Flying Aubergine

I recently stayed overnight in a temple during a trip to Japan. It was located in a temple village on Mount Koya, or Koyasan in Japanese, south of Osaka. Probably no need to mention the majority of the overnight places in this village were temples, and therefore the amount of tourists was also quite high. To get to the top of Mount Koya, we took a 5 minute cable car ride from the train station where the train dropped us off. The train ride from Osaka was really scenic, passing plenty of small villages on our way to the cable car. When we arrived to the top we had to get on a 10 minute bus ride to get to the village. We weren't allowed to walk from there as the road was quite narrow and not safe for pedestrians. Arriving at the temple the first thing we had to do before entering was to take of our shoes as they're not allowed inside. The receptionist, who of course was a monk, greeted us in fluent English in a tiny room full of paperwork, books and documents in a charming