An "Excursion" and Zen food

"May we have a conversation with you?" Every time we visit a popular site (usually a temple) where there are groups of schoolchildren, we are approached at least once for their "English homework." Once, one of their teachers explained to us that her girls were from a rural area and never had a chance to speak to a native English speaker except on these school trips. So, of course we can't say no. At Tenryu-ji yesterday, 3 giggling girls came up to us as we sat gazing at the bamboo forest (picture). After the usual first few sentences - "What's your name?" "Where are you from?" "Is this your first time in Japan?" this trio began a new sentence and dissolved into laughter, clearly stuck on a word. I asked if I could see the little book from which they were reading. They pointed to the sentence - "We are on a school excursion." "Excursion" was beyond them. So we helped - and they ably practiced -" we are on a school excursion "- completely pleased with themselves. After each of these conversation sessions, we are politely asked if we will pose in a picture with them. So we are memorialized in school notebooks all over Japan by now.

To get to Tenryu-ji ("Temple of the Heavenly Dragon"), we traveled on a funny little train-trolley with a station just up the street from our apartment to Arashiyama, a westernmost part of Kyoto, nestled in the mountains. Once you get off the main tourist strip, it does feel like a charming mountain village. The main temple in Arashiyama is Tenryu-ji, famous for its World Heritage status Sogenchi Garden. The meditation rooms look out on the beautiful strolling garden and we were able to sit and view a piece of the garden as one would do when meditating.

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A stroll through the garden, which is one of the oldest landscape gardens in Japan, can take an hour and takes you past bamboo forests, which are eerie, seeming to be filled with mist as small yellow leaves fall continually, like a soft rain, and blanket the floor beneath the austere bamboo trunks.

We found this tree, with both red and green leaves, in one of the many sub-temples on the grounds.

Tenryu-ji is part of the Rinzai Zen Buddhist sect and was established in 1339. It was built after a priest had a dream of a dragon arising from a nearby river. The dream was interpreted as a sign that the Emperor's spirit was uneasy, so the temple was built as an appeasement.

After another Zen lunch (more later), we hiked uphill through the village to Adashino Nembutsu-ji, a very weird temple where the abandoned bones of paupers are gathered and more than 8000 stone images are crammed into the temple grounds. Most of the images are weathered away and some have faded red bibs on them, or are marked with small toys or child's things. These are the stones that commemorate dead children.

Behind the yards full of stone images, we find a stairway up through another bamboo forest. At the top there is a fountain encircled by 6 images of Buddha. Four young men who are also there tell us that if you wash each Buddha in a clockwise manner, your soul will be cleansed. Worth a try!

The walk to and from Adashino took us past a number of other temples and shrines, and past cute shops and places to eat. It definitely began to feel like a mountain village, the air changed, a cool breeze picked up, shadows lengthened and deepened.

And now Zen food. We have been in Kyoto for just over 2 weeks and we have already had 3 Zen lunches. Something very strange is happening. Yesterday's lunch was on the grounds of Tenryu-ji, in a lovely setting in the garden, with a pond full of large goldfish.

The Zen cuisine philosophy is that most of us "live to eat" but the monks "eat to live." In the Zen monastery, the fundamental act of eating is considered necessary for proper functioning, but nothing else. The meals served at a monastery are carefully planned by a monk holding the important post of tenzo, whose task is to plan meals that will enable everyone to practice Zen with the least hindrance. The daily menu does not vary much. There must be harmony of the 6 basic flavors: bitter, sour, sweet, salty, light, and hot. The monks in training have 2 very basic meals a day and all meals are preceded and followed by verses expressing gratitude. Here's one translation: "First, let us reflect on our own work,/Let us see whence this comes;/Secondly, let us reflect how imperfect our/virtue is, whether we deserve this offering;/Thirdly, what is most essential is to hold/our minds in control and be detached/from the various faults, greed, etc./Fourthly, that this is taken as medicinal/is to keep our bodies in good health;/Fifthly, in order to accomplish the task of/enlightenment, we accept this food."

