbing an incredibly steep rise (10-12% grade for about 600m). A lot of walking was done. After that, it was an exhilarating ride down the tree-covered mountain, stopping for a few pictures.

Gate announcing the entrance to Osorezan

A small stop at a mountain stream. The city added some bamboo pipes to create a natural drinking fountain. Very cold and very tasty!

Once we got out of the forest, the rest of the day was a very uninteresting ride through various small towns on the main highway. There is only one road that connects the peninsula we started on and the rest of the mainland, so every car or truck traveling between the cities was on this road. It was loud, a little dirty, and nothing like the morning ride. We were quite glad to reach our next hotel, which turned out to be another enormous resort with almost no one staying at it (we are in off-season right now). Thankfully, there WERE other guests this time.

The Makodo Sightseeing Resort Hotel is a huge hotel set up for skiing season. It is a bit luxurious. It is a bit expensive. It is in the middle of nowhere. We decided to eat dinner here, rather than our usual feast of trail mix, bananas, and apple juice. I don't yet know how much we just spent on food. I don't think I want to look at the receipt when we check out. It was easily as much as several nights in a hotel. But it was quite an experience! I let them know I couldn't eat fish, and the chef apparently took it as a personal challenge. It started out as a nice, simple six-course meal...

Simple?

With various pork, chicken, and beef dishes. The oil in the center is for shabu-shabu, a cooking style similar to fondue, where you add the vegetables, then the thinly-sliced meat and then (according to our waitress) you "shabu", which we gathered meant boil the meat in the oil and eat it. We were apparently too slow for her, because after a few minutes, she came in and added my vegetables for me. We were pleasantly surprised that there was (almost) no fish in this meal. Apparently, Japanese people think if it is dried, ground up fish, it doesn't count as fish. The chicken and rice dish was heavily seasoned with Bonito flakes.

As we were working our way through the food, the waitress kept bringing out more and more dishes. I swear the chef made every dish he knew how that did not have fish in it.

Misoto beef tongue. Miso-flavored sauce.

"Hamburg", but it wasn't a hamburger. It was ground beef patty with carrots and some other vegetable we had last night mixed in. Good seasoning and quite tasty.

Beef stew in a tomato-based sauce

Salisbury steak with vegetables. 

At this point we were laughing every time she brought a new set of dishes. We didn't know if it was OK to get up and leave, because as soon as we were close to finishing, she brought something else.

The final dish (she told us so), a coffee-flavored Jell-o type thing. Sumi was in heaven, and ate both of them.

After nine courses, we finally waddled back to our room. I got caught up with blog entries (we had no Internet at Osorezan) and Sumi, who had not slept well yet this trip, passed out. There is some heavy rain and possible thunderstorms in the forecast, so we're going to have to play the next few days by ear. Rain we're fine with, as we have rain gear, but thunderstorms could be a problem. Tomorrow, we'll be planning on heading into Aomori, the capital city of this prefecture. Sumi has concocted an evil scheme to have climb another mountain, rather than ride along the main highway again. Her reasoning, which I cannot fault, is that if we get stuck in the rain, it's better to be alone on a deserted mountain road stuck in the rain than being repeatedly splashed by passing trucks and cars. It's a good thing we don't have our trailers.