Japan

A stranger is just a friend who haven`t met
I was wandering the streets looking for a place to get a very plain breakfast of rice and miso soup. Suddenly, I end up in a very fancy french-style cafe, talking to a beautiful woman over rice and miso with a vast variety of side dishes and coffee. I assume she is the waitress, since she was the one who brought me the menu, and wonder how she can get away with sitting and chatting with me while shes working. Then she introduces herself as 'rie' (at last, I know a name!). I notice that the name of the restaurant is Devinci Rie, and put two and two together.

I help her translate things to put on the signs in English, and by the end of the meal I am acting as chief advisor for an English/Irish style bar she would like to build. When she tells me she could build it in a week, I decide its time to tell her that I actually have no idea out bars, business, or anything really, and that she should almost certainly not put any of my thoughts into practice. The conversation after this is just as interesting however, and as we talk about Australian lifestyles and Japanese backpacking travel, she decides that my lifestyle is very `graceful`. I burst out laughing, and decide to explain with gestures...Over HERE is graceful, and all the way over HERE is me and my lifestyle. Still, she likes the word, and I am told repeatedly that backpacking is graceful, that the Australian style of cooking on a barbeque while drinking beer is graceful, and when I show her photos of my friends, she describes them as `graceful` too (HA! I have to laugh at that one :P). I still go there every morning and receive a huge breakfast, for the price of a cup of coffee...

Not everything is as it seems
I meet some American English teachers through couch surfing, and one of them just happens to have been an Environmental Engineer for many years, which seems like an interesting basis for a conversation! We converse over dinner, and during this conversation I learn a startling fact - Takayama is Japan`s biggest city!
Looking around, at the hills and hillbillies, it might not seem so. Yes, its population is less than 100,000. But in terms of surface area, it is larger than Tokyo. Due to a strange quirk of politics, Takayama has amalgamated with nearby villages for budget purposes, turning it into a gigantic super city which takes about 2 hours to cross from one side of the other.

Alps means `large mountains`
I had heard that the hiking around here is very good, so I bought a book of hiking trails and began to plan out how I could hike through some of the nearby mountains in the Japanese Alps. Eventually, I decide I will just catch a bus out there, and see which one looks the easiest to climb. As soon as we get out of town, I see a white-capped peak impossibly high in the sky about 100km away. Oh....ALPS!

All my thoughts of hiking so much as a foothill evaporate into thin air. Instead, I spend my time goggling at the gigantic mountains in the freezing 9 degree afternoon (its summer at ground level, but not up here!). I travel for a few kilometres on a spectacular ropeway, play around in the snow (theres still plenty, no-one has told the snow its summer) and spend some time on the tourist-filled observation deck. From here I can see all types of mountains - peaceful looking giants with snow wrapped around them like a white blanket, evil looking crags (one of which actually represents hell in mythological Japan), steaming volcanoes and plain old regular green slopes. I plan to climb none of them.

Even the water here is Ironic
After freezing off parts of my body that I would rather not freeze off, I head down to the countryside once more, where there are more hot springs than I can poke a stick at (trust me, I tried). I decide on one with a view on the alps, and as I sit in the steamy volcanic water, I notice that the key ingredient of this water seems to be iron, instead of the usual sulphur. You could say that the water was very ironic indeed :D

Free samples are never free
Takayama is the city of free samples, and I was positively delighted at their stupidity in offering hundreds of lollies, biscuits in little boxes for people to try. There were so many different kinds to choose, I figured I could just try one of each and walk away with a full stomach, without paying a cent. Those naive shopkeepers!

Since then I have spent upwards of $50 on the lollies at those shops, having tasted something which I could subsequently not live without. Those shopkeepers had the last laugh after all...

Always alone, but never alone
Walking through Takama`s most lively district on a Saturday night (I was just looking for some noodles!), I notice a sign with the words `Big Piss Up!` followed by a picture of Australia. Intrigued, I figure this is a good enough reason to go inside. The owner has been to Australia once before, and someone obviously told her that `piss up` means `party`, and I suppose that is true enough! It is a small bar, perfect for conversation with a friend. Now, all I need is a friend...