For special occasions, the tenzo will prepare a feast--that's what we're getting in these Zen meals. They are completely vegetarian (Buddhist vegetarian cuisine is called shojin ryori) and is surprisingly delicious and filling.

They are often served in these red-lacquered bowls, which you stack together as you finish the many small courses. The monks have their own set of dishes that they rinse with hot water after each meal and, so as not to waste a particle of food and to properly honor all the time and energy expended to grow the food and make the meal, they drink the washing water.

Well, we are obviously addicted to Zen food. Who knew?

Zen Gardens and a monk's lunch

"In order to comprehend the beauty of a Japanese garden, it is necessary to understand ... the beauty of stones." Lafcadio Hearn

The beauty of stones / The breaking sound of silence / Waves on quiet shore. (TGP)

Today we rode our bikes north to Daitoku-ji, a walled temple complex of 24 sub-temples that is a holy place for the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism. We visited the 4 open-to-the-public sub-temples: Daisen- ji, Koutou-in, Zuihou-in, and Ryogen-in. Each has a central temple surrounded by Zen gardens - dry gardens and moss gardens. We took off our shoes, walked through the tatami-covered rooms, bowed to the statue of Buddha, and sat --- and sat. The gardens invite silence and meditation. These short visits ended up taking us hours because, well, we just sat and looked. I could tell you what they all are supposed to mean, but what's the point? The meaning goes beyond language and disappears into silence.

We did eat lunch inside the temple compound in a place reputed to serve authentic Zen temple food, just like the monks eat. Lots of tofu and vegetables, a small glass of plum wine, all very delicious. But the place--Izusen--oddly felt a bit commercial. We much preferred the Yu-dofu experience at Ryoan-ji last week. Those of you who know Bill must think that some clone Bill who eats tofu and vegetables has replaced the Bill we all know and love. But it's the real one (I think) going all Zen about food. That's the room in which we ate--sitting on the floor. In fact, speaking of the floor (Bill here, not the clone) when we sat down, the two women who were going to serve the many courses, immediately asked me if I wanted a "chair." It took me a while to understand the word, but when I did understand their offer I wasn't sure whether to be flattered by their typical Japanese attentiveness or worried about what I must look like to them. Of course, my pride refused the offer of a "chair," but they did insist on two cushions. Terry, then, became my food taster for what turned out to be a very nice vegetarian lunch. (Terry--"Food taster" means I take a bite of whatever form the tofu is in and pronounce that Bill will like it.)

Irises and noodles

I tend to disappear from Monday to Wednesday, consumed with class prep and teaching. Still we did grab a few hours Wednesday morning and biked over to Heian-jingu Shrine. The shrine, marked with huge orange (vermillion) gates, was erected in 1895 to commemorate Kyoto's 1,100 anniversary and is a replica of the original Kyoto Imperial Palace that was built in 794 (when they say "centuries" around here, they really mean it!). Much of the shrine on Wednesday was roped off in preparation for the evening's Noh performance, one of the most spectacular in Kyoto. But the main attraction, as far as we were concerned, is the garden. The irises were in bloom (which made me a little nostalgic for my Lake Michigan garden). Again, I defer to silence and let the pictures speak for me.

Afterwards, we browsed the seven floors of the Kyoto Craft Center that is across the street from the shrine. Want a kimono (old or new), a samurai sword, laquered tray, Japanese paper, pearls, Hello Kitty lunchbox, woodblock print, etc . etc. etc? Get your orders in. It's all there

Exhausted and over-stimulated with all those possible purchases, we relaxed in a wonderful noodle retaurant that we found on a little back street just south of the Imperial Palace. It's called Honke Owariya and, according to the English menu blurb, has been loved by the people of Kyoto since 1465 (when they say "centuries" here....). It has been, and still is, patronized by the Emperor's family and the odd monk or two. In the Edo period, Owaiya's noodles were actually served in the Imperial Palace.

PR hype notwithstanding, the noodles were amazing. Here is Bill negotiating soba with chopsticks, no mean feat. Owariya is not exactly "local" for us, but it just might become our local noodle place.


