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Tomorrow I’m headed down the Blacksburg, Virginia to take a week-long class at Virginia Tech. I’ll be riding the Blue Ridge Parkway for part of it. It doesn’t seem like it’s been four years since that last trip, but I guess it has.

I rode down to a class in North Carolina in July of 2008, but didn’t take the Parkway. After that class I visited my brother and his family in Nashville, and then rode 1001 miles in 17.5 hours on the way home. It was a long ride, especially on the KLR 650. The first 800 miles were fine, but it got tougher once it got dark. After e-mailing the Iron Butt Association and not liking the attitude of the person I talked to, I decided not to apply for their silly award.

I’m bringing my digital camera as well as a new Chamonix 45n-2 large-format view camera, so maybe some good photos will come of this trip. Stay tuned.

A few weeks ago I went on a backpacking trip with some friends in the Grand Canyon. It was a great time. My friend Dave leads these trips for the Sierra club, but this one was just four friends going. He did a great job. Here’s a slide show.

We had a couple days in Las Vegas after we got out of the canyon. David and I went for a side trip to the Valley of Fire State Park. It’s about an hour from Vegas, and well worth the drive.

I’ve made it home. Things were a bit confusing in Dulles. A number of people got bumped off my flight to Buffalo. There was too much luggage, so the plane was going to be over-weight. The policy is that they’ll take the luggage, and leave the people stranded in the airport. I almost volunteered to stay back, but it didn’t look like there was much of a chance that I’d get to Buffalo before Christmas, as all the other flights were over-booked as well.

This trip was a good one; Japan is an intriguing and beautiful place. Over thousands of years they’ve developed a way of life that allows millions of people to live in close quarters without much strife. The Japanese people I interacted with were very kind and extremely helpful. They all seemed excited that I was American, which is a bit unusual in my experience. Many people seemed very interested to talk to me, and asked me a lot of questions. It’s amazing how people there truly do their best to help, and hold themselves to such high standards of civility. After four weeks in Japan, I don’t know the word for “no.”

I leave there feeling grateful to the people at home who helped make this trip possible, and the people in Japan who helped me and shared a part of their lives with me along the way. It is a rude awakening to travel around for a month in a place where you can’t read most street signs. Without the kindness of strangers I would have been lost.

I’m back in Tokyo after three days at the Tekishinjuku International Zendo. I stayed in their guesthouse a little way down the road, and lived a short three-day stint as a monk would. I had a little bit of trouble finding my way back to the guesthouse from the temple in pitch blackness the first night. I wasn’t sure I was in the right place, and as I was stumbling around in the dark looking for the door, I kept expecting some old Japanese man to come out and ask me what I was doing trying to break into his house. I had no plan for that situation except to say “Kon-ee-chee-wa, Ari-ga-to, Sa-yo-na-ra.” and run off into the darkness. Here’s what the garden look like during the day.

I didn’t realize before I arrived that this week was Sesshin, which is one of the periods of more intense training each year. It ended up being around six or seven hours per day in either half-lotus or seiza. My legs were already pretty sore from walking and sitting on floors so much over the previous three weeks and I got very close to throwing in the towel during the second afternoon. I’ll never know exactly how close, but I wouldn’t have thought that it possible to get that close to quitting something for that long without actually quitting.

The zendo is associated with another nearby temple, and both are directed by Hozumi Gensho Roshi, the 83rd Patriarch of the Myoshinji lineage of Rinzai Zen. He entered Tokoji temple in Kyoto when he was eight.

There were only two others there when I arrived. Bjorn is from Germany and has been at the zendo for two years. Gema is from Siberia and has been there for nearly ten years. There were a number of other long term practitioners who left this past summer, but most people go only for a few days. The sesshin ended while I was there, so the third day was quite a bit easier. Things got even better when the bakery van arrived.

It was especially cold in the mornings. Gema joked that since it was only one degree Celsius in the kitchen, we should put our hands in the refrigerator to warm them up. The good news was that it was no colder outside. Because of the Sesshin, there was no heat except for a space heater in one room for an hour in the evenings. That was a luxury from Roshi because he thought I must be freezing. I told the guys it was okay if they didn’t want the heat, but if they wanted it they could blame it on me. They blamed it on me.

