June 7 -- Shinjuku

This morning we awoke and packed our bags. Around 9:00 we caught the train to the Sanjo market in Kyoto to look for cloth and souvenirs – to our dismay, most of the shops were still closed or didn't offer what we wanted, and we could not find the two fabric shops recommended to us.

We came back to the temple, said our goodbyes, and hopped back on the train – this time to leave Kyoto. We were ready to continue our adventure, but a little sad to be leaving the peaceful surroundings of the past few days. Little did we know that around 4:00 in the afternoon, we would find ourselves lugging packs through Shinjuku, one of the busiest districts of Tokyo. When you see Tokyo in books or on TV they usually show a crazy intersection with huge neon advertisements and hundreds of people in the crosswalks – yeah, that was right outside our hotel. We dropped off our packs and wandered the insanely busy neon sidewalks and alleys of the district. We soon found ourselves deep in the rabbit hole of Japanese fashion, what seemed like a bizarre intersection of red-light district and Alice in Wonderland's Mad Hatter tea party – we actually saw someone in a dress that was almost a rabbit costume, and another with an 18-inch bow in her hair. Don't even get us started on the mullet-wielding women's pants-wearing quasi-punk men of Tokyo. We were too busy scooping our jaws off the floor to take pictures!

We shared nigiri and chirashi for dinner (nigiri is sushi, chirashi is a bowl of rice and sashimi), and toasted our accidental adventure in Shinjuku with a bottle of cold sake. We seem to keep finding these interesting spots by accident, or when we get lost – this time because we mis-planned our return to Narita airport from Kyoto – more evidence for Margaret's recent assertion that we have fun adventures because we can't seem to follow instructions! After dinner we wandered a bit more just for the entertainment of watching the people, found some fun desserts (pineapple on a stick, and a crepe filled with berries and whip cream), then returned to our hotel to sleep. After all, our train leaves at 6:30 tomorrow...

A Day to Catch Up - June 6

This morning we went and meditated with the monk who runs this temple, Rev. Taka. The room had sliding rice paper panels which were open to a stunning garden, allowing the cool morning breeze in on an already warm day. Following the meditation we took a tour of the grounds with Rev. Taka, learned about him, his life, and his family. The following is his inspirational story (and if pastor Jim reads this, you would really like this guy, he's your kind of person).

Vice Abbot Taka is descendant from the feudal-lord system which used to rule Japan. When the laws changed in Japan his family lost all their land and titles and they started this temple, and are still running it five generations later. After high school Taka went to the United States for college, graduated, and landed a job as a corporate event planner which took him all over the United States. On vacation back home to this beautiful temple one summer, and with a national push to increase tourism, Taka decided to leave the United States and become vice-abbot.

While in the United States Taka had the opportunity to be a TA for an undergraduate class at his university. There were 10 Japanese students in his class, 2 of which new about their Buddhist background. The other 8 while all raised in Japan, didn't know very much about their own history and their own culture. Rev. Taka shared that "when you know yourself, you are open to be able to know others" and that the 2 students who knew their background were able to mesh with the US culture, try new things and meet new people, while the other 8 students only hung out with each other.

Upon returning to Japan he blended his knowledge of event planning with his new status as Abbot and opened up a series of both Japanese style and Western style rooms for people to come and stay at his temple. His goal is to be able to lead Japanese young people back to their roots, and has a detailed plan on how to accomplish this, including opening a larger guest house so that entire school groups can stay here, as well as establishing ties with universtities all over the world and have international student groups come to stay here. At a more local level, teach classes on yoga, and other forms of meditation to bring both travelers and locals into the temple. This beautiful, peaceful place is clearly his passion, and we have no doubt that with his energy and enthusiasm he will be successful in his ventures.

The rest of the day we tried okonomiyaki (we knew it was going to be good when we had to stand in line outside, before getting to the line inside, before we could have a table), went shopping, and did our laundry.

Nara - June 5

Today (June 5) we traveled to Nara for the day. Nara, about 40 minutes south of Kyoto by train, was the original seat of imperial power in Japan. The first imperial court was established here from 710 to 794 (c.e.) by Prince Shotoku. In 794, the Imperial court was removed to Kyoto to distance it from the increasingly-influential Buddhist priesthood of Nara, but Nara remained an important place for Buddhism in Japan.

We arrived by train from Kyoto around 11:00. By the time we had visited the travel information office, found our bearings, and decided on an appropriate layering of Gore-Tex (it was raining), we were getting hungry and ducked into a noodle shop for lunch.



The first stop along our walking tour of Nara was Kofuku-ji Temple, famous for it's 5-storey 50.1m-tall pagoda. We continued into Nara Park, an expanse of forest, open space, temples, and museums filled with over 1,000 very audacious deer. We were pretty much dodging deer as we walked. Kiosks sell “deer biscuits” – low-grade bread rounds – which people then feed to the deer (though “bait” and “taunt” may be more fitting descriptions of the behavior of deer biscuit-wielding schoolchildren).

We crossed the grounds of the Nara national museum, though we did not stop in to see the artifacts. Turing the corner, we entered the long causeway leading to Todai-ji Temple's Great Buddha Hall, a wooden structure of truly shocking scale containing a bronze Buddha (“Daibutsu”, locally) of equally shocking scale. On our way out of the Great Buddha hall, we were accosted (ok, more of a gentle accosting) by a horde of schoolchildren who wanted to practice their English and take a picture with funny weird American people.



