Heavy, heavy rain yesterday and today (Sunday and Monday). Sunday, just to get out, we took the local JR train to the Kyoto station (picture) to do some shopping at the many stores there. We walked through the huge Isetan Department store. A beautiful store - every corner is colorfully and aesthetically arranged. Lots of very trendy Japanese women and girls shopping away. Very dressed up - high strappy heels - the kind you only see in magazine pictures or once in a while on my daughter, Karen, and tight cropped pants. We ordinary folk bought 2 pillowcases. Here they are in our cozy bedroom:
And here's our cozy living room. By "cozy," think basic graduate student housing.
Today we walked to an electronics store (we need a "router." Whatever that is) and on the way we passed 4 temples and shrines. We walked in one - you walk through a gate, actually under a gate, and enter a world apart. Lovely pathways, small gardens, and several buildings. No pictures yet; I didn't have my camera with me. Who knew we would pass these places on little ordinary back streets - but that's the essence of Kyoto.
Tomorrow is my first class and I am very over-prepared. That's what anxiety does to me. I made the best Powerpoint ever - spent lots of time on Google Images. Someday, if you find yourself wanting an introduction to the American legal system, I'll show it to you.
Meanwhile, here's more about Myoshin-ji, our "local" temple. It was built in 1337, when the Hanazono Emperor changed his imperial villa to a Zen temple. It contains 46 small temples. Buddhist monks train here (we saw one on a bicycle). To get a chance to study here, people need to beg for approval, bowing down for 2 or 3 days at the entrance. Monks wake at 3:30 am, recite a sutra, have a humble breakfast, practice Zazen (meditation in Zen Buddhism), clean the temple, and study and recite another sutra. After a "humble" lunch, they clean some more, have dinner, and more Zazen. They go to bed at 9:30. Any takers?
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