Ryushin's Recollections: Part IV
Free Day in Kyoto
We shuffled downstairs to breakfast the next morning, still reeling from the food binge of the day before. Many people had asked if they could cancel their reservation for breakfast, and Jihiken informed us that it was too late for such things. So, good Buddhists that we were, all but one of us showed up for the morning meal.
The breakfast was on par with that of the previous morning. They added a piece of shrimp and some little dried fish to the array. I think that was the first shrimp I’ve eaten in nearly a decade.
At any rate, when we finished our meal we were reminded that this would be a free day to explore Kyoto. People spoke about the different places they would be going.
One group was going back to Tom’s temple, in the northwest section of Kyoto, to learn how to rake the small rocks of his rock garden (the rocks are raked in such a way that it has the effect of calming the mind).
Another group was going to a small village northeast of Kyoto called Ohara. They were going to see some temples, and get out of the city for a day.
The filmmakers from LA were going with Kaz to a famous villa outside of Kyoto. Apparently it takes almost a year for a Japanese resident to get permission to visit this location, but a foreigner can get permission on a day’s notice.
Some people were going hiking in the area southeast of Kyoto where trees have been cleared to form the Japanese character “Dai (Big, Grand, Vast, etc.)” on a mountainside visible from the city. In the fall there is a celebration where a fire is lit in that clearing to illuminate the Dai symbol. There are six other symbols carved on other prominent mountains around the city.
Chozen, Hogen, Jikan, and I went to eastern Kyoto so I could get measured for my koromo. A koromo is a long black robe that Soto Zen monks/priests wear over their kimono. It is made of a slippery nylon material which is very hard to work, so we usually pay a seamstress to sew it for us. We only had the name of the tailors, so we asked the hotel front desk to do some research, and headed off to find the store.
The tricky part about buildings in Japan is that they are not numbered in order down the street (e.g. 1 at one end and 10 at the other). Rather, they are numbered according to the order in which they were built (so 1 could be on one street and 2 could be five blocks over)!
We wandered around for about half an hour, showing people our little printout from the hotel. They would point and speak in broken English, and we would head off in that direction. When we met another person, we would ask them the same question. We did that several times until, after an hour, we finally stumbled upon the store.
A woman who spoke only Japanese invited us in. We sat down and she served us cold barley tea. We tried to explain that we wanted a koromo and what type of fabric we were looking for. Unfortunately, all the Japanese speaking pilgrims were elsewhere, so this conversation was quite taxing on both sides of the language barrier.
After twenty minutes of this woman running back and forth to get different materials and supplies, Hogen suggested we find a place where they spoke some English. As it would have been extremely impolite to simply leave, we said no thank you for the koromo, but we purchased a pair of tabi (ceremonial Japanese socks) and a juban.(formal undershirt).
We headed back out into the blazing sun. Chozen remembered the name of two shops but not the addresses. We decided it would be best to go to Kyoto City Hall (which was between our location and our destination), find someone who spoke English, and have them find out for us. We made it to City Hall and eventually got someone who spoke some English. We explained our situation and he said he would do some research if we would sit in the waiting room. Suddenly we found ourselves in the waiting room of city hall with all manner of Japanese folks. All in all, the day was reminiscent of being a child and having to wait with mom and dad for some boring legal thing--or perhaps waiting for my sisters to try on clothing.
The fellow came back to inform us that there were purveyors of priest clothing in Kyoto by those names. Stumped--and hungry--we headed off to the Terimachi arcade mall for a bite to eat. The Teramachi Arcade mall is the most spectacular of consumer sights that I saw in Kyoto. Imagine, if you will, a street with mall-type stores on either side. The roof is three or four stories high and made of glass. At the entrance you look down the corridor and you see no end to the shopping.
Pretend that you weren’t slightly interested in investigating and you headed down the block. At the next corner you could look down the cross street and see another section of the mall which also stretches as far as the eye can see!
So, you go in and explore. There are little shops to buy t-shirts with English phrases that make no sense (Japanese think the English language is cool in the same way that we purchase shirts with Japanese characters which are often meaningless).