I end up spending hours chatting to a 25 year old guy from Italy, who is working as a chemist making polycarbonates for Mitsubishi. He is currently on a 6 month internship after finishing his masters degree, researching methods of making materials with certain optical properties (e.g. for CDs) from renewable materials such as biomass. I find the topic of his research and exactly how he does it absolutely fascinating (Grace, you would have loved it as well!). Unfortunately, we are constantly being districted by a group of women in their mid-20s who find us irresistably attractive, but we are far more interested in our conversation, and stay huddled in the corner getting excited about the by-products of fermentation while they sing love songs to us via karaoke.

A very positive person, he practically emits a glow when he smiles (which is most of the time). He loves the ridiculous disorganization of my travelling, and every time I say something like `Im not really sure where Ill go next, maybe Kyoto? Or maybe Tokyo?` he grins and declares it `Fantastic!`. I speak in an Italian accent for most of the night, something which I tend to do when I speak to someone from another country for too long by myself (I find it difficult to stop speaking in an accent the next day however, and have to put in a considerable effort to get back to my normal tone of voice). We have had some similiar experiences travelling, and both of us are travelling alone. Gesturing to the pub full of people, I come up with a catchphrase `we are always alone, but we are never alone`, which he once again declares `Fantastic!` with an smile so huge I worry his head might explode. As the night grows late, we decide it is time for Karaoke. Choosing a song, we find `Good Riddance` (aka `Time of Your Life`), and get very excited.
`I hope you have the time of your life travelling!`
`Yes, and you too!`
`This will be our song!`
`OUR SONG!`

Practically arm in arm, we plug the song into the machine and wait. The owner tells us that there is a queue for the karaoke machine, and we will have to wait about 15 minutes.
`I think we should go`
`Yes, me too...it will be our song next time`

My standard for being in a truly foreign place is this - do I know anybody's name within 100km of me?
The answer right now is almost certainly no.

Emerging from the temple, I had a lot of questions. Like, oh yeh, what do I do now?
Figuring that good fortune comes to those who have no idea what they're doing, I decide to come up with no plan whatsoever until I get to the train station. About 200m outside the temple gates, before I even reach the bus stop to take a bus to the station, another participant in the Sanzensha program offers me a lift. I love how my stupid ideas work in this country!

I had seen him before explaining where he lives to one of the other foreigners, and I thought it was somewhere between Kyoto and Nagoya. I was plannign on heading to Osaka, right next to Kyoto, so I thought this woudl at least be a step in the right direction. So I hop in the car with his wife and daughter (who had no idea whatsoever that I was coming, and were a wee bit shocked at first), and the car winds its way through taller and taller mountains. I am amazed by the scenery, and they tell me it is the Japanese Alps. Japanese Alps? Wait a minute, that doesn't sound right...

Turns out I am going in practically the opposite direction to Kyoto, and their house is just as far, if not further, from Osaka than Eiheiji. Ah well, looks like I'm on the road again! I simply ask where they recommend, and they all agree Takayama is a fantastic place. Okey dokey, I head for Takayama! It is indeed very cozy, nestled away in the Japanese Alps, and about the same size as Albury. I check into a youth hostel, so fantastically luxurious I feel guilty for being here, even though it was only $35 a night. Two computers for free internet use? A widescreen TV? A vending machine in the corner? To top it all off, my dormitory has become a private room as there is nobody else staying there at the moment! Oh, and did I mention that it is actually a temple? Yeh I know, I'm an addict now. I saw those paper walls and tatami mats and couldn't resist another night in Japanesey-ness. So tempting to go sit on those tatami mats for another hour or two until my legs burn with pain, just like old times...

What will I do here? It was rather relaxing having such a strict schedule at the temple, as it meant I never had to think about what I was going to do next, or make my own decisions. For example, for the first time in four days I had to decide what I was going to eat! Naturally, my decision was terrible. Takayama has many regional specialties, and when I saw 'broiled cheese and potato', I assumed this was one of them. As I did not quite know what broiled meant, I assumed it was something like cottage cheese stuffed into a potato, which sounded like a refreshing change from miso, rice and noodles. What came out was a pool of molten cheese, with hot chips floating in it. The pool had solidified slightly, and it basically resembled a fanatical cheese lover's version of nachoes, except with hot chips instead of corn chips. Needless to say, it was absolutely disgustingly oily and fatty, but backpacker and temple philosophies both agreed that I had to eat all of it anyway, as I could not waste it. The predictable tummy ache this caused is the reason I am sitting here on the computer typing away at 10 o clock, despite it being way past my bedtime. Hey, I got up at 3 30, ok?

