The Philosopher's Path

                                                      THE PHILOSOPHER’S PATH

   Kyoto, the ancient capitol is full of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, so when I read about the Philosopher’s Walk I pictured an ancient man with a wispy beard reciting prayers while walking. I was wrong. The Philosopher’s Walk is one of Kyoto’s best-loved spots and the philosopher in question was professor Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945) who took his morning walks along the canal. It is a lovely one-mile walk in all seasons but spectacular when the cherry blossoms bloom in the spring and the Maple trees change in the fall. The canal is not Venice or Amsterdam size. It is more like aqueduct next to a stone path alongside a narrow road. I do not know anything about the professor but I imagine he visited the temples and shrines that lie above the walk at the foot of the Higashiyama (Eastern Mountain) in the cool forests.

   He may have gone into the Ginkakuji Temple, a Unesco World Heritage site that is where the walk begins. The temple was built in 1489 as a retirement home for the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa. Perhaps he sat as we did and meditated by gazing at the sand garden. It is made up of white sand waves (really very fine pebbles) and two unique sand sculptures: the Kogetsudai which is the moon mound and the Ginsaden which is mounded and raked to look like a sea of silver sand. It was designed to reflect the moonlight onto the building, which turned it silver. Hence the temple’s other name, the Silver Pavilion. Or he may have had time to stroll the path up the hill and wander alongside the ponds and the trees in the strolling garden.

   The road leading up to the temple is lined with vendors selling a variety of products in their tiny stalls. I am sure they have been there since the temple was built and only the product has changed! I bought a fan as the heat and humidity was very high.

   Or picture him going to Honen-In, a small rustic temple deep in the forest of cedars that shade and scent the stone steps and paths. It too has a sand wave garden with water basins and lanterns.

    On another day, after walking for a while the professor may have walked as we did onto the Eikan-do temple grounds.  Here the temple complex of buildings, connected by corridors and steps are set in park like grounds. As we wound our way along the corridors we went from building to building looking at the special Buddha’s enshrined in each. One is known as the Fire protector Buddha because it was the only one of five that did not burn. Another two, are in the two-storied pagoda built high on the hill with a fabulous view of Kyoto. My favorite is the Amidah Buddha. The guide pamphlet tells the following story: In the early hours of February 15 1082, the chief priest Abbot Eikan was intoning the Nembutsu while walking around the statue of Amida. Suddenly the statue came down from its pedestal and began walking away. I imagine the priest stood with his mouth open, especially when Amidah turning his head, said “Eikan, come with me” And so, Eikan followed and prayed for Amidah to keep that form forever. The statue is a small gold statue and can be seen and prayed to from two sides. They write that Amidah has an open heart and teaches with his backward glance that people can lead and follow. The beauty of the statue and the devotion of the words moved me. I also like the name because in Judaism,  the Amidah is a prayer we say as a community.

    After viewing the Buddha’s we strolled around the ground and visited what I think is a Shinto shrine on an island in a small lake. We rested in the shade and enjoyed the sound of the trickling stream.

    Did I mention it was very hot? By this time into the walk, I don’t know about the professor, but I was very thirsty. While walking on the path I spotted a small café called Sedona. The name drew my attention and we went in to buy a bottle of water. The owner told us he had lived in Los Angeles for four years and had often travelled to Arizona for business meetings. He loved Sedona, hence his café’s name. He also liked Santa Fe and showed us the book he brought home from there. As we were not hungry we did not eat but I would recommend it.

    To me, water is the sound of Kyoto. As we walked along the canal I loved the sound of the water trickling over the stones. When we strolled in the gardens the water rushed down the little man- made waterfalls. In some of the temple grounds there were streams running down the mountainside. The canals or aqueducts run alongside the roads and paths and there is a constant sound of flowing water.

    By this time on the walk I was getting tired and thirsty and did I mention it was hot! As we came around a bend I saw placards along a bamboo fence with drawings in black and white of a woman’s face. It was almost like a ying –yang. Oh I thought I have to see what this is all about. We went up the walk to a wooden building and stepped into a Japanese garden and saw the sign in English, Yojiya café. We had found the tearoom that the author of The Teahouse Fire had described. The tearoom was a large room with a tatami floor and sliding glass doors looking out onto the garden. Tea and sweets were served to us on black lacquer trays as we sat on small cushions on the tatami mat. The Japanese sat on their knees as they have for centuries while we, with our bad knees and creaking bones tried to make our legs and bare feet disappear! I am lucky I have been doing yoga because I have had practice getting up of the floor!

