Summer in Wakayama

We had the most amazing weekend staying in Wakayama.

Wakayama is highly highly underrated in my opinion. Just an hour or so from Osaka, in the Summer, Wakayama is a lush, wild, green oasis.

We stayed in a beautiful, big house next to the river in Kinokawa, Wakayama. The house was a 2 story traditional Japanese house filled with rich-smelling cedar and open spaces. One side of the house completely overlooked the river, where koi,  cranes, and the occasional turtle passed.

The house is only 7 minutes from Kishi Station, a station famous for the Station Master cat, Tama. So after arriving in the area, we headed for Kishi station to see Tama 2, the original station master cat's replacement, after Tama passed away. When we got to the station we say a lazy, fluffy kitty, sleeping in a glass panelled cat run at the station. Apparently the original station master, Tama, saved Kishi station with his presence, attracting tourists and Japanese people alike who wanted to see the adorable fellow. Unfortunately when we visited, Tama wasn't wearing his station master hat. But he was still pretty cute.

We then checked into our lovely house and went swimming and canoeing in the river. The water was warm and deep, and we were able to spot fish swimming and splashing past us. We canoed down the river, bringing with us a few cans of cheap Japanese liquor, and a huge bottle of sake. After canoeing for a while, the water started to become shallower and shallower, our boats starting to graze the bottom of the shore. So we stopped our boats, linked our oars, and had a little "oar-ganisation" at this interlude in the river, where we sat listening to music, and drinking our cheap booze in the afternoon sun.

After we had finished our drinks, we started paddling back up the river, out of the shallows. At this point, once we were in the deeper water, with no real shores, Jason decided to flip  his canoe. When he tried to upright his canoe, he instead scooped up a whole heap of water, which resulted in his canoe completely sinking....

With no real shore in sight, we had to drag his completely submerged canoe to a bunch of slippery and jutting rocks, drag it onto some of the rocks and attempt to drain it. The weight of a completely full canoe is very very heavy so heaving it up onto the rocks was exceedingly difficult. After a lot of struggle, and we eventually got it up onto the rocks, only to find out that it was the wrong way around for draining! The hole where the water could drain was now on the high side! So we then had to try to turn the canoe around without letting it slip back into the river! During the process, I fell over onto the ricks, cutting up my thighs and bruising my legs and butt. We became covered in sweat and mud. Eventually we got it turned around and the thing slowly started to drain.

After the long process of draining Jason's canoe, our short two hour paddle had turned into a 3 hour ordeal and we wanted to get back home as quickly as possible.So we got Jason back in his canoe, paddled straight back to our river home, and heaved the canoes up the stairs to our house. That night we feasted, having earnt our weight in calories.

The next day we set off for Mt Koya. Based on what I'd read, I expected it to be a foret filled mountain with temples at random intervals. I expected to be hiking through forest for most of the journey from temple to temple. This is not the case. There is a whole, big town on mt Koya and real roads and shops line the path between temples. The drive to Mt Koya was spectacular, filled with rolling mountains and lush green valleys. We started our Mt Koya pilgrimage at the Daimon (big gate) and walked down to the Tokugawa Mausoleum, where the Tokugawa clan, who united Japan were buried.

After that we walked to Okunoin, Japan's largest grave yard, where 200 000 people were buried among the moss-filled graves. Okunoin was magical. The main path through the graveyard was paved, but you could also walk off into the surrounding forest, finding creepy areas and grave sites. It looked as if wood spirits would come out of the moss at any moment. If I had to do this again, I would have skipped the Tokugawa mausoleu,m, which was surprisingly underwhelming, and gone straight to Okunoin. We were already a bit tired when we reached Okunoin, unfortunately, so couldn't spend as much time wandering through the 2km long stretch of creepiness as we would have liked.