At least I had some idea of what I was getting into. The monks said that people often show up having some real misconceptions about Zen practice. My first “What the hell am I doing?” moments were during the first dinner. It seems that there’s a correct way to everything, and one needs to do it quickly and silently. Of course, this being Japan, they give little instruction ahead of time. One is supposed to look around and figure out what one is supposed to do; if not, one is corrected. I was corrected dozens of times during my first dinner. Gema said that a number of people have actually stood up, said they “can’t do this,” and left during their first meal. More run away during the meditation. The leg pain was pretty tough that second afternoon.

Each afternoon I had some time to wander around and take photos. There were a lot of persimmons still on the trees even in December. I thought they were much more interesting rotten than intact.

Gema and Bjorn were really terrific. It’s kind of like knowing that your drill instructor is one of the most compassionate people that you’ll ever meet, but that the training program, though entirely self-inflicted and always optional, sometimes borders on brutal. I’m very glad that I went, but I’d be lying if I denied that part of me is glad to be sitting in a warm room, digesting some Tokyo-style okonomiyaki, and dealing with only minor leg pain.

Over the past few days I’ve been to Nara and Koyasan and back to Kyoto. I’m leaving Kyoto today to go to the Zendo that I’ve mentioned before. There have been a couple of delays in getting there, but I’m looking forward to it. It looks like somebody is going to owe me ten bucks.

Nara was the capital of Japan before Kyoto, about 1200 years ago. It’s still surprising that when I head out to a smaller city in Japan, it’s still pretty big, and there’s not much level open space between one city and the next. The Daibutsu is the largest Bronze Buddha in the world. It is housed in what is reported to be the largest wooden building in the world. The original one which burnt down hundreds of years ago was fifty percent larger. To give an idea of how big that statue is, this guy was only a small fraction of the size. Nearby is Nigatsu-do, which has a great view, that is when the weather is clear. I didn’t know this earlier in the trip, but in many shrines and temples there are calligraphers that will write the name of the temple in a nice notebook for visitors to take home. I asked him to write the lyrics to Free Bird, but he didn’t seem to understand.

The next day I headed up via train, funicular, and bus to Koyasan (Mt. Koya). It’s a sacred place, and has a huge cemetery with over 200,000 markers, going back over a thousand years. The train ride there headed up the mountain, and I finally saw what I could consider small towns. I stayed over night in a Shingon Buddhist temple. There are about 120 temples in Koyasan, and half of them provide lodging and meals. It was high class, and a nice time. I spent the next day walking around with a couple from Oregon. The biggest draw in Koyasan is the cemetery and the temple it houses. Some of the statues in the cemetery were really interesting, especially as they were being slowly reclaimed by the mountain. At the original entrance to the area is a huge wooden gate, with two big scary dudes standing guard. The light was horrible for this one, but he’s pretty amazing. The museum in Koyasan was great as well, but I couldn’t take photos.

I’ve been bumming around in Kyoto for the past couple of days, and I’m leaving for the Zendo as soon as I finish writing this. I have a fair amount of trepidation about the next few days, but it kind of goes away when I realize that I’ve decided to do this regardless. It’s been a little tougher to be excited about it, because my feet and legs have been sore since I arrived in Japan. I think I might have strained something in my right foot. Each step I’ve taken in this country has been an opportunity for personal growth and renewed commitment. Seiza is torture. Where’s the UN when you need them?

Today I took the train from Kyoto (the capital for a thousand years up until about 1868), to Nara, which was the capital for a while before that. I’ll be checking out some very old temples here tomorrow and then heading to Koyasan the next morning to stay at Shingon Buddhist temples there for two nights. It sounds like they have very traditional lodgings and food, and it’s a beautiful place to wander around. I’ll be returning to Kyoto this weekend before finally going to the Tekishinjuku International Zendo for four days next week. After that I’ll have one day in Tokyo before flying home for Christmas. I’ve heard from a few of you, and I hope everyone is doing well.

