A Last Day and then Home

August 19, 2012

Back in St. Louis.

This will likely be my last blog posting, at least for awhile.

I arrived in Kyoto on a Saturday afternoon. It was hot and humid and a delight. The Ryokan Sakura had tatami floors, provided kimono to wear around the place, served a delicious Japanese breakfast, had free internet, and the folks spoke English and were most helpful.

They inquired about where I had been in Japan and then suggested I join 6 a.m. Sunday morning chanting at Nishii hongan-ji, the very large Pure Land temple just a couple of blocks away. There were several hundred people there, no Romanized chant books, and I had no idea what was going on but then, I’m getting used to that.

When I returned to the ryokan for breakfast, the staff taught me how to use to bus system.

I went to Gion, a beautiful and old part of the city and the Geisha center. I walked “the Geisha street” and then what the guidebook calls the most beautiful street in Asia. I found a restaurant, picked some plastic food in the front window, and went to the door and entreated the hostess to come see what it was I wanted. She nodded, took me inside which didn’t appear to be a restaurant at all, and put me on an elevator. When I stepped off, the 2nd floor hostess was hanging up the phone, took me to a table, gave me cold tea and did not bring a menu but very shortly thereafter, a delicious meal arrived.

From Gion, I walked up along the eastern mountains of Kyoto, stopping in at temples and gardens. I quickly figured out that I had seen enough temples. They started to look the same and I don’t know enough to appreciate the subtleties of the differences.

I began just walking through temple gates and then wandering through the grounds and into the back where there always seemed to be paths going up the mountain. The paths often took me to cemeteries, the temple shrine, along a canal, or just to great views. It was cooler walking along the mountains.

I walked the Philosopher’s Walk, stopped at a few galleries and antique shops, drank a sweetened bitter melon drink, watched the sunset, and continued to walk until dark.

The city is ringed by mountains. It was so quiet and beautiful. No air conditioners and very little road or air traffic. Even the buses are quiet.

As I headed down the mountain in darkness, I asked someone about finding a bus back to Kyoto Station, where I arrived about 8 pm, ate dinner, and caught a bus back to the area of my ryokan. Either I caught an express bus or just didn’t know how to signal the driver to stop. I had to threaten to open the door and jump out to get his attention and walked the mile or two back to my bus stop and through a couple of long, alley like streets home. It is nice that Japan is so safe. I slipped onto my futon about 10:30, a perfect last day in Japan.

The next morning, I took the train to the airport and arrived in Chicago a day earlier than expected because I am too stupid to figure out the International Dateline thing. That made for more time with Laura and Chris and time to catch up with David via phone.

Next I took a train to La Crosse and just finished 10 days of work and sitting at Hokyoji Zen Practice Community. Flew back to St. Louis with Rosan last night and entered a clean and welcoming house, empty of its summer residents.

Thanks again to Alexis for helping me with this blog. Thanks to David who provided the picture of grasses from the ranch that makes the backdrop of the blog. Thanks to Laura who, when I discovered I didn’t have email in Japan, typed my hand-written postings and put them up on the site. Thanks to the folks who were wonderful caretakers of the house for almost three months.

It was an awesome trip. I hope to return soon.

(I couldn’t mail out pictures to Laura so am putting a few on some of the older postings. Those of you who have subscribed and want to see the additional pictures could go to aquietsojourn.blogspot.com to see them. I don’t have many because my camera broke.)

Saturday, August 4th, 2012

I've been doing a little traveling.

Six of us went in a van across the longest bridge in the world (according to the Japanese, the tour book hedges a bit on this) to Zuioji cemetery to chant and them to visit two other temples for tea and I never did figure out why else. One of the temples had the loveliest garden I have ever seen and a museum with the contents of a 3rd-6th century burial mound excavated from the hill behind the temple, along with amazing paintings, calligraphy and other treasures. The third temple was brand new and the architecture a nice blend of old and new and there were also two very cute little girls running about.