A sleep in tommorow, followed no doubt by an adventure of some kind I suppose!

An average day at Eiheiji starts early. On the second day we got a sleep in until 4 30, and we felt genuinely blessed at this seemingly late wake up time. On all other days, the monks came by the room with the wake up bell clanging at 3 30 in the morning, and within three seconds a thunder of footsteps begins as we scurry around packing up our futons. I have never gotten up so early, or so fast before, but something about that clangy bell had me jumping out of bed without a moment of groginess. There is nothing quite like doing complex folding procedures 5 seconds after sleeping.

By 3 50 we were in the meditation hall. Polished stone floors, and a serene buddha statue in the middle of the room with a flame in front of it create a very medieval atmosphere. We jump onto our tatami mats facing the wall to begin zazen meditation in the pre-dawn darkness. We are meant to just relax, and not do or think anything in particular. However, one thought keeps bobbing up in my mind repetitively...`my legs hurt, my legs hurt, my legs hurt`. Like someone who knocks louder and louder on the door the longer they go unanswered, the pain grows and grows until finally I give in and begin shuffling from half-lotus to regular cross-legged position. This is only a partial relief however, and most of the zazen period is consumed by struggling vainly to find a comfortable position (comfortable in this case means `without fire-like pain`).

We then attend the morning service, basically zen church. This is far, far more interesting than any church I have ever been to however. We walk out silently through the temple complex, and every now and then I get a glimpse of some beautiful temple scenery, and remember where I am. We then go into the Hattou, the main hall, with gigantic gold structures hanging from the ceilings, huge bells and drums, and a shrouded buddha on a beautiful, extravagant altar. The only thing this room does not have is chairs. We kneel in `seiza` position on the tatami mats for about an hour and a half while the service takes place. Around 100 monks are there, and the sight of a hundred monks kneeling together with identical shaved heads and jet balck robes is memorable enough in itself. Then the chanting begins - the huge drum is beaten, the zen gongs are hit, and the chanting of a hundred monk-ish voices (that nasaly chanting tone) fills the hall. We are also meant to join in, but the monks have a sense of rhythm better than most DJ`s, and most of the time chant in complex patterns and at a ridiculous pace, and other than a half-hearted sentence or two, I spend most of the time trying to figure out exactly where we are in the sutra book.

Coming back, it soon becomes time for breakfast. Ah breakfast, what a nice break...ha!
Mealtimes are among the hardest times of the day for me and my fellow foreigners, as they are also taken in the meditation hall with the fire-lit buddha statue watching me writhe around in agony. I soon learn that everything is painful here. The procedures for eating are incredibly complex, and the average meal takes between an hour and an hour and a half. We use a set of 4 bowls all set into each other, wrapped up with our napkins and tea towel in a complicated manner, and everything from setting up, to eating, to washing up and packing up is done in a precise order...literally every movement of the hands is regulated, right down to the position of the fingers when you pick up a certain implement. Every movement, right down to picking up your tea towel to wipe a bowl, is done with both hands. The actual serving of the meal is just as complex, as each dish comes out individually, and is served to us with a fair amount of mutual bowing. Despite moments of cynicism (pain can make just about anyone cynical), there are moments when the sophistication strikes me as beautiful. Before and after meals, we chant various verses dedicating this food to various things, and this time I can actually follow the much slower, easier chanting. It is a very cool feeling being part of a super-voice, a harmony that seems to come from the orange glow of the buddha altar itself.