    While we waited for a “table” (it is a popular place) John sat in the garden and I went into the small cosmetic store at the other end. Before I could buy anything our names were called. After taking our shoes off we sunk or fell to the ground and ordered. It is only a tearoom. I ordered an iced green tea latte and John ordered an iced green tea cappuccino. We ordered a sweet tray that consisted of three tiny cookies, a small bowl of fruited jello and a bean curd chewy bun. We were so dry and our knees hurt so much we drank and swallowed it down pretty quickly. We did talk to the Korean couple that sat next to us and requested our picture. So somewhere in Korea is a picture of us sitting in great discomfort in a Japanese teahouse. When we were finished the server gave us a little piece of paper to blot our faces with. Apparently these little squares of paper are sold all over Japan and women use them to blot the oil from their faces. We used it to blot the sweat and I went back to the store to buy some packets. It was a great experience and I recommend it to anyone who can get up and down from the floor! 

     More next time!  

  

Tokyo to Kyoto

                                                   

Saturday September 18, 2010

   We woke up at 3 am all bright-eyed and bushy tailed and hungry! The restaurant only opened at 6.30, which under normal circumstances I would never have cared about, but now we had to wait. No mini bars in the room.

 When we looked at the city lights the night before there did not seem to be that many skyscrapers, but that morning as watched the sun come up I saw a city of concrete bisected by roads. It had a different feel from Manhattan, which has steel, concrete and lots of glass skyscrapers. What we saw was this mass of tightly packed blocks of different sizes, built mostly from white concrete. Now I could appreciate that space is at a premium in this city.

 Finally it was time to go to breakfast and to our surprise the restaurant was busy with tourists who like us were awake very early. Many Japanese hotels provide a buffet that includes both a Japanese breakfast and a Western breakfast. I will write more about that in another post.

   After satisfying our hunger with a delicious and tasty Japanese breakfast I longed for my mocha fix. There was a Starbucks in the tower and a clone of every Starbucks barista anywhere in the world served us. The difference being that she, in the Japanese tradition handed us our drinks with a bow, a smile and a thank you, arigato in Japanese! We drank our iced Mocha’s and watched the other people, some with laptops, some in groups chatting like our neighborhood Starbucks at home. Yes I know, I didn’t come to Japan, a tea drinking country, to visit Starbucks, but it did taste so good!         

       We went to the station to scout out which platform the Shinkansen, (the bullet train) left from and where to buy our tickets, without dragging our suitcases along. It was about 8 am on a Saturday and the station was a hive of activity. Japanese tour groups wound there way around. Young couples walked rapidly and with great purpose to catch their trains to who knows where. Workers headed for the subways and teenagers walked along, eyes glued to their cell phones. I watched one walking towards John and was sure he would bump into him but it was as if he felt his body heat, or could sense his shape, he veered left never lifting his eyes. We returned to the hotel, packed and this time pulling our suitcases went into the correct entrance, bought tickets and went to the platform for the train to Kyoto.

   While we waited I noticed a group of women all dressed alike in pink uniforms with white scarves covering their hair, march down the platform then in small groups stand at the entrance of each coach. The train arrived, people disembarked and they entered to clean. While John chatted to another passenger who asked where we were from etc, I watched one cleaner walk down the aisle lifting all the white cloths off the headrests. Another cleaner followed and in perfect rhythm replaced them. In about ten minutes the cleaners lined up and on a signal from the leader, exited the train. She then waited for a signal to exit herself and allow the passenger to board. Off they marched to the next platform and the next train.

  Two hours after boarding the train we arrived in Kyoto the ancient capitol of Japan, with its 1600 temples and about 300 shrines. It was very hot and humid and we gratefully got into a cool cab and then into an air-conditioned hotel.

More to follow………

IN JAPAN

   We arrived at Narita airport 5.15 pm on Friday September 17, fourteen hours after leaving the US, As we were flying in, I noticed the green and yellow fields and my first thought was how much it looked like England, which surprised me as I was expecting to see skyscrapers everywhere. But the airport is an hour’s ride from the city.

