A room at Hotel Iida
Day 1: Toronto to Kyoto (11,000
km and 23 hours...)
The less said about the loooong
flight the better! Arriving in Osaka, Kansai International Airport, we
took the Haruka Limited Express to Kyoto and finally staggered our way
to the Iida Hotel, dropped luggage and found our first dinner of the trip
- tempura dropped into a bowl of noodles! Have you ever had soggy tempura
before? Let us tell you, it is not pleasant, especially after 23 hrs of
'getting there'. Then, at last, hot bath in the hotel furo, tea and bed.
A room at Hotel Iida
Day 2: Kyoto to Kyushu - 600
km in 3.5 hrs!)
No rest for the wicked! On our
way, oh but first, Starbucks!!! Kyoto grew a "Starbucks" since our last
visit. No more tinned hot coffee but all the curry buns we could eat. We
boarded the shinkansen for our longest journey of the trip. We passed through
Fukuyama (Lucky Mountain) which is actually where Usui made his transition
in 1926. We paused in our thoughts and considered how auspicious it was
to be passing through on the eve of Usui's system returning to Japan!
Days 3 - 5: Kyushu - Bringing
Usui-Do back to its birthplace!
Our very first Usui-do workshop
in Japan was held in a tatami room at a community centre located in the
back streets behind a Buddhist temple. A group of contented alley cats
were sunning themselves in the middle of the street below, obviously well
fed and cared for by the temple. We were very pleased with our interpreter,
Sakiko, who had never studied the system before. This presented some interesting
challenges due to trying to present our understanding of Japanese concepts
in English which had to be translated back into Japanese! However, all
the students returned for the second part of the workshop! We were overwhelmed
and surprised by student's willingness to share their experiences openly
in the group. The only real challenge of the workshop was sort-of-sitting
seiza for long periods of time. The first transformations were augmented
by the sound of a local politicians' highly amplified campaign speech as
his convoy paused in front of the community centre. Closing windows would
have helped, however, the weather was much more humid and warmer then we
expected so we struck a balance in favour of suffering the 'noise'.
We held the workshop in a tatami
room
One evening we were invited to a special tea ceremony in honour of the workshop. This was followed by a banquet which consisted of paper thin slices of raw fugu (blowfish) and many other dishes, both hot and cold. The presentation and culinary skill was overwhelming. Dishes kept coming from the kitchen and from guests as they arrived. The sake kept reappearing in our cups as the conversations grew louder and more energetic. After several hours, although we did not want to leave, we had to drag ourselves away from the table and face a long trip in a tiny car on a Japanese freeway and back to the home of Andrew, our host.
Banquet in Kyushu.
The last day of the workshop flowed easily as the students reconnected with their own cultural roots through the system. When it came time to hand out the certificates emotions were running a little high to say the least. Everyone was overwhelmed with a profound sensation of 'coming home'. We would like to say a big 'thank you' to Sakiko and Andrew for all their efforts in making the workshop such a great success.
We had the absolute pleasure of attending two set dinners. One was made totally from soy products served at a long bar. The waitresses, dressed in traditional clothing, came fluttering down the aisle from the kitchen like butterflies, landing in front of us and morphed into this graceful mindful still being, delicately presenting each dish as a great prize. The entire meal was a soy theme based on Buddhist tradition balanced with the wabi-sabi of classical Japanese. The whole experience was deeply nurturing in ways we can't quite put into words. The other set dinner was held in a more rural setting and the menu was more traditional. We sat on tatami around a low table trying desperately to decide where to put our weary legs. This incredible meal contained all the food elements traditionally found in Japan. Needless to say we ate like kings, complete with king crab legs!
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Two set dinner choices
Day 6: Kyushu to Miyajima and Kyoto (650 km)
Our trip to Hiroshima was to take around 90 minutes on the Hikari Super Express. At Hiroshima we changed to a local service to Miyajimaguchi station and on to a 20 minute ride on the Miyajima ferry. We deposited our baggage in a locker and made first contact with the many friendly deer that range freely on the island. They live off round 'deer wafers' that look like ginger snaps but are most likely made of grains and of course sold abundantly by the many street vendors. Watch out for the deer with antlers...
Deer at Miyajima
Freed of our bags we walked along the bay and past the many tourist shops and restaurants lining the main street. We made our way to the Itsukushima Shrine which is set on piles driven into the sea bed. There was a wedding in process and we could see the Shinto priests at work purifying the space in readiness for the ceremony. Now hungry, our feet lead us to a little restaurant serving okonomiyaki which we quickly gobbled up and then made our way to the park.
