Sauntering Sunflower

Just in case you were wondering about the kind of weather we’ll be having in Japan while we’re gone, here are a couple of screenshots I took this morning while checking the weather (yes I’m at that vacation prep stage where you check your destination weather every morning too).

Technically we start in Tokyo, but we’re only staying a very short time there. Then it’ll (probably) be on to Kyoto. After that we head to Fukuoka.

These are about ideal weather conditions for us. A bit of rain, cool temperatures, but not too cold. I’ll be able to get away with a t-shirt (& jacket) and Lance is already debating whether he’s even going to bother with a jacket at all.

There’s a zen concept called ‘Beginner’s Mind.’ It encourages you to look at things as though you are a beginner. To experience the full scope of wonder and newness of things. Part of the experience of parenting is having the opportunity to experience beginner’s mind as you look at the world through the eyes of your child and see them experience things as a true beginner for the first time. And, part of the experience of this trip for Benevolance and I will be watching our son Locutus experience so many things as a beginner. (For those who don’t know, Locutus is his screen name.)

Part of what comes with the beginner’s mind experience for me is some anxiety and fear that comes with facing new situations. I’ve never traveled with a small child before and all the ‘what if’s’ are continually racing through my mind. My mantra is ‘do not borrow tomorrow’s sorrow’ as a reminder that I cannot control or predict what will happen.

It helps that we’re keeping out travel routine as close to normal as possible. So, we’re still flying carry-on only! And we’re keeping our schedule flexible and open. So while we do have a list of things we want to do, a reservation in a hotel for our first night, and a plan to watch as much sumo as possible, we are free to be as flexible as possible. Which I think will work well when traveling with Locutus. If he’s got a major cranky day, we don’t have to get on a long train ride where he’ll be more confined (except for the last days where we will need to get back to the airport for our flight). Instead we can play in a park or explore some city streets where his shouts and cries will simply add to the symphony of noises, and not cause (as much) irritation to others.

So keep checking back in this space (or subscribe to the blog if you are more technically advanced) for updates and stories along the way.

In a move that caught absolutely nobody by surprise, we are trekking once more to the land of the rising sun. We have wintered in Japan; we have sprunged in Japan: at long last, it’s time for autumn.

The juxtaposition of city and nature creates a wonderful backdrop to experience the seasonal variations. In many ways, it’s not so dissimilar to Vancouver. As the cool, fall nights creep in, Vancouver’s tree-line ignites with bright oranges and reds against that ever-present backdrop of evergreen. Nature’s fireworks on display.

Yet subtle differences do exist: Japan does autumn with a good deal less rain than Vancouver; the temperatures remain modestly warmer well into December; and the laws on public consumption of alcohol are far more palatable. But most important of all: Japan does autumn while enormously-strong, nearly-naked men attempt to hurl one another bodily from a raised clay platform. It’s non-stop, winner-takes-all, man-on-man action for fifteen days.

It’s the Kyushu Grand Sumo tournament. And we’re going to be there.

The Studio Ghibli museum is incredible and a must-see if you are ever in Tokyo and happened to buy tickets three months in advance. It was completely packed with Japanese tourists. And i mean packed. Which is why you have to buy the tickets so early. And the tickets specify which time you are allowed to enter the museum at.

The building itself is probably my favorite part. It is done in a very Victorian, wood and metal style. Very evocative of the steampunk aesthetic Jenn and I like. An interesting fact is that all of the exhibits are build to child scale. Expect to be bending down to see stuff.

The exhibits themselves are also nice. A good bit of the permanent exhibition is devoted to how movies work, the creative design process, and so on. There was a fantastic strobe-effect setting, which sculptures of all the stages of animated movements. There was a bat flying, a girl skipping rope, someone riding a bicycle. The entire scene was built on a wheel.

The wheel would spin up to speed, the strobe light turn on, and it was timed so you suddenly were watching a brief stop-animation movie. It was quite impressive and definitely the highlight of the movie creation gallery.

The seasonal exhibit was devoted to the new movie, which we have not seen, so we had no particular attachment to the project. Aside from declaring we should see the movie upon our return.

