sunburn

Primarily for FedEx guys staying at the Swiss hotel at Namba Station KIX, but good gouge for anyone laying over longer than 24 hrs in KIX.

Japan has a really beautiful countryside, but one of the hardest things to do is find a way out of the urban jungle to explore it. We don't speak the language, we don't have transportation, we don't have maps etc.

I finally cracked the code for a spectacular hike while on a layover in Osaka. After being awake starting at 1AM I decided to actually get out and do it. Here is a link for the a great trail map. http://eng.shukubo.net/upfile/stupa-route.pdf Ive also attached it directly. The top of the map includes directions for the train and the stop to take. The concierge at the hotel has a optional brochure on the temple sites which break down what your looking at when you finally reach the destination. Just ask for Mt -Koya budist temple information.

Here are the cliff notes
Destination is Mt Koya which has a World Heritage Site (Temples) at the top.
Terrain is Misty Bamboo and Cedar Forest. Mountainous but low steady incline while on the path.
Trail is aprox 3 feet wide and well marked with stupas (200 year old carvings). Trail can be shortened based on your health or time contrainsts from 24km. to 16km or 11km
Time- I left Namba at 0630AM and was back at Namba at 1430pm doing the shortest route. Next time I'll add more distance because I'm comfortable with the train now
Transportation is by a single train line right out of Namba Station. The Nankai Koya Line - took 1 hour there. 1.5 hours back added bonus is the cable car ride on the ride back which brings you off the immediate temple area back to the valley for the train
Elevation gain... around 2000 ft..

Standby for future excursions/ trip gouge from our OCONUS locations....

Mink

Very cool. Thanks for the info.

pig on the wing

I did this and then stayed the night at one of the temples. It was extremely cool. Food was outstanding and all cooked with no meat (called shyojin yori or monk's food). Limited English spoken but enough to make it work. Staying in a working Buddhist monastery was pretty enlightening (though it wore off)!

sunburn

Good point! I forgot about the lodging options... There is a phone number on that .pdf that helps set that up. If your doing the deadhead from NRT, you could get the company to pay for it as well as part of the deadhead travel. As far as being enlightened..... You will receive that on your deathbed... So you've got that going for you..

pig on the wing

Which is nice

Kougarok

I hiked around in these waterfalls a few years ago-
https://www.osaka-info.jp/en/facilit.../post_226.html

I planned on doing the Mt Koya hike but we quit flying out of Osaka.