The O-torii of Itsukushima Shrine
After a walk in Momijidani Park we took the waiting ropeway to the summit of Mount Misen which allowed an extensive view of the island, the oyster beds in the Seto Inland Sea and the mainland as far away as Hiroshima. We were too exhausted to travel any further and so made our way back down the mountain, said our farewells to the deer and retraced our steps back to Hiroshima and on to Kyoto via the shinkansen.
Day 7: Kyoto - A day to catch
up on laundry and disturb the Iida chambermaids!
The Japanese tend to be caring
in their contact with others. There is a inherent willingness to ensure
that the customer is satisfied, regardless of how trivial the task may
be. This can be seen with the chambermaids at Iida, working through the
rooms 'vertically', completing one task for every room on a given floor
before proceeding to the next. You can imagine with this type of process
how us remaining in our rooms distressed the chambermaids. The evening
'ritual' of laying out the futons was performed in a more formal dress
and if we did not leave the room our futons remained tucked away in the
cupboards! Some of us, (guess who?) needed more than one futon (try 4)
which caused even further distress but by the last night in Kyoto, we had
it all sorted out! We were delighted by the experience of pulling
into a gas station where there are a multitude of attendants all attentive,
joyful and scurrying to complete their individual tasks, including cleaning
all the windows, mirrors and making sure the driver also participates by
handing him a clean damp cloth to wipe down the interior ... all during
the filling of gas! This experience was a shining example of Usui's affirmation
"do your work with appreciation" and is 'a way' that seems to be lost here
is the West.
Day 8: Kamakura and Hakone
Off we set early in the morning
for Odawara by shinkansen and then took a local train to Fujisawa and then
a village tram to Kamakura-Hase and finally a walk through the village
to the Giant
Buddha. By the time we arrived, we were literally soaked to the skin
from the pelting rain that struck us at every angle, even into our boots!
After visiting with a wet but beautiful bronze Buddha we retraced our steps
to Odawara, still very wet and a little miserable! In Odawara we clambered
aboard a warm bus bound for Hakone National Park and made our way to the
Fuji Hakone Guest House. We were greeted by Lisa Takahashi who was most
pleasant and had an excellent grasp of English. Taking one look at our
sorry faces and wet clothing, Lisa quickly pointed out the furo, a traditional
Japanese bathhouse. This was fed directly from the Owakudani hot spring
which comes out of the ground laden with sulphur and at a temperature of
120 degrees C! We no sooner dropped our knapsacks and jumped in to restore
our body temperatures and came out resembling freshly boiled lobsters!
The temperature in the tub is 85-90 degrees C and getting into the tub
at first presented a 'heat' challenge. We soon learned the art of slipping
in slowly but consistently and then not moving a fraction till ready to
climb out. The night was spent with the heater in the room at full blast,
drying wet clothes, boots and knapsacks while the rain outside continued
to fall heavily, lulling us quickly to sleep or was it just exhaustion!
What a day!.
The furo at the Fuji-Hakone Guesthouse
Day 9: Fuji - Hakone National
Park and Owakudani - Yellow Hats everywhere!
What are yellow hats? In Japan,
nearly all school children wear uniforms. Senior students have a more formal
uniform. The young men's uniform are in a military style while the young
women wear very short kilts and very long woolly socks worn around the
ankles, an obvious gesture of defiance. The grade students are adorable!
The little boys wear a shirt and shorts uniform while the little girls
wear tunics. Most had school coloured leather satchels on their backs and
YELLOW HATS on their heads! (sometimes powder blue hats!) 'Yellow Hats'
were everywhere in large numbers, always excited and full of joy, embracing
opportunities to practice their English with the Westerners. It was always
a delightful experience when we were approached by the children.
