Mt Koya and Nara

A few more images from the past few days. Travelled to Mt Koya on Sunday, a town that is 900 meters above sea level and was founded by the monk who started Buddhism in Japan. He is also buried here along with over 200,000 other tombs and memorials some of which set up by Japans biggest companies (I saw memorials to the employees of Nissan, Panasonic among others), famous Samurai and the most powerful people in Japan are also buried here. Many Japanese make a pilgrimage to ‘Koya San’ to pray for a safe journey of departed loved ones. Nara, once the capital of Japan is home to the largest bronze image of Buddha in the world inside the largest wooden building in the world. The area is surrounded in public parks where wild deer graze and are fed by tourists sometimes reluctantly as they can be very persistent .

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