  I was struck by how unimposing the airport was – low buildings, with a tower. Once inside the picture changed, shiny floors, well lit halls and corridors. The plane was full but we were part of a handful of people who were not in transit, so when we arrived at immigration we went straight to an agent. He checked my passport and then I was fingerprinted by sticking my to index fingers in a little box and pressing down. No ink stains, all electronic. Then he pressed a button and my face flashed onto the screen. It was scary! I looked like I had spent 14 hours cooped up in a capsule with my flat hair and my round glasses. I actually squealed in fright, at which he gave a small smile. Every one in Japan smiles except the immigration officials! Our bags were waiting for us and we sailed through customs. We were actually in Japan and the first thing we saw was a Starbucks!

  We found the ticket office and bought our tickets for the express train to Tokyo station. We had heard how quickly the trains leave the station so wanted to be sure to get to the correct platform. There were people everywhere to help and John was shown how to stand in front of the luggage cart on the escalator to prevent the suitcase falling on someone. Much to my surprise everyone took luggage carts on the escalators. The station was very busy as it connects to cities and towns all over Japan as well as hundreds of subway lines. 

   After a fifty minute ride we arrived in Tokyo. This station was even busier than Narita as it was Friday night. People rushing for trains and subways but once again the cleanliness and the low noise level struck me. Everyone moved very fluidly and there was not much noise.

  We had booked into the Hotel Metropolitan Marunouchi at Tokyo station. When we got off the train we were not sure where to go. You may be thinking, why not ask someone. But the problem is that although we have the Japanese names transliterated, most of the people only read Japanese which is written in symbols. Of course there were signs in English and one of the signs was Marunouchi Exit so that is where we went.   

  We found the way out into the bright city lights and muggy air and saw people swarming across the road at the largest, widest pedestrian crossing I have ever seen. John checked a map and said the hotel was around the corner. So pulling our luggage behind us we walked along the wide sidewalk past small café’s offering noodles, tempura, fish and other dishes. We turned the corner, walked under the train bridges and eventually on the next corner saw the name of our hotel discreetly written on a building called the Sepia Tower Conference Center. I groaned because there in front of us we saw a well-lit entrance to the Tokyo station! It was steps away from the hotel. Oh well you live and learn!

  The elevator glided up to the 27 floor which was the hotel lobby. Quiet and coolly air-conditioned the hotel was a haven. Our room, looked out on the city lights. After enjoying the view, then a cool shower, we pushed a button and electric blinds darkened the room. We fell into bed and sleep and so ended our first hours in Japan.

   

 

    

FUN BOOKS

I found two books that will help me understand and enjoy my trip to Japan. CLUELESS IN TOKYO  - an explorer's sketchbook of weird and wonderful things in Japan by Betty Reynolds is a funny, colorful book about as she says, " a place where everything is completely different from back home."
She draws Kushimono which is dinner on a stick, like at our Minnesota state fair, sold in inexpensive eating and drinking places. One can recognize them by the red lanterns hanging outside their doors.
She describes in pictures the rituals of taking a bath or sleeping in a Ryokan. She describes a tea ceremony with colorful pictures of the different pieces used. There are drawings of exotic vegetables, some like edamame, know to us. She describes the different style and usage of Kimonos.
It is a funny lighthearted way of learning some very useful information.

A YEAR IN JAPAN by KATE WILLIAMSON is also a sketchbook but is more of an art piece. Williamson tells the story in words and watercolor sketches of her year in Japan. It is a song of the beauty she finds.

She writes,"As soon as I walked out of the train station on my first day in Kyoto, I knew I would love Japan. I passed the ground floor of a department store on my way to the street. To my right I noticed a wall of color and pattern - windowpane plaid, polka dots, orange and turquoise, red and magenta lime and navy. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was a display of washcloths, the most beautiful washcloths I have ever seen. These squares of terry are not used for washing but are kept in purses for drying one's hands in public restrooms. The washcloths were my first exposure to the attention to detail that characterizes much of Japan both visually and socially"

A friend asked me what I liked  about Japan and what I was going to do there. I tried to put into words but really couldn't, until I read this last sentence. To me it is being exposed to the attention to detail visually and socially that makes the country so different.

Wiliamson draws book bags and socks, which are used for different pairs of sandals and shoes. She describes the different rubber stamp designs that one collects going to temples, shrines and train stations. She describes how fruit one buys is wrapped like a birthday gift, and the elements of a vegetarian temple lunch consisting of the following flavors, bitter, sour, sweet, salty, hot and light. I can't wait to taste them.

Even if you never set foot in Japan this is a beautiful book to own and browse and fly there in your imagination!