There are 100 yen shops. In theory these are the same as our Dollar stores, except that they sell high quality goods for very cheap prices. Your eyes wander, unable to capture all the sights you’re taking in. You stop in your tracks at what you see next.
Next to a small greasy spoon type restaurant, you see a graveyard. You walk out, as the sounds fade slightly, and pass hundreds of gravemarkers (these being more current than the small stones of the temples so far.) There is a Buddhist temple next to the grave yard as well as shrine to Kanzeon. Impressed, you bow and return to the chaos of the mall.
At some point you pass a cross street. You see, to your amazement, that there is yet another section of this shopping arcade which stretches on with no end in sight. This section is devoted to every sort of food you can imagine.
Since everything is packed right next to each other, you get a whiff of fresh tuna followed by the fragrance of peaches and then the smell of pickled something-or-other.
This is where we found ourselves in the midst of our hunt for a robe tailor. Hogen, Jikan, and I stopped to get a bite to eat. Chozen wandered off to visit one of the temples. Hogen managed to get a hold of someone who knew where the robe shop was, and wrote down the directions.
Chozen came back and we were headed into the mall when the sky opened up and there was another downpour. We had to leave the safety of our covered arcade to get to the shop. I had brought my 300 yen umbrella. I soon realized that 300 yen does not buy one a good umbrella, as the thin plastic had begun to melt to itself with the heat of the sun. Hogen bought three more umbrellas at the 100 yen shop, and we entered the deluge.
The Japanese watched with amazement (from the safety of their covered stores) as the four bald westerners (dressed up like Zen priests) walked down the street. The umbrellas kept the top third of our bodies dry (from the shoulders up), and left the bottom two thirds defenseless.
We walked only five or six blocks before reaching the shop, but we were thoroughly drenched. The owner came to the door and invited us in. Hogen stopped us saying, “We’re not going in unless they speak English,” and to the storekeeper, “Does anyone here speak English?” The man assured us that yes there were people who spoke English.
Hogen said we weren’t going in until we saw someone who spoke English. The man left and a moment later a Japanese woman in her thirties came up and greeted us in moderate English. Satisfied, we accepted their towels and began to dry off. Luckily we were wearing light weight clothes which dried quickly.
We went to through the office and into a small room with a couple low couches. The woman served us cold barley tea (I was getting the impression that you could walk into a record store and they would offer you cold barley tea). Chozen had come her three years ago to get Daitetsu (our 6’10” priest) measured for robes, the last time they were in Japan. The woman’s eyes went wide when she remembered this and her hand stretched up to the ceiling and she said, “So BIG!”
We got down to business and things went rather quickly. We requested a koromo. We told her the type of fabric, and she brought it out to make sure they had the right thing. The seamstress pulled out her measuring tape and she measured the width of my neck, my height from neck to ankles, and the height from my extended arm to approximately my knee. That was it. Four hours of searching, through the heat, through the downpour, for three measurements. I was slightly shocked.
However, Chozen and Hogen then mentioned that they needed some new samue (Zen outfits) for the trip. And, Chozen had promised new outfits for Kojun, Yuko, and Jikan. So, then we went through a process of bringing out various sizes and colors and fabric types of samue for the various priests.
The samue were all pre-made and wrapped up in cellophane, like you would see a set of undershirts. There was a growing pile of samue outfits in the corner of the small room. Chozen and Jikan were oohing and ahhing over the different materials and cuts. They were able to appreciate it more, having made several and being serious seamstresses themselves.
As things were starting to wind down, I asked if I could use the bathroom. The woman led me further back into the store room. There were boxes, cleaning supplies, a water cooler, and so forth. Your ordinary, dark office.
She pointed to a door and headed back to clean up. I opened the door and was amazed. On the other side of the door was a garden with the gentle sound of trickling water, bamboo, moss, beautifully shaped rocks…
Everything was placed so as to emphasize serenity. There was a wooden platform which led to the right to two beautiful wooden doors. In the first one was a pair of bright red shoes (I should mention that the Japanese usually change into a different pair of shoes when using the bathroom, unless they are in an airport), and a urinal…quite ordinary.
