Highlights from the High Life

Sept. 14

It's the end of the trip, and due to exhaustion and laziness I am losing the motivation to write detailed accounts of my days, thus here I offer only tidbits:

- Moved across town into old house with tatami floors, detached toilet and shower, and small rock garden. I am so in love with this house!

- Private tour at Ginkakuji of oldest tea house in Japan

- Lunch of Yamakake cha-udon (green tea infused noodles, grated mountain potato, raw egg, seaweed served cold)

- Strolling the Philosopher’s trail

- Walking through cemetery at Hōnen’in

- Rock garden at Nanzenji

- People watching atop the great south gate at Nanzenji while looking out over all of Kyoto

- Shopping the outdoor food market near Teramachi…quite a sight!

- Dinner and sake (surprised?) with Cynthea: think fresh watermelon, carrots, cucumber dipped in sea salt and sweet miso, nasu dengaku (my favorite dish of eggplant in sweet miso sauce), crispy salmon belly, fresh tuna sashimi, goya (bitter melon) with egg and pork in sweet sauce.

- Browsing vintage store on the way home that carried an impressive Nike collection, most of which were wrapped in plastic and selling for unbelievable prices (most around $300). If anyone is in the market for a new business venture, do this: buy $3 shirts at GoodWill, bring them to Japan, and sell them for $80 each. People really do this and people really buy them!

Sept. 15
Sleep deprivation made me feel like a drunk all day long. Albeit a bit clumsy with slightly blurred vision all day, I managed to visit a traditional tea canister maker in the morning and then tour Ryōanji, a Zen temple famous for its rock garden, in the afternoon. In fact, I am writing this at 18:37 without having taken a nap of any form! I suppose I’m getting used to this lack-of-sleep-thing. Today’s highlights: tea canister (of course!), “ladies lunch” set with fried sesame ball for dessert, Seattle-esque weather at Ryōanji, dueling pink/yellow lotus ponds, Spanish tapas dinner, late night drinks at Jazz bar down the street from new house (delightful!!!!).

Sept 16
Thought I had all the time in the world to run a few errands, walk along the river, buy bento at a natural foods store (the first brown rice I’ve seen in Japan!), and head to Myōshinji for tea ceremony, but realized that I had remembered the wrong time. I felt so bad for keeping people waiting and missing my tea ceremony, but Taka-san and his delightful mother arranged for one more ceremony with just Cynthea and myself. We crawled into the tiny space through a tiny door and watched a very graceful and elegant woman tea master in a pink kimono serve beautiful cups of tea to us in the most perfect ritualized fashion. It was very relaxing and meditative.

Our very last temple of the seminar was actually a favorite of mine: Kenninji, the oldest Zen temple in Japan and a place where Dōgen studied for a bit. Unfortunately I felt so exhausted I began to wonder if my driver could make it through or if I would pass out…but I did make it!

In the evening I listened to Phish loudly and watched the sun set from a fast moving train. Perhaps the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen. Where was I going? Back to Nara, of course, for one last meal at Kinasa. It was a reunion with Taishō, a reunion with Kiyomi-hime, and a reunion with delicious food (­dashi maki [egg omelet!] and drink [Niigata sake!]). The adjacent table of customers, a family from the area, joined in on the fun and ended up giving us banana cookies from Tokyo as a closing present. And as if all this weren’t enough, Taishō drove us all the way home to the door of our machiya from Nara. You can see why I absolutely love this country.