Japan

Morning prayers and Hiroshima mon Amour

Japan day 5 Slept reasonably well on the futon on the floor, though it was a bit hard and the pillow seemed to have been filled with chickpeas instead of feathers. Honestly, I’d have slept better on my neoair that I carried on the Pacific Crest Trail. As the first thing today, we got to watch the morning prayers at the temple. The monk chanted sutras and made sounds by hammering on bowls and using…

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Japan

Maneki Neko

Japan day 3 Woke up in the middle of the night like yesterday, but remembered that I had brought some melatonin pills, took one, and fell asleep once more. For technical reasons it took some time figuring out the transport to my next destination, but with that out of the way I headed off to Gotoku-Ji Temple, which I had seen in the avant-garde film “Sans Soleil”. Legend has it that a prosperous man was…

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Japan

Much Tokyo, much jet-lag

Japan day 2 Woke up at 4:30 and was completely unable to catch any more sleep. I was a bit surprised to find so many savory food items a the breakfast buffet such as steamed fish, rice, tofu, salad, miso soup, and salad. But it might be us westerners who are weird in the way that breakfast seems at time to mostly resemble dessert.  The Senso Ji Temple was first on the agenda, and it…

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Japan

Konnichiwa Gozaimasu

Japan day 1 Barely had I left the airport before I was there only foreigner and surrounded by signs and messages written in characters that I couldn’t even read. I had stepped onto Japanese soil here in Tokyo. Or soil is probably not the right thing to say as everything is kept so meticulously clean.   This eighteen day trip is quite a different endeavor from my time on the Pacific Crest Trail. For one,…

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