In the second room was a Japanese style toilet. That would be a low-to-the-ground toilet which requires squatting. It’s generally considered more sanitary because you don’t touch the toilet at all, but it’s a bit of a workout on the knees.
I did my business and went back to the little room where they were taking care of their business. At the first opportunity, I told Chozen and Jikan that they had to see this (I didn’t suspect that Hogen would be greatly impressed). I took them back and they had a great laugh about it.
We finished up and were waiting to pay for everything. In the front office was a Japanese gentleman in his nineties. He was the father and previous owner of the business. He was dressed in a business suit, and had a big grin on his face as he spoke to us in Japanese. Hogen tried speaking to him in English, as he knows next to no Japanese, but this man’s English was as good as our Japanese. So, Hogen smiled back and laughed with him and said, in an enthusiastic tone, “I wish I knew what you were saying because you truly seem to be quite delighted that we are here.” We said thank you, bowed, and headed back out into the street.
It was now 5 p.m. Having completed our major task for the day, and because they had a dinner appointment with a professor elsewhere in Kyoto, Chozen and Hogen departed. This left Jikan and me free to return to the arcade mall.
Imagine what would run through your mind if you were walking though a mall and suddenly saw an Iranian Roman Catholic priest and Italian nun laughing and shopping. This is probably similar to the Japanese experience of seeing two foreigner priestly-type people wandering though the arcade mall.
All the same, we had a wonderful time. We bought little trinkets, and talked with the occasional Japanese person who approached us. We wandered into Buddhist shrines. We searched for some fruit for the members of our pilgrimage who were (to put it delicately) experiencing some of the consequences of a lack of fiber in their diet.
We wandered for a few hours before heading back to the hotel. We met up with some of our fellow pilgrims at the train station and heard about their adventures. We bought a little food at the Daily Yamazaki (a Japanese Convenience Store) to tide us over until breakfast.
That night I took an extra long bath, as I was not sure that we would have the opportunity to do so ever again. A little zazen, and off to bed I went. Thus ended our last full day in Kyoto.
We shuffled downstairs to breakfast the next morning, still reeling from the food binge of the day before. Many people had asked if they could cancel their reservation for breakfast, and Jihiken informed us that it was too late for such things. So, good Buddhists that we were, all but one of us showed up for the morning meal.
The breakfast was on par with that of the previous morning. They added a piece of shrimp and some little dried fish to the array. I think that was the first shrimp I’ve eaten in nearly a decade.
At any rate, when we finished our meal we were reminded that this would be a free day to explore Kyoto. People spoke about the different places they would be going.
One group was going back to Tom’s temple, in the northwest section of Kyoto, to learn how to rake the small rocks of his rock garden (the rocks are raked in such a way that it has the effect of calming the mind).
Another group was going to a small village northeast of Kyoto called Ohara. They were going to see some temples, and get out of the city for a day.
The filmmakers from LA were going with Kaz to a famous villa outside of Kyoto. Apparently it takes almost a year for a Japanese resident to get permission to visit this location, but a foreigner can get permission on a day’s notice.
Some people were going hiking in the area southeast of Kyoto where trees have been cleared to form the Japanese character “Dai (Big, Grand, Vast, etc.)” on a mountainside visible from the city. In the fall there is a celebration where a fire is lit in that clearing to illuminate the Dai symbol. There are six other symbols carved on other prominent mountains around the city.
Chozen, Hogen, Jikan, and I went to eastern Kyoto so I could get measured for my koromo. A koromo is a long black robe that Soto Zen monks/priests wear over their kimono. It is made of a slippery nylon material which is very hard to work, so we usually pay a seamstress to sew it for us. We only had the name of the tailors, so we asked the hotel front desk to do some research, and headed off to find the store.
The tricky part about buildings in Japan is that they are not numbered in order down the street (e.g. 1 at one end and 10 at the other). Rather, they are numbered according to the order in which they were built (so 1 could be on one street and 2 could be five blocks over)!