In addition to being a reasonably upstanding tourist, I have been known to fall in with a crowd of international misfits and ne’er-do-wells usually referred by their vulgar name, “backpackers.” While sometimes thought of as an Australian phenomenon, they do in fact originate from points around the globe, including the US of A. In fact, I’ve met two other Americans in less than three weeks here in Japan. When trying to locate some backpackers, note that they tend to congregate in major cities where there is beer. The “A Bar” in Kyoto is a classic ex-pat sort of bar/restaurant, with a warm, friendly, laid-back atmosphere, Guinness, sake, and good, inexpensive food. If it had Beer Lao, I expect that some among us might never go home. They must have contacted the Lonely Planet to announce their existence, because they’re tucked away at the end of a long hallway on the second floor of a building on a very narrow side-street in Gion, and there’s no sign. Fortunately for us, the Irish among us sniffed them out.

Even though there’s hardly room to park, I expect that many Japanese people are no different from any other gear-heads in their love for the automobile. Here are a couple of home-grown, but clearly respectable examples. I don’t believe this should be referred to as simply a motorcycle. And this, even though it appears to have been manufactured by Mitsubishi, and has some very unorthodox, and not quite flat, “flat-fenders,” appears to be a post-war, occupation-era, Japanese-produced CJ-3A Jeep, not that I would have thought such a thing existed.

Regardless of the ex-pat bars, the choppers, or the Mitsubishi flat-fender, I must constantly remind myself that I’m a guest in a foreign country. Even though people here are incredibly kind and helpful, not only when one hypothetically leaves his large backpack full of clothing and such on a train bound for some distant destination [the small one with the important stuff being of course glued to him], but also in normal every-day circumstances and confusion, it pays to be on the lookout and follow local protocols wherever possible. Because, as this sign so clearly states, if you run in the subway, they cut of your arms.

Over the last few days, I’ve been staying at a hostel in Kyoto called K’s House. It might be the best one that I’ve ever stayed at. It’s nearly brand new, has clean, comfortable rooms, great facilities, a good kitchen, and really terrific common areas. It’s big enough that there are always people to hang around with, but it never felt crowded. It’s as if somebody built it on purpose. I’ve also heard great things about another hostel in Kyoto called J-hoppers. Looking back on the trips that I’ve taken, nothing has affected how good a time I’ve had nearly as much as finding the right place to stay. I’ll be back there this weekend.

In terms of touring the sights, I haven’t been exactly an over-achiever. This is a big city and it takes a while to get around. A combination of the short winter days, some of which have been rainy, not exactly getting up at the crack of dawn, and some mid-trip laziness have contributed to not getting very far through my checklist of sites. At the same time, I’ve met some great people over the past few days and have been having fun.

A few days ago I went down to the Fushimi Shinto shrine. It’s known for have hundreds of Torii gates lined up over top of a foot path up and down the mountain. It’s a pretty incredible place. The gates are each donated by companies and wealthy people. Over time they rot away if not kept up by, I’m assuming, further donations.

Here’s a photo of a tree at the Toji shrine. It’s interesting how they prune these trees to have long, sweeping branches, which can’t support their own weight. They support them with poles. On the surface it would seem to defeat the effect, but it lends it’s own effect. Steffen and Bret, please correct me if I’ve misundertood this, but from talking with Steffen, there is no word in Japanese for “nature,” at least not as we use it in the West. There’s no word for “nature” that is the opposite of “culture” or “man-made.”

I also have some photos of the gardens at Shokoku-ji. Here’s one of a stone Torii gate. One of the peculiar things ar Japan in general, and Kyoto especially is the combination and adaptation of influences from multiple sources. Shokoku-ji is a Zen Buddhist Monastery, and Torii gates are from the Shinto tradition. It’s not unusual to find Torii gates marking the entrance to a Buddhist location. I’ve read that prior to the introduction of Buddhism to Japan, there was no word for Shinto. It just was.

