Imagine being all surrounded by water, everywhere you look right outside your front door. To go anywhere, you must take pull the boat around and paddle. Going to school requires a 10 minute paddle. Need veggies for dinner? Better…
Have you ever explored inside a Buddha body, been harassed by a Chinese lady and gotten tricked into buying ten bucks of chestnuts all in one day?!? I don’t think so! But, on my first day of being back in…
Today, I went to my first exorcism. The Buddhist ceremony at Fukagawa Fudo Temple was one of the most fascinating hours of my trip so far. Viewers sat in rows behind the priest and when the chanting started, you could…
Dear Friend, We have had a great time so far on our trip. Yesterday, we went to this big gold plated temple called Kinkakuji. It was exciting. I got a new camera from my mom and dad for my birthday…
I have been on trains that go at least 120 miles per hour at top speed. That’s really fast for regular transportation. I loved zooming on those fast trains. In Japan there is many ways to zip around. The Mazda…
I realized the other day that we are almost at the one month mark of our travels. In some respects, packing up and leaving Portland feels so distant but at the same time, the trip feels like it is flying…
The past couple of days, we pretended we were samurai and nobles hiking the Nakasendo Trail. Many centuries ago, the Nakasendo Trail was a main thoroughfare between Japan’s old capital of Kyoto to Edo, the city currently known as Tokyo. …
Today, I learned the color of vermilion. Apparently, this orange–red color is so disliked by evil spirits that many shrines and places of honor in Japan are painted in this bright orange color. Today, we went to Fushimi Inari shrine…
Today we went to Todaiji Temple, home of the largest bronze statue of Buddha in the world and one of the largest wooden structures in the world. The temple is in Nara, about an hour south of Kyoto by train. …
We got to go to Kinkakuji today. Also called the Golden Pavilion, Kinkakuji is a Buddhist hall on the north side of Kyoto containing relics of Buddha. Formerly a retirement villa for Shogun Askikaga Yoshimitsu, the top two levels of…