Golden Week is a national holiday. It is something that everyone should experience. It was first time in my life when I saw whole nation on holidays at the same time. Everywhere we went, were hundreds or thousands of people. Even at midnight or early morning, we were sitting in the night bus traveling to Osaka. And even it was night bus, all the motorways were completely full and also blocked, because of many accidents, just incredible. We came to Osaka 5 hours later, then expected just because of the traffic. Amazing.
In Osaka we met with my very good friend Aki and his girlfriend Jenny. From Osaka we went to a small village called Tenkawa (Milky Way), which is in Nara prefecture. We rented there a log house for 3 days. On the way we visited one shrine. It is one of the oldest shrines in Japan, dedicated to Gods of Water. At the entrance, there was a peace pole planted, waiting for us. What a nice welcome. The person in charge of the shrine, invited us to altar, where we could pray silently and then he gave us two bananas from the altar as a present from God. He was a lovely man. Then he spoke to us, but I couldn’t understand a word, so I just closed my eyes and sat there. Such a nice feeling everywhere. What a lovely place.
Our log house was just next to a river. It was beautiful and magical place. Surrounded by forests and hills, the birds of prey flying above our heads and many fish in the water, swimming against the current. Magical place. We could hear the sound of water all the time.
First day we arrived quite late, so we went only to a spa (it is a heaven for Japanese people, to visit a spa), but I must say, that Golden Week is really an interesting experience, cause we had to wait 40 minutes to get in. It was so crowded. I was amazed. And after the lovely crowded spa, which was out in the open air, so we could see and hear the rain falling, we had a nice barbecue, few beers and wine. And of course lot of fun.
Second day we went for a hike along nice waterfalls, not far away from our log house. It was nice hike. On the way we met also a snake and little altar along the path. Then we visited one shrine in the village and after that we went to another spa place, which was busy but at least we didn’t have to wait. We also tried local fish baked on fire in front of us. In the evening we had another barbecue (Japanese style and desert in American style). Yummy yummy.
The next day we had to leave the log house. So after tiding, on our way back to Osaka, we went to Yoshino, very old village in the hills, with few shrines and one temple. It is also very famous place for cherry blossom viewing. Great hike again. On the top of the hill, there was another very old shrine dedicated to God of Water. It looks like it was the main theme of our trip, water from the beginning till the end. After tsunami, the best place to be and pray. Mission accomplished.
The temple in the village was founded by man called Enno Gyoja. I was told that it was a previous life of Masahisa Goi, founder of The World Peace Prayer Society. So I was happy to be there.
Then after our hike we returned to Osaka and had great dinner. Osaka is famous for its cuisine. We went to Okonomiyaki restaurant. Delicious. We could bake it in front of us on a hot plate. Good fun.
At the weekend, the last days of the Golden Week holidays, we went with Mitsuyo to Tokyo, to help with one Flag ceremony. It was very nice ceremony. I enjoyed it. It was like being back at Allanton. I actually ended up even singing on the stage at the finale. No idea how I got there…. Situations like this will probably happen more often then I thought. I need to learn the language very soon.
Flag ceremony practice
All in all, it was very nice week. Greetings from Japan to all of you and of course, May Peace Prevail on Earth.