THE TEAHOUSE FIRE by ELLIS AVERY

The writer, Ellis Avery first saw the tea ceremony performed in 1998 at a teahouse by the Shishigatani canal in Kyoto.
“I was seated upstairs in an exquisite room built, I later learned in the early 20th century, whose architects had incorporated an exotic western element – glass - onto the geometric harmony of shoji, tatami, and wood”
When Avery returned to New York she began studying the tea ceremony. One question that puzzled her was, why were all the tea masters men? She learned that for close to its 400-year history, “The Way of the Tea” was the province of warriors and wealthy men who would gather for the ritual in teahouses where women were not welcomed.
When researching that question she discovered a 19th century woman who did involve herself in the tea ceremony. She based the character Yukako Shin on this woman. Avery spent her time studying the tea ceremony and the Japanese language and lived in Kyoto while researching and writing the book.

"When I was nine, in the city now called Kyoto, I changed my fate. I walked into the shrine through the red arch and struck the bell. I bowed twice. I clapped twice. I whispered to the foreign goddess and bowed again. And then I heard the shouts and the fire. What I asked for? Any life but this one."

This is how the book The Teahouse Fire by Ellis Avery begins. It tells the story of nine-year-old Aurelia Bernard, born in Paris, orphaned in New York and brought to Kyoto by her missionary uncle. She takes shelter from a fire in the teahouse of the family Shin. The daughter of the tea master discovers her. A whole new world opens for her when the family takes her in, rename her Urako and she becomes Yukako’s assistant and surrogate little sister.

Avery has written a lushly rendered story of Japan in the midst of great changes and modernization. I definitely recommend you read it before visiting Kyoto.

The building where Avery witnessed a tea ceremony is still standing, although it is no longer a teahouse. It is a café on the Philosopher’s Walk. I intend to visit it.

Click on the website.

http://www.yojiya.co.jp/english/cafe/index.html


REVIEWS

Leigh Anne Vrabel, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Library Journal-- 


Avery's compelling debut novel presents women who dare to challenge expectations in the changing cultural landscape of 19th-century Japan. The Shin family has taught the tea ceremony for generations, but daughter Yukako is expected to marry the next master teacher instead of assuming the role herself. When Yukako discovers white American Aurelia hiding from her abusive missionary uncle on the Shin estate, she takes her in as a servant-companion and secretly teaches her the family arts. But can their friendship survive the changes that sweep Japan as the 20th century begins? Readers who enjoy historical fiction will be dazzled by Avery's attention to detail, savoring her descriptions of each kimono and tea implement. Those who like plot twists will relish the epic cast of characters who help and hinder Aurelia and Yukako as they mature.


Deborah Donovan, Booklist-- 

Avery, a long-time student of Japanese tea ceremony, has set her first novel in Japan in the late nineteenth century, years when that tradition-steeped nation gradually exposed itself to the modern West. She weaves a memorable saga of two women: Yukako, the daughter of a respected "tea advisor" to feudal lords, and Aurelia, a French orphan who traveled to Kyoto at age nine with her uncle, and was adopted by the tea master's family after he died. Avery adroitly conveys the intricacies of the tea ceremony, "the language of diplomacy," and the subtle ways in which it was transformed as Japan moved from a Shogun society to one ruled by the Emperor. At the same time, she illuminates vivid period details, as the steam engine arrives, women stop blackening their teeth, and the ban on Christianity is lifted. Aurelia remains Yukako's stalwart friend through doomed romances and a disappointing marriage, telling her, when Yukako resumes her father's tea ceremonies after his death, "You took an art that could have died, and you made it live."

Emily Barton, author of BROOKLAND, The Los Angeles Times-- 

When [Avery's narrator] remarks, How beautiful, to see something done simply and well, she could easily be speaking about THE TEAHOUSE FIRE, a novel that, like the tea ceremony itself, provides true pleasure to the intellect and all the senses.
(December 31, 2006. Click here to read the full review

New York Press, Best of Manhattan
BEST WRITER YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF BUT SHOULD GO READ RIGHT NOW
We can't shut up about Ellis Avery's THE TEAHOUSE FIRE. The novel makes the story of 19th-century Kyoto as it is opening to the West-- told via the perspective of an American orphan, Aurelia, adopted by a Japanese family of tea masters-- seem like it's playing on IMAX. Aurelia inhabits a hyper-cinematic world of lacquered palanquins, shoji-screened teahouses and Geishas wearing layers of kimonos as the "butter-smelly barbarians" (that would be Americans) are on their way. Just go read it already. Go! Why are you still reading this?