We wandered around for about half an hour, showing people our little printout from the hotel. They would point and speak in broken English, and we would head off in that direction. When we met another person, we would ask them the same question. We did that several times until, after an hour, we finally stumbled upon the store.
A woman who spoke only Japanese invited us in. We sat down and she served us cold barley tea. We tried to explain that we wanted a koromo and what type of fabric we were looking for. Unfortunately, all the Japanese speaking pilgrims were elsewhere, so this conversation was quite taxing on both sides of the language barrier.
After twenty minutes of this woman running back and forth to get different materials and supplies, Hogen suggested we find a place where they spoke some English. As it would have been extremely impolite to simply leave, we said no thank you for the koromo, but we purchased a pair of tabi (ceremonial Japanese socks) and a juban.(formal undershirt).
We headed back out into the blazing sun. Chozen remembered the name of two shops but not the addresses. We decided it would be best to go to Kyoto City Hall (which was between our location and our destination), find someone who spoke English, and have them find out for us. We made it to City Hall and eventually got someone who spoke some English. We explained our situation and he said he would do some research if we would sit in the waiting room. Suddenly we found ourselves in the waiting room of city hall with all manner of Japanese folks. All in all, the day was reminiscent of being a child and having to wait with mom and dad for some boring legal thing--or perhaps waiting for my sisters to try on clothing.
The fellow came back to inform us that there were purveyors of priest clothing in Kyoto by those names. Stumped--and hungry--we headed off to the Terimachi arcade mall for a bite to eat. The Teramachi Arcade mall is the most spectacular of consumer sights that I saw in Kyoto. Imagine, if you will, a street with mall-type stores on either side. The roof is three or four stories high and made of glass. At the entrance you look down the corridor and you see no end to the shopping.
Pretend that you weren’t slightly interested in investigating and you headed down the block. At the next corner you could look down the cross street and see another section of the mall which also stretches as far as the eye can see!
So, you go in and explore. There are little shops to buy t-shirts with English phrases that make no sense (Japanese think the English language is cool in the same way that we purchase shirts with Japanese characters which are often meaningless).
There are 100 yen shops. In theory these are the same as our Dollar stores, except that they sell high quality goods for very cheap prices. Your eyes wander, unable to capture all the sights you’re taking in. You stop in your tracks at what you see next.
Next to a small greasy spoon type restaurant, you see a graveyard. You walk out, as the sounds fade slightly, and pass hundreds of gravemarkers (these being more current than the small stones of the temples so far.) There is a Buddhist temple next to the grave yard as well as shrine to Kanzeon. Impressed, you bow and return to the chaos of the mall.
At some point you pass a cross street. You see, to your amazement, that there is yet another section of this shopping arcade which stretches on with no end in sight. This section is devoted to every sort of food you can imagine.
Since everything is packed right next to each other, you get a whiff of fresh tuna followed by the fragrance of peaches and then the smell of pickled something-or-other.
This is where we found ourselves in the midst of our hunt for a robe tailor. Hogen, Jikan, and I stopped to get a bite to eat. Chozen wandered off to visit one of the temples. Hogen managed to get a hold of someone who knew where the robe shop was, and wrote down the directions.
Chozen came back and we were headed into the mall when the sky opened up and there was another downpour. We had to leave the safety of our covered arcade to get to the shop. I had brought my 300 yen umbrella. I soon realized that 300 yen does not buy one a good umbrella, as the thin plastic had begun to melt to itself with the heat of the sun. Hogen bought three more umbrellas at the 100 yen shop, and we entered the deluge.
The Japanese watched with amazement (from the safety of their covered stores) as the four bald westerners (dressed up like Zen priests) walked down the street. The umbrellas kept the top third of our bodies dry (from the shoulders up), and left the bottom two thirds defenseless.
We walked only five or six blocks before reaching the shop, but we were thoroughly drenched. The owner came to the door and invited us in. Hogen stopped us saying, “We’re not going in unless they speak English,” and to the storekeeper, “Does anyone here speak English?” The man assured us that yes there were people who spoke English.
Hogen said we weren’t going in until we saw someone who spoke English. The man left and a moment later a Japanese woman in her thirties came up and greeted us in moderate English. Satisfied, we accepted their towels and began to dry off. Luckily we were wearing light weight clothes which dried quickly.
