The Osaka Misadventures File

Many shrines to stop and take a moment of silent prayer and offer a 5 yen coin, plus several pretty temples in the midst of forest and smoky smelling fragrant air. We made friends with the insane elderly caretaker who managed to run over the mountains several times with hundreds of keys jangling in the time it took us to climb over it once! Every shrine had lit candles despite the breeze, a testament to ancestors and babies who have died, always sombering to see the aprons tied around the idols necks bib-style to show another baby death.

We decended our mountain and found an enchanted herbal tea house with the traditional heated table under which to warm our poor cold and exhausted bones. Rose petal tea, bean cakes and a lovely tea house lady, the most amazing refuge from the icy wind! Finally it was onto the onsen, to soak our naked bodies under the full moon and shelter of the mountains and millions of stars....