The biggest disappointment was the gift shop. There were studio ghibli gift stores all over Japan, and we refrained from purchasing anything because we were going to the museum. Sensible, yes? But sadly it was so very, very wrong.

The gift shop was tiny and mostly featured movie-creation related paraphenlia. Cells from the films, audio and video collections (at Japanese prices, whoo!), and a whole crapload of cell phone charms. It had none of the cool statues from the various films, robotic-head seed planters from Castle in the Sky, the kodama statues from Princess Mononoke.

But we did get a couple cool pictures of the rooftop garden area and the building itself (the only two places where photography is allowed) and we nabbed the movie-cell admission tickets as our souvenirs instead of watching the 15 minute short film like we were supposed to. The tickets are way cool.

On a previous episode of Sauntering Sunflower, Jenn and Lance were shopping in Kyoto. Walking up and down Kiyomizudera and exchanging yen for fancy trinkets. But our famed protagonists were unable to find a zen cushion in Kyoto.

More importantly, however, we had not found a foo dog. Foo dog is a name I invented for the statues I liked in Nara. I doubt it’s accurate, but a good author doesn’t let integrity and accuracy get in the way of a blog post. We had seen the foo dogs in abundance in Nara. But searching the shops of Kyoto, we discovered a dearth of foo dogs. Kyoto was foo dogless. But because the train system in Japan is so phenomenal, we thought nothing of zipping between cities.

We went to Nara and bought a foo dog. We knew exactly where they were sold, and which one we wanted. So aside from waiting around while the owners manufactured a box large enough to wrap our purchase, that part of our trip was pretty uneventful. This post isn’t about foo dogs, though. That’s just a lead in to the cushion story. This is why this post is entitled ‘The Cushion Story’ and not the ‘Really easy foo dog purchase story’.

So we were in Nara after an entirely uneventful foo dog purchase. We decided we had enough time to hunt for a zen cushion. I didn’t actually know what a zen cushion was, but Jenn wanted one, and that was a good enough for me. Being pragmatic, I suggested we ask the local tourist information bureau where we could buy a zen cushion.

Unfortunately, the girl at the tourist desk wasn’t prepared to field this sort of question. She sought the guidance of a higher authority, who sought the guidance of an even higher authority, and soon we had two co-workers and a manager digging through the Japanese yellow pages hunting for a zen cushion store. I took pictures of the robo-ninja deer. Eventually, it was determined a shop existed that could produce the cushion we were probably looking for. It was also only half a block away.

We set out for our cushion store. We don’t read Japanese. We missed the store the first go by, but found it on the second. We sauntered (as sunflowers do) to the counter and the nice lady inside brought out one of the cushions. I thought it looked very nice, but a glance at Jenn informed me this pillow wasn’t zen.

I don’t know how many of you have tried to describe something you haven’t actually seen into a second language with which you are marginally proficient, but let me assure you the experience is highly entertaining!

We had a quarter-dozen shop keepers scouring the store, trying to appease us mighty foreigners and sate our bizarre pillow related demands.

In the course of twenty minutes we established the following facts:

1) One of the shop keepers had at least a passing familiarity with zazen, and the cushions there of.

2) Japanese zazen doesn’t use cushions anymore. They use little cushioned mini-benches.

3) The shop did not actually have the cushions we sought.

4) Lance actually remembered the japanese word for ’round/circle’ at a key moment. Man, that saved a lot of potential headache.

5) The shop would make us cushions in 30 minutes.

Yes, that is correct. The shop did not have the cushions we wanted, but they had a square cushion filled with pipe bead. The square cushion was far too thick to serve a useful purpose in meditation, but the shop owner assured us they could remove the pipe beads from the cushion. He got the approximate height that Jenn wanted, and told us it would be ready in thirty minutes. We asked for two cushions, and he increased the wait time to….thirty minutes.

That’s awesome math. We went for burgers.

No, wait. We looked at kimonos first. Jenn got a kimono last trip and I was going to buy a men’s kimono this trip. Sadly, this shop didn’t sell used kimonos; they sold custom-made new kimonos, in whatever fabric you desired. And if I had $9000, I would have totally bought one. We chatted with the shop owner about Banff, then went for Mos burgers.