We went to through the office and into a small room with a couple low couches. The woman served us cold barley tea (I was getting the impression that you could walk into a record store and they would offer you cold barley tea). Chozen had come her three years ago to get Daitetsu (our 6’10” priest) measured for robes, the last time they were in Japan. The woman’s eyes went wide when she remembered this and her hand stretched up to the ceiling and she said, “So BIG!”
We got down to business and things went rather quickly. We requested a koromo. We told her the type of fabric, and she brought it out to make sure they had the right thing. The seamstress pulled out her measuring tape and she measured the width of my neck, my height from neck to ankles, and the height from my extended arm to approximately my knee. That was it. Four hours of searching, through the heat, through the downpour, for three measurements. I was slightly shocked.
However, Chozen and Hogen then mentioned that they needed some new samue (Zen outfits) for the trip. And, Chozen had promised new outfits for Kojun, Yuko, and Jikan. So, then we went through a process of bringing out various sizes and colors and fabric types of samue for the various priests.
The samue were all pre-made and wrapped up in cellophane, like you would see a set of undershirts. There was a growing pile of samue outfits in the corner of the small room. Chozen and Jikan were oohing and ahhing over the different materials and cuts. They were able to appreciate it more, having made several and being serious seamstresses themselves.
As things were starting to wind down, I asked if I could use the bathroom. The woman led me further back into the store room. There were boxes, cleaning supplies, a water cooler, and so forth. Your ordinary, dark office.
She pointed to a door and headed back to clean up. I opened the door and was amazed. On the other side of the door was a garden with the gentle sound of trickling water, bamboo, moss, beautifully shaped rocks…
Everything was placed so as to emphasize serenity. There was a wooden platform which led to the right to two beautiful wooden doors. In the first one was a pair of bright red shoes (I should mention that the Japanese usually change into a different pair of shoes when using the bathroom, unless they are in an airport), and a urinal…quite ordinary.
In the second room was a Japanese style toilet. That would be a low-to-the-ground toilet which requires squatting. It’s generally considered more sanitary because you don’t touch the toilet at all, but it’s a bit of a workout on the knees.
I did my business and went back to the little room where they were taking care of their business. At the first opportunity, I told Chozen and Jikan that they had to see this (I didn’t suspect that Hogen would be greatly impressed). I took them back and they had a great laugh about it.
We finished up and were waiting to pay for everything. In the front office was a Japanese gentleman in his nineties. He was the father and previous owner of the business. He was dressed in a business suit, and had a big grin on his face as he spoke to us in Japanese. Hogen tried speaking to him in English, as he knows next to no Japanese, but this man’s English was as good as our Japanese. So, Hogen smiled back and laughed with him and said, in an enthusiastic tone, “I wish I knew what you were saying because you truly seem to be quite delighted that we are here.” We said thank you, bowed, and headed back out into the street.
It was now 5 p.m. Having completed our major task for the day, and because they had a dinner appointment with a professor elsewhere in Kyoto, Chozen and Hogen departed. This left Jikan and me free to return to the arcade mall.
Imagine what would run through your mind if you were walking though a mall and suddenly saw an Iranian Roman Catholic priest and Italian nun laughing and shopping. This is probably similar to the Japanese experience of seeing two foreigner priestly-type people wandering though the arcade mall.
All the same, we had a wonderful time. We bought little trinkets, and talked with the occasional Japanese person who approached us. We wandered into Buddhist shrines. We searched for some fruit for the members of our pilgrimage who were (to put it delicately) experiencing some of the consequences of a lack of fiber in their diet.
We wandered for a few hours before heading back to the hotel. We met up with some of our fellow pilgrims at the train station and heard about their adventures. We bought a little food at the Daily Yamazaki (a Japanese Convenience Store) to tide us over until breakfast.
That night I took an extra long bath, as I was not sure that we would have the opportunity to do so ever again. A little zazen, and off to bed I went. Thus ended our last full day in Kyoto.
posted at 7:05 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home