Lucy Daniel, Financial Times--

The tea ceremony becomes a tiny stage on which grand passions are enacted... Avery captures all this with the emotional poise befitting her characters, and great sensual pleasure. Her novel is a rather beautiful thing: all the more so for emulating the values of another world.


Karen Schechner, January Magazine--
Artful... an intricately imagined world... Part of the enjoyment of Avery's expansive novel is that as Urako finds her place in Japan, and in The Way of Tea, she sweeps the reader along with her in almost visceral experience of late-1800s Kyoto.
(May, 2007)


Paul Kim, Audrey: The Asian American Women's Lifestyle Magazine--

A strong story of friendship that avoids Orientalist tendencies...a breathtaking portrait of two women...Avery fuses history, romance and cultural observation into a novel of impressive scope and stylistic execution. Fascinating in its portrayal of friendship during a time of great cultural transition, The Teahouse Fire is a story that will please readers and history buffs alike.
(June, 2007)

Susan Pavloska, Kyoto Journal--
"A fascinating...account of daily life in Kyoto during the crucial years of Japan's struggle to come to terms with the end of its centuries-long cultural and political isolation."
(Spring, 2007)

Tim Bryant, Buffalo Artvoice--
Beneath the beautiful surface of Avery's artfully controlled prose...the novel's essential question is that of desire: By what ceremonies, through what pains and past what obstacles must we endure in order to have not just any life but the one we most want to claim as our own?
(February 8, 2007. Click here to read the full review)


Kate Lavin, The Contra Costa Times--
By turns beautifully minimalist and rich in detail...
(February 4, 2007. Click here to read this interview in its entirety.)


Marie Mutsuki Mockett, Japundit--

Ellis Avery's research included a stay in Kyoto where she studied the tea ceremony, but that alone doesn't account for her perceptiveness about Japan; she's simply a keen cultural observer. 
(December 31, 2006. Click here to read the full review)

Bookdwarf-- 

[A] lovely debut novel... told with lush and precise details through the eyes of a complicated narrator.
(November 9th, 2006. Click here to read the full review)
Suzanne Kamata, Japan Visitor-- 

Avery weaves... historical elements into a riveting story of love and betrayal. As in tea ceremony itself, there are many moments of great beauty. This is an impressive debut. 
(October 5, 2006. Click here to read the full review)

Matt Haig, author of THE DEAD FATHERS CLUB-- 

THE TEAHOUSE FIRE is a novel as exquisitely intricate and carefully presented as the tea ceremonies it depicts. It is a masterful act, and a most captivating portrait of a changing society. A book to savor. 


Emma Donohue, author of SLAMMERKIN-- 

With meticulous detail and exquisite sensuality, Avery invites us into a lost world on the brink of transformation. THE TEAHOUSE FIRE is an absolute spellbinder. 


Liza Dalby, author of GEISHA-- 

In Ellis Avery's THE TEAHOUSE FIRE, aesthetic rules vie with politics, sex and human feeling. Avery has whipped up a heady brew. 


Maxine Hong Kingston, author of THE FIFTH BOOK OF PEACE-- 

Reading Ellis Avery's THE TEAHOUSE FIRE, for me, is like attending seasons of elegant tea parties-- each one resplendent with character and drama. Delicious

Japanland

I look at Japan and see an onion. The onion is a solid, round, white ball of skin. Japan is an island consisting of large crowded cities, with skyscraper office and, apartment buildings. It has large department stores, train stations, bus depots and airports. People eat at its restaurants and dance at its clubs and play golf at its city golf courses. That Japan is the solid onion. But once one peels the onion the skin becomes translucent, sheer sheets that reveal another skin just like it. That is the hidden Japan and the Japanese history that goes back centuries. Those layers are what create the manners, the style, the culture of the country and its people. That is what makes it hard for an outsider to ever really get beyond the first few layers of the onion.

