Shojoshin-in 清浄心院

I arrived at about three o'clock in the afternoon and was welcomed by a priest/monk and explained the temples rules:

Dinner time ist is 5:30 pm
Bath time 4:00 - 9:00 pm
Morning Ceremony at 6:00 am
Breakfast time is after the ceremony abot 7 o'clock

In the room is a Yukata, but never ever go with the yukata to the ceremony, this seems to have happened earlier, so the monk was very explicit about it.

First thing was waiting for the Bath time, coming from Kyoto took some 3 hours, several times changing trains and it was 35 degrees hot.

After that I took a walk around the temple, there was also a group of approx. 20 people having a meeting for some days.

Dinner was at 5:30 pm and really delicious. Me and two more couples were sitting in a bigger room seperated by room dividers. One couple had a giggling attack, don't know about what, finally I was giggling too a little bit :-)
After Dinner I went to the nearby Okunoin cemetry, sooo beautiful in the early evening but sooo many mosquitoes, so I left shortly after completely eaten up and blood drained.

The next day I waked up at 5:00 and prepeared for the day with a short meditation, at 5:50 rings the bell moved by the monk/priest who later was chanting for about 45 minutes. We were all invited to proceed in the inner room of the ceremony hall and offering incence. The chanting is fascinating. I suddenly remembered that one of the first CD I bought some 10 years ago with 'japanese music' (as I thought then) was actually Shomyo Chanting of Shingon.

After the ceremony we were invited for breakfast.

The room was really beautiful but you can't close the shoji doors to the corridors, the division to the neighbouring rooms are also only sliding doors. The second night a family with several children stayed at Shojoshin-in and the children peeked into the rooms having their fun watching a gaijin doing some meditation.

I stayed for only two nights at Shojoshin-in but will shurely come back.

here I didn't write too much as Tsuzumi gave here a wonderful description
of his visit to Rengejoin:

http://www.lioncity.net/buddhism/index.php?showtopic=73356