The meals themselves are absolutely fantastic. Called Shojin Ryori, literally `pure food`, they are strictly vegan, but taste great. Miso soup, rice with a variety of flavours, pickles, and for lunch and dinner we have tofu and vegetable delicacies to accompany it. For the last dinner, we even had tempura! After the meal is eaten (with leg pain as a side dish), we begin the packing up procedures. I had read that not a grain of rice is wasted at these temple meals, but this is an understatement, as literally not a gram of food goes to waste. After we have eaten every last grain of rice, we wash our bowls out with tea, and then drink the tea along with any tiny food scraps or essence of food that may have remained. We then pour hot water through the various bowls consecutively, and drink this as well! There is very little need for washing up in the monastery - by the time our little bowls are stacked together and wrapped up once more, they are sparkling clean, with every last scrap of food residing in our tummies. This reverence and attention to detail when eating, picking every dish with both hands, was one of the things that struck me most about the monastery.

Manual labour barely makes an entrance into the program, and I have very little opportunity to scrub the toilets. This is a shame, as manual labour is one of the few things which does not require one to sit cross legged on the floor. However, the program is very well thought out, and just when the hours of sitting gets too much for us, a break of some form is provided. At the end of the night, we are taken down to the bath room as luxurious as any onsen, with modern shower fittings and a boiling hot bath to soak our joints and muscles in. Later in the program, we are even given a hike around the temple complex to shake off the austere atmosphere. The monks laugh and joke with us casually, and when we get to the top of Eiheiji hydroelectric dam (I assume that is not part of the original complex), they hand out cakes and other convenience store food, which we eat without any fanfare or prayer whatsoever. Entering the temple once more, we resume our rigid, attentive posture and the monks once again speak in strict, formal Japanese, but all our spirits are lifted.

The only thing better than the hike is the special `foreigners dharma talk` (dharma means buddhist teachings) on the lower floor. I pray to buddha and, like magic, they appear in front of my eyes...Chairs! Comfy, puffy, soft CHAIRS! Sitting down, I have never felt so happy. Here we meet two very amazing people - Kuroyanagisan, a priest who speaks wonderful english and acts as a translator for a two hour question session with the head priest (Roshi) of the monastic training.

Zen men are never what you imagined. I would say that their most defining feature is innocent humanity. This revered priest lays back in his chair, laughing heartily and appearing to thoroughly enjoy his chat with us (he stayed with us an extra hour, skipping the evening service). When asked what we should do about our leg pain, the Roshi answers `When I sit, it doesn`t hurt at all. So I get very sleepy. I think you are lucky, you don`t get sleepy`. Hmmm....come to think of it, he is right, despite the 3 30 starts I almost never feel sleepy at all. He cuts down abtruse, philosophical questions with sharp wit. I ask him if in Zen, the various deities are just metaphorical, or whether it is thought that they truly exist. His reply is to bypass the translator, and look straight at me and say `do you think this world truly exists?`, then laugh. One woman asserts that when she does Zazen, the whole world does Zazen with her, right down to the people washing their car outside. His response is a confused `no...the person washing their car is still just washing their car, aren`t they?`. We have seen him once before, in very elaborate robes with much fanfare in the centre of one of the morning services. We laugh when he tells us that at these services, sometimes he decides to chant a tone above the monotone, just for fun. In general, the room is a very happy, laughy place when he is there. He cautions us about accepting religious figures based on their `nice robes`, and indeed his infectious laughter proves to be a much better proof of spiritual accomplishment than his somber, stereotypically spiritual form at the ceremonies.

The next `tea meeting` is with Kuroyanagisan alone, and the conversation is much quicker without the two-sided translation. In this conversation he explains many aspects of Zen in a very clear, inspiring way. His manner is so innocent, and so human. He describes himself as `bashful`, and this is a good description. He has no trace of ill will, it seems as though he truly does just live every moment trying to do the right thing, and live happily. He admits that he does not try to be a perfect monk - he thinks that it would be boring, and he likes living an interesting life. He bluntly refuses to promote the benefits of zazen, and cannot give any specific benefits of his practice. He described zazen as simply `seeing the world without you in it`. He also reads us a picture book belonging to his daughter, which proves an excellent metaphor for zazen practice. A little girl tries to catch various animals, and get them to play with her, but they all run away. Finally, she gives up, and simply sits still on a log without making a sound, and all the animals come back, and they are all playing with her.