Karin Muller the author of the book “JAPANLAND - A Year in Search of WA” tries to do just that. She is a documentary filmmaker and writer who has travelled the world but is still as her brother says, ”looking for the meaning in life” She studied Judo for years and wondered why she kept it up. Yes it gave her confidence and strength but she felt she was missing another benefit that she could not quite find.
Muller writes, “Most of my instructors were Japanese, and they approached Judo with a sense of utter dedication to perfecting a profoundly difficult art. They said you could never truly master the sport until you understood the philosophy behind it. And for that you have to understand Japan.”
She continues, “The spiritual peace the Japanese seem to find in simple objects and the contemplation of nature; their willingness to sacrifice their own needs to the common good. It was utterly alien to me and I was fascinated. What would induce a monk to stare at a wall for seven hours a day? Or a geisha, to spend a lifetime learning the elegance in a single gesture of serving tea?
Focus. Harmony. Wa. I wasn’t even sure what Wa was but I wanted some.”

Japanland is the story of how an American woman spends a year in Japan attempting to learn enough of the life and culture to find Wa. You may be thinking “Oh no, another American woman is off to a foreign land to find herself a la Eat Pray Love” This memoir is nothing like that self-absorbed quest. Muller’s book is a description of the people, the culture, and the biases of Japan and how she struggles to find her place in the country,
Muller writes, “Making up my mind to go turned out to be the easy part. Although Japan welcomes tourists, it almost never allows them more than a superficial glimpse of its culture and traditions. My plan to bring along a video camera and try to capture what I learned would make things even harder.” A friend tells her “The only way you will ever become a part of Japanese society is if you were born in a Japanese village to Japanese parents”
For six months she searches for a way into Japanese society. One day, a fellow Judo student hears her talk about the trip. He sends word to his Judo community in Japan and she gets an offer from Genji Tanaka to become her sensei, her teacher. He also invites her to rent the granny flat in his apartment and to introduce her to life in Japan.
When I read that I wondered how I would feel if my husband offered our guest room to a complete stranger from another country and offered to show her around. I suspect this was done without consulting his wife or daughter. Gender roles are still strong in Japan as Muller learned. She describes the outside of her new home, where it is, what it looks like and ends the paragraph with these words, ”Inside lies the sole domain of my host mother, Yukiko.” Her host mother does not approve of Muller, who is like a cuckoo in a cardinal’s nest.

The blurb on the back cover describes the book as, “Broad in scope and intimate in relationships, Japanland is a deftly observed, decidedly unromantic and hilarious portrait of the land of Wa.” I would also use the words brave and strong. Muller deals with people who do not necessarily like her, like her host mother. She continues her practice of Judo, which is very hard on her body. She joins a group of Japanese pilgrims on a trek and manages to survive the miles of hiking, the bitter cold and the small rations of food. She is also a brilliant observer and has written a funny rich book about the characters that make up Japan and the character of the nation.

I think Karin Muller succeeds in peeling back the onion and maybe she did find her own WA. By reading her book and experiencing Japan, we find a small piece of it too.

Japanland - A year in search of WA.
By Karin Muller
Rodale Press 2005.

Visiting Japan

Nearly twenty years ago, my husband and I took a trip to Japan and were lucky enough to be shown around by Japanese colleagues and friends. I was interested in papermaking and we were taken to the factory where they demonstrated for us. John does pottery and we were taken to a studio where he watched the masters and threw some bowls. We did a trip down a river on a raft, a misnomer as it was more like a bus with about 6 rows of seats! We wore raincoats because we did get splashed but it was beautiful, like sailing in a Japanese nature picture.
We visited Buddhist temples and gardens and gloried in the peace and the structured beauty. We participated in a tea ceremony and slept on tatami mats at a Ryokan and enjoyed the quiet peace of the small garden with its rocks and lantern
We bathed in the baths and learned to soap our bodies and rinse them off by sitting on a low wooden stool, filling a bucket from the faucet and emptying it over our heads. I remember how meditative it was when that water flowed down my hair and face. Only then did we climb into the warm continuously flowing water of the baths.

That trip created my knowledge of Japan and the Japanese people. As an immigrant I do not have Pearl Harbor or the interment camps, as my history. But I do wonder how that cruelty co-existed with the quietness, the peace, the layers of the Japan I saw and the Japan I have read about. To me it is all about layers of simplicity. The gardens are designed so that every plant, rock, pebble, tree is placed in the perfect spot. Every flower in Ikebana is arranged to complement the vase. The tea ceremony is a creation of ritual using perfect tea, perfect implements, and perfect sweets all in the perfect setting. Even sushi is an art consisting of color and form.

The books I have read and will blog about reinforce that view as I again prepare to visit Japan.