The boiling mud pool at Owakudani
Fuji - Hakone National Park includes Fuji-san and Lake Ashi which is as deep as Fuji is high. Transportation in the park is by twisty roads, cable cars, trains and ropeways. The ropeway in the park has the highest stretch in all of Japan at the point where it goes over Owakudani (great boiling valley). When the wind blows the ropeway car will rock! We swung alarmingly from side to side, helplessly dangling from the cable. It wasn't that bad, really! As we climbed higher we entered the clouds and the visibility went down to only a few feet. An unexpected loud hissing sound surrounded us like the clouds and took me by surprise. However, once we came out of the clouds, there was a great view of Fuji-san as well as the main steam vent (hissing cloud-maker!). Eventually we arrived at the boiling spring itself, complete with the smell of rotten eggs from the sulphur dissolved in the water that was bubbling out of the ground all over the place! There were several streams of milky white boiling water that had carved themselves into little canyons. One of these streams eventually comes out into the bathhouse at the guest house we were staying at. On our way back we had to wait in line for nearly an hour while several hundred "Yellow Hats", ahead of us, were loaded back onto the ropeway cars. Finally we arrived back at Lake Ashi, tired and hungry and faced with another army of "Yellow Hats", we decided against taking the pirate ship to the small town on the other side of the lake. Instead, we headed back to the guest house and quickly found our way back into the furo.
Fuji-san from Owakudani
Day 10: NO RAIN!Off to
Ofuna to visit the Goddess of Mercy and then a second attempt at Kamakura.
A beautiful day lay before us and
off we set, first returning to Odawara, then taking a limited express to
Ofuna and then following our feet we climbed a great hill to be rewarded
with our first view of the 25 metre tall Goddess of Mercy. In Japan she
is known as Kannon, in China Guan Yin, in India Tara and in the west Mary!
A plaque mounted at the base of statue read as follows:
| At the beginning of the Showa Era (the reign of Emperor Hirohito) it was planned to erect this Goddess of Mercy dedicated to better social conditions. Construction began in 1929 and the basic contour was completed in 1934. The work was interrupted by the Second World War. After the War, work was once again resumed and it was completed in 1960. |
Needless to say we were both overwhelmed
with her magnificence and compassion and amazingly there were no Yellow
Hats to be seen or heard! This was the quietest temple that we visited.
Apparently, most Japanese and tourists just don't get there unless they
are a 'believer'. We were soon enveloped by the calming and soothing presence
of Kannon. Something within us shifted and our spirits were lighter and
our steps easier. Before we left we stopped at the Memorial to the bombing
of Hiroshima and quietly reflected on the current events in the world.
Kanagawa Association of A-bomb Sufferers July 29, 1990. |
We departed, feeling more connected to 'the self' and quietly made our way back to the train station to catch the local train to Kamakura to complete the day by re-visiting the Giant Buddha. The weather was still brilliant and the Giant Buddha was just as glorious. Large hawks soared over-head completing the surreal quality of the statue.
In 1498, a tidal wave swept away the great temple of the Buddha, leaving the foundation stones. In the 500 years since then, the holy statue has been exposed to sunshine, storms, and snow. the latest repair was done in 1960-1961, to strengthen the Buddha's neck and to make it possible for the Buddha's body to move freely on the base to prevent a damaging shock to the statue in case of an earthquake. The statue is 13.35 metres tall, and weighs 121 tons. |
Well I hope you didn't expect me
to walk barefoot!
Day 11: Kyoto National Museum
Well you know how museums go! Look
at old stuff and leave. Actually we saw some incredible kimonos, ancient
calligraphy, religious sculptures and artifacts from the stone, bronze
and iron ages. Fascinating! We show below an image of a Katabira dress
with a design of standing paulownia trees and poem of "Kimiga-yo" in dye
and embroidery on light blue ramie ground. It comes from the Edo Period
(19th century) and is on loan from the Tokyo National Museum
A kimono in the Kyoto National
Museum
Day 12: Gobo and Iwashiro
A refreshing change of pace, the
Pacific Ocean! Starbucks and curry buns in hand, we raced for the early
"Ocean Arrow" - a Pacific Coaster express, not quite the coast of California
but very close indeed! The weather became warmer and sunnier the closer
we got to our destination - Gobo. However, having arrived at Gobo we soon
realized that it was more populated than we had hoped so we jumped on the
next local train, moving at a snail's pace until we saw what we were looking
for and jumped out at the next station, Iwashiro. We were seeking deserted
beach in order to make binaural recordings of the Pacific surf. Once we
left the station, we were not sure how to actually get to the beach. We
set off in one direction but the road started to curve away from the ocean
so we turned around and noticed a trail leading through a field which lead
to a level crossing from which we could see the ocean. At this point we
immediately surrendered to the wonderful experience of the ocean from the
salty smell, the rolling crashing waves to the beautiful black volcanic
rocks and the tiny remnants of the inner spirals of shells below our feet.
