Leaving Koyasan was a hot, humid journey.
I took the bus from Shojoshin-in Temple to the cable car station and had to stand for the ride since the bus was small and there wasn’t anywhere to put my suitcase. I was already sweating profusely before I boarded the bus and the lack of air conditioning only made that worse for me. Also, I was stressed as I had to pay close attention to the time for this journey. In order to arrive in Kyoto at a decent time that evening, I had to make the 3:19pm cable car from Koyasan so that I could catch the 3:30pm train back to Osaka. A tight train schedule getting to my next destination, Kyoto.
I bought my ticket for the return trip to Osaka the day before as part of a Koyasan travel package. What I didn’t realize though, was that it wasn’t a direct train- I’d have to transfer to another train halfway to Osaka. Plus, I wouldn’t have an assigned seat, which I wanted. So at the top station of the cable car, I went to the ticket window to change it to the express train, but had no success. Trying to change that ticket was my only time encountering any sort of problems with my lack of Japanese speaking ability as the older ticketing gentleman didn’t want to take the time to help me. He just kept telling me the type of ticket I already had and waved me away. So, I let it go, deciding that I would deal with it at the bottom station, and got on the cable car. I dragged my stupidly heavy suitcase down the steep steps to the bottom of the car platform to board it at the front so as to save time at the bottom. It was so hot and I was really starting to sweat.
The view back up to the top of the cable car platform. Continue reading “Onto Kyoto”
