Wise Woman Travel

I met my friend Kazue in 2017 when she visited the University of Alberta as part of a delegation from Wakayama University. We  initially bonded over a mutual passion for engaging teaching, and she invited me twice to Wakayama to work with their professors on enhancing their teaching methods.

Since then, we’ve discovered we share a lot of the same values, and the same things make us laugh. We’ve worked together on translation projects and swapped stories on Skype calls.

So when I let Kazue know we were coming to Japan on vacation, she invited us to stay at her apartment in Wakayama, even though she’d be traveling herself when we arrived.

The timing for our stay was spot on. We loved Tokyo and Hiroshima but we’d been so busy touring, we felt the need for a bit of a vacation from the vacation. We found that in Wakayama.

There’s just something about staying in someone’s well-loved home that is so much more relaxing than being in a hotel. We slept in and lingered over coffee in the morning. We did our laundry. We got takeout for dinner from the 7-11 down the road ( 7-11s in Japan have really great take away meals, not the post-bar hopping fare you get in North America.)

We even took the local bus to a couple of great tourist attractions. The nice thing about Wakayama is its a hidden gem, so the two places we visited were relatively quiet.

I’d been to Wakayama Castle one sizzling,  cicada-strident day in July 2017 during my first visit to Wakayama, but Lorne was keen to go, and I’d never been there in the spring. With the addition of a few early blooming cherry blossoms ( they’ve been slow to open this year), the Castle was even more spectacular than I remembered.

Attached to the Castle grounds is the Momijidani Gardens, a tranquil space of stone pathways, green ponds, and yes, a few more cherry blossoms.

The next day, we bussed a bit further afield to Kimii-dera Buddhist Temple. To reach it, you need to climb 231 steps ( or take a tram for a small fare), but the sights at the top are worth every puffing breath.

In a hall all its own, for obvious reasons, stands the largest wooden statue in Japan, an 11 metre tall representation of  the Senju Juichimen Kannon, a Buddhist deity with a thousand arms and 11 faces, resplendent in lacquer and gold leaf.

Throughout the site, childlike statues wear red caps and bibs placed there either by grieving parents as part of their prayers for their children who passed away, or to give thanks when children recovered from a serious illness.

Kiimidera is also notable for its cherry blossoms, but as with Wakayama Castle, we see only one tree fully in bloom.

Just before we descend the stairs, we come face to face with the fiercely grimacing King Enma, the King of Buddhist Hell and the judge of the afterlife. Not a bad parting reminder to live life with love and compassion for others.