Hello from Kyoto

Hello, everyone. I am writing this email from Shunko-in, a Zen temple in Kyoto. I am staying there for ten days with thirteen students and three professors on a school trip from the Antioch clinical psychology program, studying meditation, mindfulness, and Japanese psychotherapy.

After an uneventful flight, we arrived at Haneda airport. I knew I was back in Japan at last when I went to the bathroom and found buttons on the toilet with little icons of butts and water sprays, labeled, "Equipment to cleansing the buttocks with warm water," "washing the rear," and "rear washing stopped."

Perhaps to make up for the uneventfulness of the flight, we then got stuck in Tokyo train station for over three hours, going around and around in circles trying to find where to do assorted essential yet boring tasks. One of the professors, Marli Kakishima, speaks Japanese. I speak a LITTLE Japanese. Several of the students have been assiduously studying from notebooks and Kindle apps, which include helpful notes like, "This is pronounced similarly to the English phrase, "Please don't touch my moustache." Needless to say, everyone who didn't previously know "dou itashimashte" now can't remember that, but has memorized "please don't touch my moustache."

Upon arriving at Tokyo, I had mentioned to Marli that I was looking forward to practicing my Japanese. Be careful what you wish for! After a desperate search for a restaurant (we had arrived at 5:00 AM, so not much was open), we finally found one, but Marli had to leave to run another errand. The menu was only in Japanese. That left me to attempt to translate the food inquiries of 14 people, each with their own allergies, aversions, and preferences, to a waiter who spoke only Japanese. Ordering took about 25 minutes, during which time I nearly had a nervous breakdown while making the 15th inquiry as to whether a certain dish had pork, fish, chicken, beef, wheat, or any of those in the broth as opposed to the stuff floating in the broth.

(When we arrived in Kyoto, Shunkoin's Reverend Taka offered to write out detailed explanations in Japanese of what people couldn't eat, explaining that vegetarianism as we understand it in the US is not really a concept in Japan, and people often don't think of ham and sausage as "meat," and will dutifully respond to vegetarian requests by handing you a plate of vegetables topped with sausages.)

The ramen, however, was delicious.

When we finally emerged from Tokyo station, we had a little time to explore Tokyo before heading to Kyoto. Everyone was pretty overwhelmed and exhausted.

Hello from Kyoto

Hello, everyone. I am writing this email from Shunko-in, a Zen temple in Kyoto. I am staying there for ten days with thirteen students and three professors on a school trip from the Antioch clinical psychology program, studying meditation, mindfulness, and Japanese psychotherapy.

After an uneventful flight, we arrived at Haneda airport. I knew I was back in Japan at last when I went to the bathroom and found buttons on the toilet with little icons of butts and water sprays, labeled, "Equipment to cleansing the buttocks with warm water," "washing the rear," and "rear washing stopped."

Perhaps to make up for the uneventfulness of the flight, we then got stuck in Tokyo train station for over three hours, going around and around in circles trying to find where to do assorted essential yet boring tasks. One of the professors, Marli Kakishima, speaks Japanese. I speak a LITTLE Japanese. Several of the students have been assiduously studying from notebooks and Kindle apps, which include helpful notes like, "This is pronounced similarly to the English phrase, "Please don't touch my moustache." Needless to say, everyone who didn't previously know "dou itashimashte" now can't remember that, but has memorized "please don't touch my moustache."

Upon arriving at Tokyo, I had mentioned to Marli that I was looking forward to practicing my Japanese. Be careful what you wish for! After a desperate search for a restaurant (we had arrived at 5:00 AM, so not much was open), we finally found one, but Marli had to leave to run another errand. The menu was only in Japanese. That left me to attempt to translate the food inquiries of 14 people, each with their own allergies, aversions, and preferences, to a waiter who spoke only Japanese. Ordering took about 25 minutes, during which time I nearly had a nervous breakdown while making the 15th inquiry as to whether a certain dish had pork, fish, chicken, beef, wheat, or any of those in the broth as opposed to the stuff floating in the broth.

(When we arrived in Kyoto, Shunkoin's Reverend Taka offered to write out detailed explanations in Japanese of what people couldn't eat, explaining that vegetarianism as we understand it in the US is not really a concept in Japan, and people often don't think of ham and sausage as "meat," and will dutifully respond to vegetarian requests by handing you a plate of vegetables topped with sausages.)

The ramen, however, was delicious.

When we finally emerged from Tokyo station, we had a little time to explore Tokyo before heading to Kyoto. Everyone was pretty overwhelmed and exhausted.