And here, at last, is a picture of the lovely Natsumi, my assistant at the Law School . A Kyoto native, Natsumi lived in Seattle about ten years ago, married an "Amerika-jin," and had a son, who is now eight. She is now divorced and lives in Kyoto next door to her mother and father. She is fluent in English and has good-naturedly accomplished my every request from renting "Runaway Jury" for "Movie Night" for the students, to finding out if we can have pizza while watching the movie (we can't), to helping me reigister for an alien registration card.

After each Wednesday class, I have dinner in the law school cafeteria and invite students to join me. Here we are last night, chatting about Japanese sweets and peremptory challenges.

So, one more gorgeous day here in Kyoto with a beautiful light that seems to deepen everything, especially the greens in the gardens. The contrasts in colors and shades are spectacular and always changing. There is always an abrupt transition from the silence and the colors back out onto the bikes and the streets. A very modern city that has managed to sustain a tradition of reflection.

You can take a girl out of graduate school but . . . .

When we aren't visiting temples, shrines, and eating fabulous food, we are often solving apartment problems. The apartment is adequate, but minimal. The kitchen is equipped with a two burner gas stove with a small grill (no oven), a toaster oven, a microwave, and a small refrigerator. There are 3 large plates, 2 small ones, 3 forks, 3 knives, a spatula, a wooden spoon, and one very large sharp knife; a small pot and a large one, a small frying pan, and a colander. Imagine the TV show - what kinds of meals can you make with this equipment? But I'm doing okay. So far I've grilled a pork tenderloin and chicken breasts, made some fried potatoes with garlic, and, of course, pasta and noodles.

Another apartment problem is the lighting. Each room is lit with a very bright fluorescent light in the ceiling and, aside from a desk lamp in the study, that's it. If any of you know me, you know how I feel about bright overhead lights! Easy to fix, right? We'll buy a floor lamp for the living room. Not so easy. Floor lamps aren't a Japanese thing. In fact, subdued lighting rarely occurs. I was talking to Natsumi about looking for a floor lamp and she laughed and said that most Japanese homes just have the bright overhead lighting, that when she lived in Seattle and her parents came to visit, they couldn't understand why her place was so dark.

We've looked and looked for a floor lamp and found only one possibility in Midori but it's out of stock and would have to be ordered. Then, I passed by a secondhand store (sort of like a Goodwill) and found a small lamp for 950 yen (about $10). Then I took 2 empty appliance boxes that were stashed in a closet, covered them with a shawl I brought with me, and Voila! Shades of brick-and-board bookshelves in grad school! But, we can now both sit and read without the overhead fluorescence. It may not look like much to you, but, trust me, it's a big deal. The small picture above is a reproduction of "Catching Cat-fish with Gourd" from Taizo-in.

As you can see here, Bill's problems are now all solved. He's found the Cubs on TV (once in a while) and a Starbuck's on the river in Kyoto.

My other daily problem-solving is teaching. I'm struggling with how to present the material to students who may not easily understand everything I'm saying in English. And, there's a ton of material to choose from. For example, I have one class, 90 minutes, for "Civil Procedure"--right, that 4-credit law school course. So, what do I choose and how do I present it? My predecessor, Jeff, kindly passed on all his teaching materials, and they're a huge help, but I still have to create each class as my own. Vitually everything I say has to be on a powerpoint so the students can follow me; then I send them the powerpoints after class and they can study and review from them. Still, my current philosophy is that I would rather have them come away from each class really understanding a couple of concepts rather than my worrying about "coverage." My present plan for Civil Procedure is, after a few PPTs on jurisdiction, dividing the class into "Plaintiff" and "Defendant" and then walking them through the procedure, explaining on PPTs what requirements and choices exist at each stage. Thus, "Plaintiff" will have first to file a complaint, then "Defendant" files an answer or a motion to dismiss, etc. I'll be "Judge" so they can see how the judge moves things along. I have a sample complaint and answer that we use in Legal Rhetoric that I'll give them and we'll go from there. Just an idea at this stage. Stay tuned.