After finishing our lunch, it had started to rain. We returned to the shop damp but unharmed. The owner had two employees furiously hand stitching pillows for us but they were not yet done. The staff seated us at the back of the shop by the heater and made us tea while they finished.

Roughly an hour after we arrived in Kyoto, we had two hand-stiched quasi-zen cushions in our possession, and they charged us a grand total of 60 cents for labour.

For some odd, inexplicable reason, I started a list of the hotels we stayed at and began assigning a superlative description to each of them. I think it adds a little flavour to an otherwise incredibly similar set of hotel stays. Since we’re now in our final hotel of the trip, I thought I’d share the list with you.

One of the nicest things about travelling without a fixed itinerary is that you can take time for a nice relaxing walk in the local park if the weather and geography seem to suggest it. If you get a park that the people of the city actually use, it can be a nice way to catch a glimpse of what life is like in a foreign country. And, you get to see some pretty weird stuff too.

Our two nights in Matsumoto were incredible.

The first night we had the run of the ryokan, because we were the only guests there. We were given exclusive use of the hot spring, our room was made up for us and our hosts were very generous and helpful.

The ryokan itself was described as a ‘new’ structure. Whether that meant built within 50 years or 200 years, I’m not certain. The style of building it emulated was from the 1600’s, built with modern materials and traditional methods. There you have it.

There were various decorations around the inn from all periods of history. Marvellous tapestries, delicate ceramic bowls and cups, antique kami masks. The entire in had a wonderful character.

We didn’t arrive to the inn until around sunset. The ryokan lady was going to carry our bags to our room but I took one look at the tiny lady, one look at the bags I’d been hauling, and felt an immediate twinge of guilt at being responsible for her death. It took some doing, but we convinced her to let us schlepp our own gear.

Our second day in Matsumoto was for sightseeing. We had warm, sunny weather to wander the town and we made the most of it. We hitched the bus back into town and spent around seven hours wandering the streets. We saw the castle and park, the art museum, a cool german liquor store, the time-piece museum (totally steampunk!) and a french tour guide that insisted on helping. We also took in lots of interesting buildings and shrines and temples along the way.

That night we had a traditional ryokan dinner served in our room. It was interesting. Some parts were fantastic, others required some suspension of disbelief. I’m particularly pleased I figured out how to eat prawn sashimi. It helped that the prawn was still so fresh and in one complete piece, he was able to offer guidance on how best to consume him.

This morning we hopped a train to Nagano city, only to be told by the tour guides there that the Olympics were being held in a different city this year. Who knew?

The Japanese are way too helpful. We arrived in Matsumoto for a stay in an onsen ryokan. The ryokan itself was part of the Welcome Inn chain in Japan, which helps foreigners book lodgings around the country. We had received a print out from the Welcome Inn crew in Osaka that included directions on how to get to the ryokan. Since the onsen itself was quite some distance from Matsumoto station, we needed to take a bus. Unfortunately, the bus number listed on the directions did not exist at the bus station.

We wandered below ground to the sub-station, in search of better information. There was a help desk. We asked for help. Once we established where we were going, the lady informed us which bus to take. It was arriving within a few minutes. Then she proceeded to get up from behind her desk, walk around and point us in the right direction.

Or so we thought. Instead, she actually guided us to the specific bus stop outside, in sub-zero weather, wearing a skirt and high heel shoes. She insisted on holding all of the doors for us along the way, because we were rather laden from shopping, and then she waited until the correct bus came and made sure we got on. Above and beyond the call of duty.

Random extremely helpful lady at the tourist info desk who didn’t speak English and helped us crazy gaijin anyway, we salute you!

Oh, but it doesn’t stop there. Because the bus driver was crazy nice awesome, too. It turns out that Asama onsen has approximately seven stops, all a variation of Asama Onsen. We were uncertain if a particular stop was ours, so I asked the bus driver in my broken Japanese.
He instead asked me where we were going. I supplied the name of the ryokan, and he said this was not the correct stop. Instead, the correct stop turned out to be directly in front of our ryokan, where he let us off. We did not learn of his kindness until the following day, however, when we had to go to the actual bus stop to head into town, and it certainly wasn’t where we’d left it.