You pay 200 yen at the gate for the entrance fee and they will give you a cute pamphlet of Mt. Kurama. (right picture) If you pay extra 300 yen, you get a little booklet of Mt. Kurama. (left picture) They do have pamphlet in English as well. This will come very handy because most of the signage in Mt. Kurama is in Japanese and if you don’t read Japanese, you need to refer to this little English pamphlet. (Pictures above are in Japanese.)
Those money you spend here at the gate or at the temple’s gift shop, it is used for the upkeep and the improvement of the Mt. Kurama. Temples and the road of Mt. Kurama is actually very well kept compare to other temples I went to in Kyoto. As you can see on a picture above, the lanterns have a very vivid orange color. It requires a lot of maintenance to keep it this way. My guide has been coming to Mt. Kurama for past 7-8 years and has seen a major improvement of this place. He thinks it’s because they are getting more and more Reiki visitors each year spending money here.
Another impressive thing about the Mt. Kurama is that there is no trash anywhere visible. They have a signage throughout asking people to respect the nature and not pick flowers or plants and to take any garbage home. I don’t recall seeing that signage in English, so I am letting you know now. If you do go visit Mt. Kurama please follow the rule I mentioned above. More rules and etiquette is on a pamphlet. I went to Mt. Kurama 3 times and did not see a single trash on a road.
For those of you who smoke, cigarettes ashes and butts also need to be taken home. They do sell a portable personal ashtray at many stores in Japan. If you know you have to smoke there, please bring your ashtray with you. (picture above is the portable personal ashtray in case you did not figure that out yourself)
One of the sad things I heard from my tour guide is that the some of the local people who goes to the Kurama temples for religious reason are not necessary too happy with the Reiki visitors. From what he said, sometimes when there is an event at the Mt. Kurama, people split up into two groups, religious and Reiki people. One of the reason they are not too happy with Reiki group is because some of the Reiki people does not respect some of the rules they have at Mt. Kurama. Some people don’t know the rules and not doing them on purpose, but I can see how it could be annoying for people who is following the rules and paying respect. I think it’s kind of like as a New Yorker sometimes we get annoyed by some tourists who are walking slow and blocking the whole sidewalk. (Even if you are not New Yorker, I am sure your town has some unknown rules that tourist does not know and annoy you.) So, I have decided to include a little tips here and there on my blog so you will be better prepared when you go there one day and make friends with local people.
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