Gotta run--got lots of PPTs to make!

Our favorite spot in Kyoto

We think we found our favorite spot in Kyoto - quite by accident. We went over to Myoshin-ji to see the dragon painting but couldn't get in the big temple because something else was going on. But I saw a sign for a rock garden so we went in another temple, Taizo-in (remember that Myosin-ji has 47 temples). Taizo-in is the oldest of the subordinate temples at Myoshin-ji. The pictures show a little of what we found inside. Several Zen rock gardens and the middle garden by which we sat for a long time. Everything feels perfectly in place yet it's not a usual kind of symmetry. It gets inside you, though. At first, it makes you stand and stare - or sit and stare. And then it works its way quietly into deep parts of you.

I found the statue fascinating - I don't know who he is yet (maybe just another Buddha), but he's holding a child and other children are climbing up around him. He seems to be a Buddhist version of a mother goddess and the statue seemed so similar in kind to all the ones of Mary found in Catholic churches. The iconic painting for Taizo-in is a beautiful little scene called "Catching Cat-fish with a Gourd," painted by Josetsu who is considered the founder of the school of summie (black ank and white) painting in Japan.

Best of all, Taizo-in is minutes away from our apartment so we can go there often.

Below is an example of a small shop on the street near us that leads to Myoshin-ji. This one, obviously, sells beans. There are many small shops, many of which sell one thing - beans, or tatami mats, or meat , or vegetables, or umbrellas. I love the picture - Bill is reflected on his bicycle behind the beans.

Then my birthday dinner. We biked over (far) to Pontocho to the restaurant, Misogui-gawa. We were led through tatami covered hallways to a porch over the river and seated on the floor. The restaurant features a French version of the Japanese kaiseki style meal, which is many small, beautifully arranged dishes.

There were four servings of appetizers, little elegant bowls of a few items served in exquisitely delicate sauces. The foie-gras was the best I have ever had anywhere, even in France.

I know, foie-gras in a Japanese restuarant! The food was a fusion of French and Japanese, so each little serving was a surprise. Scallops and Japanese beef and lamb were the "entrees," but even these were small little slices, cut to accommodate chopsticks. Near the end of this wonderful meal, the chef came to speak with us, kneeling down so we would be eye-level. I tried to speak some French with him, but only a few phrases came to me from my past (he is Japanese but speaks fluent French). Fortunately, he had one of the many serving girls with him. All of them spoke excellent English. His pride in his work was very evident and engaging. He engaged us for quite some time, asking us which of the dishes we had liked best. How on earth to choose from among some of the best food we have ever had! At dessert, six of the serving girls came into our private room (by now we had moved from the roof). They formed a "choir" and sang "Happy birthday" to Terry. Great fun to end a perfect day.

Nara Koen

Today we took the train to Nara, set up in 710 as the "permanent" capital of the nascent Japan. "Permanent" turned out to be 74 years when the capital was moved to Kyoto, but that short time made Nara the center of Japanese crafts, arts, religion, and literature, and much of that influence remains today. Its relative obscurity for the past 1200+ years has allowed the old parts of Nara to stay somewhat unchanged. In some places (the few not overrun with visiting school children), you get a sense of how things used to be. Most of the old city remains in Nara Koen (Nara Park), which is notable by being overrun with deer. Legend has it that Takenomikazuchi-no-mikoto, one of the five gods of the Kasuga shrine, once landed atop a mountain riding on a white deer. The deer are thus sacred messengers and are designated "treasures" of the park. They are most frequently found around food stands or nuzzling the schoolchildren who buy packets of "deer crackers "to feed them.

Besides the deer, the attractions are many and increase in spendor as you walk the many kilometers through the park, beginning with two huge pagodas - a 3-storied one and a 5-storied one (pictured above). But the center of attraction is Todai-ji, the most important temple in Nara, founded in 743, with its Daibutsu-den, a huge temple of Buddha, which is the largest wooden structure in the world. That's it behind me. Inside is a monumental statue of the Great Buddha.

