Yet More Temples. Plus Shrines. And Bunnies.

Steve here, reporting live from the K's House lounge. What to tell you?

As Mom and Bob were being pampered at the ryokan, Susie, Ted, Mae, Kelsey, and I were living the austere life at a temple in northern Kyoto. Sort of austere, anyway. They did give us tea and cookies, but only after we'd spent some time meditating in a slightly less than comfy pose. So there.

But dinner was interesting. The temple reverend who greeted us had gone to school in the US and had an American-born wife, so his English was pretty sublime. We asked him for a dinner recommendation, and he pointed us toward Kitchen Raku Raku, as I believe it was called. We found it -- a brightly painted establishment, like something you'd find in Santa Cruz -- and peeked inside the door with much trepidation, which is pretty-much my default mental state whenever trying a new restaurant in Japan.

The immediate inside looked much like somebody's house, so I backed off pretty quickly. Then a moment later a smiling lady invited us in, and we sat at a long bar while she and a friendly fellow with a hat (possibly her husband?) cooked us tempura, salad, and a sort of Italian-ish, eggplant-and-potato-with-cheese-and-tomato sauce kinda thing. The guy introduced himself as Akira (as in Kurosawa), and had English maybe a bit better than my Japanese, so we had us a broken-as-hell conversation about where we were from, how long we'd been in Japan, etc. He also showed us a video starring himself and a plastic flamingo having various adventures, mostly involving guitars and skateboards. (That flamingo has him some sweet moves. If I were more up on my skater lingo, I'd insert some here. Given my ignorance, please insert your own.)

After cooking us a fine dinner -- during which I successfully ordered hot sake for Ted using my new (and apparently fairly accurate) phrase for hot sake: "nihonshu atsukan de" -- they recommended us a place for breakfast. After getting Susie, Ted, and Mae safely back to the temple...well, that's not quite true. Understand that the temple where we were staying was just one small temple in a huge complex of other temples, so you'll forgive me when I report that I was trying to open the door of the wrong temple when a friendly passerby (whom I suspect was the reverend's American wife) pointed out that our temple was further down. So then Susie, Ted, and Mae were safely back at the correct temple, and Kelsey and I went scouting for Akira's recommendation for breakfast.

The complex of temples was quite lovely, even in the darkling light. (And yes, if Tolkien can use the word "darkling," then so can I, dammit.) So we found the other way out of the temple complex and wandered in the dark for awhile, sampling vending-machine "milk teas" 'long the way, and eventually found our breakfast spot. Then it was back to our austere accommodations for a night listening to some violent winds batter our little guesthouse. Next morning, the reverend casually mentioned the typhoon that had come through. Oh, is that all?

So, after a rushed breakfast so that we could get back to the temple for 9am zazen (that's sitting meditation in the Zen tradition, all you who aren't up on your Buddhist vocab), we sat in much serenity in the temple meditation room. During this I requested a whack from the "stick of compassion," which is what you get whacked with if you're falling asleep or otherwise losing concentration during meditation and would like a wake-up. Apparently it's supposed to hit pressure-points in the upper back to both relax and wake one up. It didn't hurt as much as I'd thought it would, though I suspect he was going easy on me.

Then it was a quick tour of the temple, which has some interesting paintings that use forced perspective (just like in the Lord of the Rings films!) and a Catholic church bell (made in 1577, by current accounts) that was protected by the temple during WWII when the Japanese military was melting down lots of metal artifacts to make munitions. Apparently the then-head of the temple (the grandfather of our reverend, I believe) had a friend who was a Baptist pastor, and put the temple in some danger by hiding that bell. So now you know. Ponder this well.

After getting back to K's, we hit the Moss Temple (as Bob has already told you about), and also Sagano bamboo forest, which was pretty impressive. Totally like that scene in House of Flying Daggers, 'cept without the superhuman Chinese dudes and the blind girl who wasn't really blind.

Which just about brings us to today, which involved Kiyomizudera, a temple full of school kids. Bob got interviewed by some kids who had apparently been assigned to find an English-speaking Westerner and ask him/her some simple questions (e.g., "What's your favorite Japanese food?"). When Kelsey and I were walking around, we both swear we heard some kids behind us say something like "Jakku S'paro!" So it's possible I still bear a resemblance to a certain Johnny Depp role.

And shopping! Oh, the shopping. Okay, Kelsey and I didn't really do that much, but the other folks had bags a-bursting with souvenirs. Also saw Heian Jingu, a lovely shrine with amazing gardens, which contained both koi and turtles, who occasionally clashed over the bits of bread thrown them by the shrine visitors. Didn't see any herons like we saw two years ago, but we did see a duck. He was brown.

Found a new shrine on the way to the Philosopher's Walk -- a new shrine with bunnies! Rabbits are apparently the servants of the kami enshrined there, and I wanted to buy a charm as a souvenir, but there were no English labels and I feared accidentally buying a fertility charm or something.

Our attempt at the Philosopher's Walk met with only some success. It began with the gate of Eikan-Do (a Pure Land Buddhist temple) putting out their "Closed" sign exactly as we were approaching. Whether it was an odor thing, we can't say for sure. But both Honen-In and Ginkakuji, two temples I'd wanted to show Kelsey, were both closed by the time we arrived. So we might try again on Thursday. Though the weather (for a change) was lovely, and it was a very nice walk, despite the closed temples.

Just got a late dinner at Bob's very favoritest yakitori place, and tomorrow we might be headed for Nara (to see the massive bronze Buddha) and Fushimi (to see the Inari shrine with innumerable torii gates).

And that's the way it is.