With both Yamadera, Japan and Disneyland, your actual destination may not be what you thought it was.
Saying Yamadera and Disneyland have a lot in common is like the old joke about what’s the difference between an elephant and a grape? They are both purple except for the elephant.
That joke was a hit in third grade. Now days it gets labeled as a Dad Joke. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
I digress. But stick with me and you’ll see the connection. Maybe.
The marvel of both Yamadera and Disneyland
Yamadera, is a temple carved out of the side of a mountain in central Japan, a three-hour bullet train’s journey from Tokyo. It’s a spectacular place where monks, commoners, and other pilgrims have ventured for over 1,000 years to climb the 1040 or so stone steps to its upper temple. People come here and marvel.
Disneyland is a theme park in Anaheim, California, a place that emerged from an orange grove 70 years ago. When I worked there in college (I was a demonstrator in Merlin’s Magic Shop in Fantasyland, alas, now gone the way of the PeopleMover), the other magicians and I kept a small journal that kids (or their parents) bought to collect signatures of the Disney characters that roamed the park.
Our version had Donald Duck on the cover. Above Donald one of my predecessors had written in ballpoint pen, “Donald’s Book of Goofy Sayings.” In it, we would jot down the, uh, curious things that guests (customers or visitors in any other context) would say. My favorite was this: “One middle-aged woman to another: ‘Isn’t it amazing they were able to find a mountain here in Anaheim around which they could build a theme park?’” For the three of you out there who have never been to Disneyland, they were referring to the man-made Matterhorn.
When guests aren’t making such intelligent comments (and, apparently, even when they are), they too come here and marvel.
What it takes to arrive
It takes sweat and effort for most people to make it up Yamadera, but the entrance fee is only the equivalent of a few bucks.
It takes a winning lottery ticket, a large inheritance, or significant dent in your savings to cover the entrance fee to Disneyland, but once there, you’ll only break a sweat from standing in line for hours in the summer heat of So Cal.
Size doesn’t matter
Yamadera and Disneyland are both bigger and smaller than you think they are. But it isn’t the size. It’s the details that count.
When I was a kid, I thought there was no end to Disneyland. It felt as if I could never get to its limits. When I worked there, I came to realize what a relatively small footprint it has.
With Yamadera, my wife and I trained for months before our trip to Japan fearing those 1040-ish steps would whomp us in the, er, ankles. The workouts paid off: We galloped up the mountainside like mountain goats. Contrast that with several people we encountered on the way, some fit, and others, well… Let’s just say their wheezing, hands on knees, bent over postures made us wonder what the Japanese equivalent for 911 was and if we had adequate cell service up there.
Yet it was the details that stunned us in Yamadera, just as they do at Disneyland. These photos show just a fraction of the beauty you encounter as you ascend the mountain.
And as to Disneyland, here’s a tip next time you go. Just count the number of different light fixtures there. Every land in the park has different, themed versions of streetlights, flood lights, and illumination of all kinds. That’s just the lighting.
Also notice how Disneyland includes small related objects or other interesting elements to view as you wait in those long lines that have been carefully laid out so you can never see how long they really are. Disneyland makes waiting almost—heavy emphasis on “almost” on a particularly crowded day—enjoyable.
At Yamadera, all the sculptures, temples, random placing of figures like those shown here, and the way the stone steps zigzag up the mountain make for endless discoveries and delights. Even those people for struggled with the incline had plenty of places to stop and take in small wonders and moments of intense beauty.
Dealing with crowds
Beyond the art of queuing at Disneyland, the park also has numerous nooks and crannies that afford quiet contemplation. Or at least more than you’ll get trying to keep up with your toddler in Toon Town. Snow White’s Wishing Well next to Sleeping Beauty’s Castle was always a favorite of mine, especially in the evening.
At Yamadera, you can always step off the main path and have a quiet moment at one of the many small temples or buildings along the way. You can focus on the nature all around you or even at the craftsmanship of the carvings or other details. I would love to return one day to Yamadera and spend hours or days simply sketching the place.
What you seek isn’t always what you find
At Disneyland as a teen, I’d always arrive looking forward to the fast rides like Space Mountain. And while I loved those, what grabbed my heart were the smaller rides and scenes in between. I’d come with some mental model of what to expect, and rarely did what I encounter match that exactly. I can’t say why exactly, but even spatially, distances and relative locations never quite aligned with how I pictured them ahead of time in my head.
With Yamadera, we made it to the upper most temple. But I’d seen photos of a particular temple that seemed to hang off the side of the mountain. Thus, I figured there was still more to this place than I’d seen. So at the small souvenir shop there, I pointed to a postcard of the temple I sought, and asked the woman there where it was. She laughed in a kind way, pointing to a building maybe fifty feet from us that I’d already explored in detail, or so I thought.
Seeing it now, from a different perspective, I recognized the postcard shot. But it was still a surprise that I could have come and seen this place without really seeing what I had been looking for. I had arrived without knowing it.
What made it memorable was the woman’s sweet disposition. She could have mocked me in a “if that building were a snake, blind boy, you’d be dead by now” way. But instead it was more like, “The treasure you seek is right before you, waiting.” Keep in mind that when you’re on the side of a mountain surrounded by ancient Buddhist temples, even the simplest directions can sound like the wise words of some ancient Zen master.
What’s real to you
In both Disneyland and Yamadera, because there are many tourists, each place can seem somewhat fake. But the beauty and the resulting emotions are quite real.
It’s easy to be jaded, but if you choose to, you can still see Disneyland through the eyes of a child for whom the place truly is magical. The same with Yamadera. Whether it is the forest on the way up, the carved temples at the very top, or the stellar overlook of the valley below from a covered viewing platform, Yamadera, at least for us on a glorious spring day, also felt wondrous.
Two places on opposite sides of the world. Both very different, and yet somehow similar. Sort of like the elephant and the grape.
P.S. Amazon just came out this week with the audio version of Hidden Travel: The Secret to Extraordinary Trips narrated by my close, personal friend, AI. It actually sounds pretty good and it’s priced much lower than a typical audio book because it doesn’t use me or another human narrator. But if you’ve wanted to listen to Hidden Travel, say as you’re climbing those steps up Yamadera or waiting in line at Disneyland, now’s your chance.
This post first appeared on my Substack at stevebrock.substack.com
Very entertaining read:)