We wandered the park for a couple more hours, seeing various shrines, beautiful groves, manicured gardens, and plenty of deer. The entry courtyard to one shrine featured an 800 year-old wisteria. To be honest, at first I thought it was just vines for shade, because the many trunks of the tree were held aloft by a bamboo lattice. We tried a green tea soft serve ice cream, and the fact that we were the only adults in the entire park eating ice cream cones made it no less delicious!



All told, it was a nice slow day in the rain, and Nara was a wonderful place to visit. As I am sure will be a theme over the next few months, today was a powerful inspiration to delve into the fascinating history of this place. We returned to Kyoto, and decided we needed a meal with less fish and more veggies than recent fare, so we sautéed some vegetables in the kitchenette alongside some curried noodles and ate on the patio.

Higashiyama Walking Tour

Today we decided to do the Northern Higashiyama Walking Tour of Kyoto. After the first temple though we got really hungry, got lost, and ended up finding an 'American' diner. Margaret had shrimp fried rice, and Sean had an omlet stuffed with rice with ketchup on top. We decided that the reason we find these places, and get off the beaten path, is because we really may not always be so good with directions. Needless to say the locals were fun, the food was delicious, and a fun time was had by everyone. We went past many beautiful temples, and took a long walk along the "Path of Philosophy". Our tour ended at the UNESCO site of the Silver Pavilion. The Pavilion itself was under restoration, but we enjoyed walking in the beautiful gardens that surrounded it.


As we walked back into town we saw a geisha and her apprentice crossing the street. I have never seen a single woman 'own' the street, but she did, it was incredible.

We finished out the evening enjoying a traditional Japanese meal along the river that runs through Kyoto.

Exploring Northwestern Kyoto - June 3

We started off the day by going to Ryonaji Temple. Let me say now that if this is the only place we had seen in Japan the entire time that we were here, the trip would have been worth it, this is one of the most beautiful and peaceful places I have ever seen. Well at least it was peaceful until we got mobbed by a group of about 40 junior high students who were on a tour and all wanted to practice saying hello, but after they left it was peaceful again

We then went up to see the Golden Pavillion, a temple covered entirely in gold leaf. We stopped by at a small restaurant for a bowl of Udon (noodle soup), and caught a bus for Nijo Castle.

Nijo Castle is SO SO cool. If Nijo Castle had to battle any european castle, Nijo would win. But besides the amazing fortification, the most stunning part was the beautiful screen paintings and wood carvings which covered nearly every inch.

After Nijo-jo Castle we looked at each other and realized that although going to Starbucks would be a very 'american' thing to do, that they might have options in Japan that we wouldn't be able to experience in the states. So we found the nearest starbucks...foolish us, we thought that they would understand our super long coffee orders...I ordered a 'coffee-jelly frappacino' which has coffee-flavored jello cubes at the bottom of the cup and coffee frappaccino on top. Sean tried to order a tall non-fat no whip mocha, and ended up with just a mocha. Still it was fun to sit outside and watch the world go by, see our first geisha, and enjoy this amazing city.

We wrapped up our coffees and started walking for the train station when we found this fabulous open air market, pedestrians only, going on for about 1/2 mile, and not in any of our guide books or maps. It was a jumble of restaurants, shops, and groceries. We stopped into a grocery to buy our breakfast for the next day. We were nearly to the end when we saw this mom buying this fish shaped pancake for her son, and we just knew that we had to try the fish too. We each got one, Sean's had a hot custard filling, and mine was filled with a sweet bean paste.

Now for perhaps the most interesting part of our day, our dinner. Rev. Taka who runs the guest house recommended we try a restaurant called Kitchen easy easy. We walked in to find a tall bar with 10 bar stools as the only seating, and the Bob Marley loving owner/chef/comedian behind the counter cooking up wonderful things. To our left was four college students, and to our right a local who just wanted to finish his beer. The chef's name is Akira, and after realizing that we didn't know what we wanted made us a platter of incredible things, fish, pork, eggplant, pea salad, things that looked like onions but didn't taste like onions, and the best green tea we have ever had. This guy is nuts, and the college students were friendly and were giving us recommendations of things to go and do and see. We could barely eat we were laughing and talking so much. What a wonderful finish to a wonderful day!

Arrival in Japan - June 2

After a long plane flight, and a ride on the Sinkansen bullet train we have arrived safely at our guesthouse at the Shunkoin Temple.

Our guesthouse is part of the Myoshin-ji Temple complex. We are staying in one of the 'Western' style rooms. Instead of a foam pillow, the one provided is filled with about five pounds of dried beans. We are both glad that we brought our travel pillows, but the bean pillows surprisingly offer great neck support. We are sleeping on futons. And our toilet is insanely automated (including a heated seat, motion sensor, automatic lid closer,etc. It's 8 pm on Tuesday, and we are exhausted.

The Journey Begins - June 1

Sean and I were up at 6 am finishing up all our last minute packing and cleaning. Our cats each gave us a snuggle, and we played with their favorite toys before hitting the road. As Aunt Julie said, nothing like a vacation to make you clean your house, ours hasn't been this clean in years.



We took one last 'before' photo at our town house and then Patrick and Miriam took us the airport with one small deviation by Target for some last minute travel things, and then Starbucks for our farewell lattes. At the airport we bumped into my co-worker Mike on his way to the UAE as well as our friend Joel who will be joining us in a few months in Venice.

We finally boarded the plane and our grand adventure was under way. We are so excited that we toast our trip every time the stewardesses come by for a refill. We had our first little taste of Japan on the plane with a bento box lunch. I tried everything, some of it I liked better than others.