The picture can't capture its vastness, and oddly despite the crowds, the stillness. It was always clear that these were religious shrines, not just tourist places. Many people stopped to pray in front of the various statues.

As we walked around the grounds, we were frequently approached by a couple of schoolchildren who said (it was always the same, as they were reading from a notebook), "Do you mind talking to me?" "What is your name?" (then they gave us their names in English--"My name is xxx") "Where are you from?" etc. After this brief conversation, in perfect English, we were asked to sign the notebook. So we became Japanese "homework." Once I said back to one, "Watashi wa kyoshi des" (I am a teacher). The students' faces took on a look of astonishment that Japanese was coming out of my mouth--it was like a monkey had begun to talk!

Here their teacher insisted on a picture so we asked him to take one with our camera. The boys don't look so thrilled.

Now the day gets weird. One reason we had travelled to Nara was to see a painting that was listed in our "1,001 Paintings to See Before You Die" book. It's called Kichijoten by an unknown artist and painted sometime before the 14th century. It's in a Nara temple, Yakushi-ji, which is quite a way off the beaten track. So outside of Nara Koen, we jumped in a taxi ("Kono takshi wa kushi des ka?"--new phrase of the day) for a long (and expensive) ride to Yakushi-ji. Like most temples, this was a huge complex of many buildings and we searched through all of them--no paintings at all! Yakushi-ji was, though, filled with worshipping people, including a group in one central building listening to a sermon from a Buddhist monk. Finally, searching through my phrase book, I figured out how to ask if there was a painting and added the name Kichijoten. "Ah," said the monk behind the counter of a small gift booth, "it's a 'secret' painting that is only shown once each year--in early January." That darn book sure leaves stuff out! But the monk did show us a poster which featured a reproduction of the painting. Bill insists that's good enough and counts for having "seen" it!

We were far from the central train station, but near a local one--a different line that purportedly went to Kyoto. So we got on that train, crossing our fingers and praying to the Great Buddha that we would actually see Kyoto again, and after a change made it back to Kyoto hungry and exhausted.

Right--we're doing too much. So today (my birthday, by the way), we are laying low, doing a little local shopping and checking out a painting in Myoshin-ji (local temple). For dinner we're trying a new restaurant with $$$$ next to it in the guidebook, which will take us to Pontocho, the geisha district. I've been watching a YouTube version of a BBC documentary called "Becoming a Geisha." It's fascinating--check it out.

Japan's oldest bell, cast in 698, hangs at Myoshin-ji and we often hear it peal the hours.

Thursday dinner on Ichijo-dori

We went just up the street for dinner and stuck our heads in a bizarrely painted place on the corner. The cook said (his English was quite good) that there was no English menu but he could make us "anything." We sat down and began to suspect that there was not even a Japanese menu. We asked what he had and he placed out a lovely big square plate and said "My idea is" (his hand went to the upper corner of the plate) "salad here"--he moved his hand to the opposite corner--"fish here." We said we didn't want fish so he offered pork or Japanese beef and we chose beef. He proceeded to cook right in front of us while I drank a beer and Bill sake. He told us his name was Akira and gave us a card (of course) and we gave him our cards.
Bill taking over--the little rectangular room (a kind of bar with chairs and Akira behind the bar) had hundreds of CDs on little angled shelves, so I asked him if he was a musician, but he responded that he was "a cook." By the end of a very delicious meal we had seen 3 YouTube versions of him playing guitar or drums in different local venues. Otherwise, through the meal we were listening to Bob Marley off his computer. Oh, back to the food - the beef was covered in sprouts and shoots but once you found a slice, it proved to be wonderful. All in all a very odd little nook of Jamaica, Japan, and the 60's.

Terry again--the food was fabulous! And we were thoroughly entertained by Akira. Bill says we're going back once a week.

At 1 a.m. I turned over in bed and said to Bill--"If we had food poisoning, we'd know by now, right?" We're fine--healthy and very well fed.

This morning Akira sent Bill by email 2 photoshe took--one of us and one of the food. I can't figure out yet how to get the pix on the blog but I'll keep trying.