On my last full day in Kyoto (so far), I headed out to the Arashiyama area of western Kyoto with a German friend named Moritz. We discovered Soba noodles, which are like spaghetti made from buckwheat. They’re terrific and plentiful, served in a broth with mushrooms and green onions. Along with don-buri (rice with a raw egg), they’re becoming my staple here. On the ceiling of the teaching hall at Tenryu-ju temple, there’s huge painting of a dragon which really seems to be looking straight at you regardless of where you stand. I was not allowed to take a photo of it, but here’s a photo of the flyer.

After it got dark out, we walked through a nearby section of bamboo forest that they’ve illuminated with spotlights, the effect was interesting, though not as amazing as the billboards would have you believe. I took a few dozen shots with a digital SLR camera and an image stabilizing lens. This one is as close as I got to a good shot. More interesting was the river of Japanese tourists flowing up and down the narrow streets, snapping photos with their cell phones. So far, I think that Arashiyama is my favorite area of Kyoto; there’s a little more elbow room and great food.

I’ve been in Kyoto for a couple of days again. I feel like this is a great place to be. Part of it is that I’ve been staying at a good place. I haven’t been a very good tourist over the past few days. Saturday afternoon I met with Steffen from Germany who is studying at Kyoto University and at the Shokoku-ji Zen Monastery. He showed me around a bit and we went out for dinner with some of his friends. He’s lived here for quite a while, so he knew of a great little restaurant, and we all ate like we were going to the electric chair.

The next morning I met Steffen at Shokoku-ji, and was able to practice zazen in the main hall for an hour and a half, then attended a talk with the Roshi. Fortunately for me, he talked about posture and stetches and breathing, so I was able to follow along a bit even though I couldn’t understand what he was saying. I have no idea how old he is, but he’s not a young man and he did a stretch that none of us could believe. It was a friendlier environment than I expected, but at the same time clearly a very serious place.

Other than that, I’ve been a bit of a slacker the last couple of days. Somebody found a great restaurant/bar that we’ve spent a couple of evenings at. Fortunately for me, I was out with Steffen and his friends the night things got a little out of control at the other place. If I thought that Shokoku-ji was going to be a serious place, I never would have guessed how serious they are about the Kyoto subway.

The ferry ride to Shikoku Island from Hiroshima was uneventful. There was almost nobody else on the ferry. I arrived in the late afternoon and got a couple photos as the sun was getting lower in the sky. It gets dark here very early, a little after 5pm.

I arrived in Matsuyama port with no map, no place to stay, practically no information, and no idea where the ferry port was in relation to anything else. A woman at the information booth was very helpful, though she spoke no English. She asked around, but nobody else spoke English either. The good news was that she had some tourist information maps in English. The bad news was that they were actually in German. I showed her the umlaut, and told her with the help of the phrasebook that that was Doitsu (German). She seemed pretty surprised, but glad to be able to tell the difference, and then she found an English map. She pointed me in the direction of the bus destined for the main train station where someone might speak Enlgish and help me find a place to stay.

It worked out fine, and the next day I found a great hostel. It was great just to sit and relax. They served dinner and breakfast, which has been about the only time in Japan that I haven’t been at least a little hungry.

On my second day in Matsuyama I took a train down the west coast of Shikoku to Uwajima, which has a very interesting Shinto fertility shrine and an associated museum. Along the way, I shot some photos of the countryside. The population density here is still very high, and every piece of flat land is in use. People here don’t have lawns, they have vegetable gardens, or grow rice. There are also a lot of greenhouses. I’d guess that they grow vegetables in them, but I don’t know. This region also of Japan has a lot of small orange trees, which grow very small oranges. They are the only things that I’ve seen growing on the sides of the mountains, which are normally just left as woods.

The people here have been amazingly helpful. Last night a few of us went to a restaurant and asked if it was the one we were looking for. It wasn’t, but the woman walked us down the street and around the corner and pointed it out to us. This kind of thing happens often. At the same time, it is very difficult to get around when you can’t even read the names of places on many of the maps.