Koyasan to Kyoto

Another wet day. We were summoned at 6am by a bell? and attended the 'hall' at 6.20 for instructions prior to the 6.30 am ceremony. It all took nearly an hour with some chanting and things. The monk who conducted us, who had welcomed us the previous day, was most charming.  Then we went to breakfast where there was more ceremony before we ate. It was a lovely contrast to Hanaya where I had found the atmosphere a bit scruffy. It was nice to have a Japanese group to get a feel of how to do things, as we had found at Oyado Hachibei.
After breakfast we enjoyed our room and wrote our diaries until we had to check out at 10 am. We left our luggage and went to see ? which was most impressive and well worth a visit.
We did a bit more walking then took a bus back to collect our bags and head for the station around lunchtime.
At Hashimoto we had quite a long wait for a train back to Nara but we decided to stay with JR and avoid Osaka which might have been a quicker way back. Again we got interesting school kids getting on and off, all busy with mobile phones.
It was wet when we got to Kyoto Station and we headed to Guesthouse Kotoya with our umbrellas up. It was good to get there and find a girl in reception who gave us some washing powder. Our unit was surprisingly spacious and very well designed. It was a nice change to sit on a couch, although the tub was too small to share, but still deep.
We went out in the rain to the nearest place for dinner which was a bit too salty (as a review had said).