Koyasan is Japan's oldest monastic retreat with history going back 1200 years. It is a sanctuary of the Shingon Buddhism founded by Kukai, posthumously known as Kobo-Daishi. Koyasan is located in the Kii mountains and is one of three sacred places in the area that are part of UNESCO world heritage sites.
There is lots to see in Koyasan at least for two days. In the early 19th century, there were 1812 temples, but due to fires and smaller temples merging to larger ones, there are now 117 temples of which 52 provide lodgings.
The old building are beautiful and well kept. The main buildings in Danjo Garan Complex are jaw droppingly big made mainly out of wood. Konpon Daito (Great Pagoda) has been burnt down, by lightning, and rebuilt five times.
Our favorite site was the massive 2 km long cemetery, Okunoin, with over 200000 moss covered grave stones and pagodas. There are huge cedar trees on the area, which are several hundreds of years old.
The cemetery is calm, even during the anniversary festivities, and the air is fresh and cool. You can hear frogs crowing in the streams that are criss crossing between the grave stones. The frogs are quite loud, but we couldn't spot them, no matter how hard we looked.
At night, the cemetery becomes deserted, except for the frogs and owls. The place is always open, so make sure to visit it at night too. The main paths are dimly lit, but it's pretty dark and it feels creepy to walk with the smaller and bigger statues staring at you.
