August 22 & 23 - Reunion!

Today was my last day in Kyoto. I spent the morning repacking my bags, which seem to grow with every day, and headed to the train station (which is huge and amazing! shown at left) to store them and then to my meeting with the Columbia University sponsored research institute that works on women in Buddhism. The past few days I have been resting and just hanging out with Bethany, anxiously awaiting Dan’s arrival.

Despite getting lost (surprise!) in the back alley streets of Kyoto, I am proud to say I made the meeting on time. Of course, I left myself plenty of time and had Bethany as a pretty reliable tour guide (she studied for one year in Kyoto at Doshisha University which was actually quite close). In fact, we had enough extra time to grab some last minute “Coolish” – a delicious frozen treat in either vanilla or green tea flavors. As chance had it, the research institute was right next to a park. We sat on the swings and raced to eat our ice cream before it melted in the intense heat. After taking pictures of Bethany trying to use the kiddie toys and utterly failing, I headed to my meeting.

The “research institute” was in fact a small apartment. It was amazing though, loaded with books on nothing but women’s studies and Buddhism. It was my dream book collection. I sat with Mrs. Katsura for about an hour, chatting about school and the field. A very prominent professor at Columbia, Dr. Barbara Ruch, wanted to establish a network hub for people interested in medieval Buddhist women, and although the center has little funding, it was great to know that if I am ever in Kyoto, I have a library to use!

Before catching the bullet train up to Narita, I had lunch with Bethany. We grabbed Japanese fried chicken – “kara age” – which was absolutely delicious, from a covered market full of wonderful smells and interesting foods, and then headed back to the station area.

I was a bit afraid at first to travel alone, but I must say everything worked out much better and easier than I imagined. The train was super speedy, and only took 2 hours to reach Tokyo. Another 45 minutes later and I arrived at Narita. I actually found Dan with no trouble at all. It was so wonderful to be reunited. A month is just long enough to get used to not being with someone, so the first hug was a bit strange, yet completely wonderful.

I had made reservations for the evening at the closest hotel to the airport, which happened to be a Holiday Inn. It was lovely and quite fancy. Our room was beautiful and I had fun introducing Dan to the joy that is a modern Japanese toilet.

The next morning we headed to the big city. The trains, again, turned out to be very easy to use, but I think Dan had a hard time dealing with the humidity. Luckily, I had already bought him a “sweat rag.” There is probably a cute Japanese word that works much better than that, but indeed that is the function it serves, and boy is it handy!

We immediately got lost after leaving the Shibuya station, which is one of the busiest sections of Tokyo. I thought we were headed in the right direction and would make it right away, but when I finally asked for help I was told I was very far away. The nice shop clerk, though, hailed us a taxi and even spent several minutes explaining where our hotel was. I am always amazed at the sincere helpfulness of most Japanese people.

The taxi cab driver was fun to chat with, and Dan heard me have a conversation in Japanese for the first time, a shock I’m sure. Nevertheless, he was just happy that the cab was very air conditioned! We arrived at a very nice, European looking brick building, which was our hotel. It was a beautiful little boutique hotel, and our room was rather spacious and, most importantly, cool!

We didn’t wait around at the hotel for long, and headed back on the train to meet some of my conference friends, one of whom was having a BBQ at her apartment building for us! The building was super new and very nice. The BBQ was on the roof, on the 39^th floor, and had sweeping views of Tokyo. It took seeing the city from that high up to really comprehend its massive size. Concrete stretches as far as the eye can see in all directions.

The BBQ was great, and I was very pleased to be able to introduce Dan to my Japanese friends. I had talked about him so much that when I actually did the introducing, he received a hearty round of applause! The food was excellent as well, though it is very different from American BBQ. It was actually a big skillet that everyone cooked various meats and vegetables on. Nevertheless, it was very tasty, as was the cold beer. After Dan adjusted to the heat and sunlight (BTW he had forgotten his sunglasses), it was all good. We ended the get together by heading to a large lounge that Nao had rented for karaoke. No one was really in the mood to sing, but we played Jack Johnson of all things – just the music redone to synthesized Japanese music.

After heading back and relaxing at the hotel, we decided to explore Shibuya. The look in Dan’s eyes when he first saw the huge crosswalks completely packed with people was very memorable. I thought Manhattan was big, but Tokyo is on an entirely different level! Still a bit full from the BBQ, we decided to check out different restaurants and bars and have a snack or a drink at each. We had originally planned on seeing the bay area band ALO in the area, but when we walked up to the door the concert was a) half over, b) 65 bucks a person, and c) so smoky I couldn’t breathe! We made the wise decision to wander aimlessly instead.

Our stops included an American gangster rap bar that seemed very out of place, the Kirin City Beer Communication, which resembled a TGI Fridays, an underground Japanese restaurant that was amazing and even had a huge indoor Buddha (pictured) and traditional floor seats, and another Japanese pub where they were very surprised that I could chat in Japanese! A good night indeed.