The ocean has a way of taking you to a place where you suddenly feel liberated
and child-like. We eventually settled down to devour our lunch and then
to do the task at hand and find a suitable 'sound' site for the binaural
recording. However, local truck traffic, trains and the 'gong' at the railway
crossing intruded on the sound environment of the Pacific. Despite the
noise, we managed to get a sun tan while wading at the edge of the water
and playing with the beautiful black volcanic sand. Sadly it was time to
make our way back to Kyoto, a 3 hour journey. Once back in Kyoto we celebrated
our visit to the Pacific with an authentic Cantonese set dinner with sake
and chilled jasmine tea.
railway crossing at Iwashiro
Pacific Coastline
Day 13: Kyoto
What did we do? Oh yeah, laundry,
an attempt at an internet cafe and finally ending up in the Shosei-en Garden
which belongs to the Higashi Honganji Temple. That evening we took to the
Kyoto Skyway, a shopping complex in Kyoto
station. From the station concourse the complex was terraced like the
side of a Mayan pyramid reaching skyward. We counted at least 7 escalators
before reaching the plaza at the top. The main department store, called
The Cube, took up one side of the complex. Shoppers Heaven!
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Scenes from the Shosei-en Garden
Day 14: Amanohashidate: the Bridge
of Heaven
The strangest day of our entire
visit to Japan. Upon arriving at Amanohashidate it was as if we had arrived
at Japan's 'twilight zone'. We did not even know we had arrived upon arriving!
Eventually, as the train went no further we fell out into the very small
village at the waters edge, the Sea of Japan. We saw very few people and
shop keepers were hiding behind closed doors. We found a pier to walk out
on and sat down to eat lunch wondering why the heck we had come here, waiting
for some Loch Ness Monster to poke its head out of the dead greasy black
and still water. Suddenly fish began to jump in the air, catching themselves
their mid morning snack of flying creatures while two large cranes
came
from out of nowhere, flying over head and squawking, perhaps warning us
of something!
Two cranes came out of nowhere...
We then made our way to the shuttle ferry to take us to the other end of the sand spit which is also called Amanohashidate. Of course, we were the only passengers and the fish seemed to follow us along with a pair of sea gulls. We then proceeded to walk back along the sand spit, about 4 km long and covered with about 7,000 white pines. As beautiful as it was, it was as if we were in the eye of a storm and did not know it. Well guess what, that is exactly what was going on. A typhoon was actually hitting Korea at exactly that time. We decided to cut short our stay due to the on-coming rain and this time took a local train connecting with a different express at Ayabe which brought us into Kyoto two hours earlier than we had planned.
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Walking along the sandspit at Amanohashidate
That evening, back in Kyoto, the
rain built up again to a deluge which lasted for most of the night.
Tired, wet and hungry we headed for the Chinese Resturant for dinner and
then returned to our rooms where we sat gazing out of the windows, drinking
green tea and watching the rain cascading off the illuminated Kyoto Tower
till it was time to surrender to the not-so-comfortable futons once again.
Day 15: Kyoto
What did we do? Oh yes, we were
in recovery mode after our experience of being in the eye of the storm
the day before. The typhoon that was raging over Korea spilled over into
Japan just enough to cause a constant downpour which moderated to a drizzle
by mid afternoon. We did however escape to the subterranean world of train
stations and shops and of course indulged in Starbucks and curry buns yet
again!
Day 16: Nara - Yet Another Giant
Buddha!
Have we introduced Sakiko yet?
Sakiko was our lovely interpreter for the workshop. She joined us for the
day, having never been to Nara or the Giant Buddha. Once again Starbucks
in hand, corrupting Sakiko with our Western ways, off we went! Oh dear,
more deer and more "Yellow Hats" per square inch than you can imagine!
Unlike the Kamakura Buddha, this Giant Buddha still has a home (temple)
covering him. He was built to promote world peace and is the aspect of
Buddha known as Dainichi Nyori, which is the Supreme Buddha. Nara was at
one time the capital of Japan and has more Starbucks than Kyoto... guess
where we went for lunch! Poor Sakiko or was it her idea? We will return
on our next visit to Japan, hopefully while the "Yellow Hats" are taking
a nap!
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Komainu - Guardians of the temple
gate.
The Giant Buddha of Nara.
