The Path to Enlightenment

Mt. Fuji is all her beauty!!!

I had to start off this blog with this picture, and it really doesn't even do it justice. In person, Mt. Fuji was much clearer... I wish you could ALL come to Japan to see for yourself!!!  On Saturday, Damian and I ventured across Tokyo Bay to Chiba. We took the train to the ferry and then boarded the "Tokyo Wan Ferry" on a 40 minute trip across Tokyo Bay into Chiba where the big medicine and healing buddha awaited. This is a trip I have been wanting to do for over a year and now that our time in Japan is coming to an end we have been trying to cross a few more things off our Japan bucket lists! It was a perfect day, not too hot, but the sun was shining and we could even sit outside on the ferry ride and enjoy the beautiful weather. We were headed to the other side to Mount Nokogiri (Nokogiri-yama) which literally means "saw mountain" as the mountain resembles a Japanese saw when you are looking at it.

Once we got over to the other side we had a short walk to the cable car and then a quick cable ride up the mountain (less than 5 minutes)... this was the easy part! Once we got to the top the views were amazing! The water looked so blue and the sun was shining down on us for  great start to the day! The mountain is only a little over 1000 feet but it is straight up with rocky cliffs. We spent about 5 hours hiking around on the mountain as there was a lot to see. The funny thing is that you take the cable car up, but then you have to hike down stairs to get to some of the amazing things and then of course back up again... a lot of stairs! My legs are still feeling it today! It felt like doing the stair-climber at the gym for hours and hours!!!

Some of the 1500 hand-carved stone Buddha statues

Scattered throughout the mountain are over 1500 small hand-carved stone statues of Buddha... some very old. Many of them were "beheaded" from an anti-buddhist movement in the 1800's... which seems sort of crazy to me as an anti-buddhist would be against peace and why would anyone be against peace... Anyway they were all different and amazing. I read somewhere that each one has a different and unique facial expression and that if you look really hard you will find one that looks like you.... I just assumed I probably looked like one of the ones that was beheaded!!! They were tucked in caves and perched high up on rocks- truly spectacular!

Next up was the big buddha (daibutsu) which I was super excited to see. It is a medicine/healing buddha and it is the largest in Japan! The picture to the left really doesn't even begin to show how big it is and beautiful! It was severely damaged due to a large earthquake here but was fully restored in the 1960's. It stands over 90 feet tall and is incredible to think it is made out of stone! There was also a goddess of mercy carved into the stone which was done as a memorial for the victims of WWII. Today, people come to it to pray for travel safety.

We had an amazing day hiking around and checking out the panoramic views from the top. That is Damian in the picture on the right looking over the edge... No thanks for hanging over the edge of a mountain... even if there are railings! I was more than happy to stand on the other side and take the picture!

That's it for our Japan adventures for now... stay tuned as Beth & Damian are taking on the outback for the next 12 days and will have lots to blog about! G'day mate!

Japanese Word of the Day:
Heiwa (hay-wah): Peace