Day 17: Kurama
We just had to return! This time
we cheated and took the cable car which deposited us about half way up
the mountain. It was as beautiful as ever and everything had remained the
same except now there is a restaurant below one of the temples! Time ceases
to exist when we are on Mt. Kurama and yet we can't tell you exactly what
happened because we just don't know - yet!
Wabuka Station
Day 19: Kyoto
What did we do? Oh yeah not much!
We were a little weary of sleeping on futons, sitting on tatami and suffering
for the lack of food choices in our section of Kyoto.
Thank goodness for 
around the corner, where we could always find prepared bento boxed meals,
sake and orange
Kit Kat bars! This was our last 'free' day to hang out in Kyoto and complete
any last minute shopping. We headed out to the '100 yen' store in the Kyoto
Tower complex, hunting for bargains and bumped into this character with
his monkeys! When we played 'stupid Westerner' and motioned with a camera
to indicate a request to take his picture he came right over and let his
monkeys loose on us. They were light, agile and had yellow and green fur
and made little quiet chattering sounds! They climbed all over us, pawed
our faces and jumped back and forth between all three of us. It appeared
these monkeys were genuine pets and not performing monkeys. Needless to
say, our wallets and jewellery had not vanished! It was a delightful encounter
and totally unexpected.
A customer in the "100 yen store"
in Kyoto Tower
After wondering around underground shops aimlessly, we were not much in the mood for anything except perhaps getting home to Toronto. So we made a promise to prepare another fabulous extravagant salad for our dinner and passed up on another restaurant dinner. The grocery store, from where we grabbed the fixings for our salad was actually a multi-layer sub-basement of a large department store called Kintetsu. The selection of food was overwhelming and the prices were quite reasonable i.e.. $0.85 for a fresh head of romaine. We found enoki mushrooms, which are very good for the immune system and are rare here in Canada. By the time we were done and had prepared the salad we had enough to feed a small village in Japan! If you look carefully at the picture below... our salads nearly completely fill two serving trays 14" X 12"! Seeing as we did not actually have salad bowls and cutlery we did pretty good camping out in the hotel! All good fun!
Our salad
Day 20: Miyajima revisited
We began the day, bound and determined,
full of our tenacious spirits and ready for a second attempt on Mt. Misen.
We walked out of the hotel, ignoring the threat of rain overhead, pushed
on to the bakery and Starbucks for our breakfast-on-the-go and jumped aboard
our 8:15am shinkansen and headed back to Hiroshima. Despite the skies
turning more gloomy by the minute, we pushed on. In Hiroshima we caught
the local train and then the ferry. As we got closer to the Island, which
was disappearing into the fog, the rain became increasingly heavy but we
trudged on. Once on the Island we began to get very wet and succumbed to
purchasing a couple of plastic umbrellas as our "Lowe Alpine" 'Cadillac'
rain coats were simply acting as drain pipes funnelling the rain to our
legs and into our boots. The dampness was creeping in so we ducked into
our little okonomiyaki
restaurant and went dutch on a huge serving, warming
up but not drying out. At this time, the rain increased to a torrential
downpour so we cut our losses and headed straight back to Kyoto where we
drowned our sorrows in our final dinner in Japan at our Cantonese Restaurant
where the sake is warm and the food always good as long as you stay away
from the soups which tend to be laden with MSG. In our set dinner we enjoyed
the unique taste of glutenous rice wrapped and steamed in banana leaves
along with the authentic taste of Canton in Japan!
Day 21: Kyoto to Toronto. What?
Flight cancelled! Vancouver in the dark?
Worry not... our NorthWest flight
was cancelled but Air Canada came to the rescue, saved us from Wayne County
Airport in Detroit and delivered us to Vancouver where upon a tree fell
over the main power lines plunging the entire airport into darkness, stranding
several people in elevators and halting computer systems and conveyor equipment
and who knows what else... at the very moment we entered customs! After
much confusion and mis-direction, we finally made our way to the gate for
our final flight to Toronto still unsure whether our baggage was actually
going to follow! Arriving in Toronto went smoothly and after all the chaos
since arriving at Kansai International Airport in Japan till now, we were
only 30 minutes later than originally expected and even our luggage had
survived the journey. Once home we began the slow recovery from chopsticks
to yen to the time change which set us behind 13 hrs!
Finally, here are some collages we created from various passes and tickets that we accumulated during the trip. Click on an image to see it full size.
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