He quotes what roshi said yesterday, that spiritual accomplishment is like walking through a fog...you don`t know how or when your clothes got damp, just that they are damp now. In an attempt to decide whether his monastic lifestyle has benefited him or not (it actually seems a difficult question!), he decides that perhaps it has, simply because he is happy. He does not know how, or when, or by what means he became happy, but he is happy now. Looking at his innocent face, I definitely believe this. He is an incredibly inspiring figure not for his commitment to training or his `nice robes`, but for the simple reason that he is innocently, completely happy, something which I have aspired to be for so many years. Seeing such hapiness right in front of me, I finally know it is possible, and not just a naive dream. There really is a way to be innocently, completely happy.

As I leave the monastery gates, this belief is the true treasure that makes all that pain worthwhile.

Forget youth hostels and cheap buses. For the true backpacking experience, nothing can beat hitch-hiking and couchsurfing.

Not willing to pay $60 to travel two hours to Fukui, I look for alternatives. One sticks in my mind - hitchhike! After doing my research, I find that hitch-hiking in Japan is very much possible...if you can get t the right place. I catch a train to a tiny local station, and follow the tracks for half an hour in the hot hot sun with my heavy backpack. But by god I look tough. I put on a tough expression as I walk through the countryside, trying my hardest to look like I've walked here from Australia. Finally, I see it...The Meishin Expressway.

One of the biggest highways in Japan, anyone on the Meishin is generally travelling some serious distance. I have found one of its Parking Areas, the rest stops where people stop, to rest. Here I make my move, waiting on the road back onto the freeway with a big sign written in black texta (finding these two things was actually quite difficult)

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I wait with my thumb pointing toward the road. The book says your meant to smile, and this is no problem as I cannot help but laugh at myself. I look like a complete tool, and all the people passing by know it.

I do eventually find a lift, and am amazed. To be honest, I could not imagine the type of person that would pick me up. In my opinion, anyone who tries to hitch-hike is by definition not the sort of person you want in your car. However, I do not mention this to the person who has just picked me up. He takes me to Maibara, about halfway to Fukui. I am so excited to be hitch-hiking, and the excitement makes all the mountain scenery so much more beautiful. I am covering hundreds of kilometres...for free! The driver took the "Japanese OK" that I had written on my sign literally however, and the conversation quickly turns to the very complex. I am not sure, but I believe it focussed on North Korea, Japanese Militarization, war guilt, and the need for world peace. Here I perfect my subtle art of head nodding, and for the entire hour convince him that I am following him. I try out some new generic phrases - "I wonder how it will all be in 50 years time" and "Hmm...its a complex topic, isn't it", both of which I use when I have absolutely no idea what we're talking about. Still, I do catch glimpses of meaning, and those glimpses are very rewarding. From Maibara, I catch another lift, this time a younger guy. He works in a lolly factory! Basically he is a lolly chef, and I am very, very excited to hear this. His job sounds like the stuff of childhood dreams - one of the things he has to do for research purposes is eat lots of lollies, both his own and those of competitors, to better understand the products from a consumer perspective. Thats right...he gets paid to eat lollies.

I get to Fukui station, and laugh at the JR Station sign. You would have made me pay $60 to get here, wouldn't you! Well here I am station, here I am! I feel very proud at having beaten the system. But my adventures are not over yet, I still have accomodation to worry about. This is where surfing begins.

www.couchsurfing.com is a worldwide network of adventurous travellers, and the idea is that when one is looking for accomodation, you contact these people and sleep on their couches for free. It is indeed a fantastic idea. Even for the relatively quick stay I had, it has been a good experience - once again, getting to meet new people! We go out for $2 beer and noodles, before coming back to their place. Melissa and Stephen are English teachers from Missouri, and we hang around with their friends Darcy (from Canada) and Mami (from Japan) until about midnight. The most hilarious part of the night is when they play charades with a doll of a baby...I don't know why, but a baby playing golf looks so funny we are all in hysterics. I will post a video shortly.

I sleep very soundly on the couch, trying to get a good sleep before the decidedly sleepless schedule of Eihei-ji. I'm about to leave their house, and catch some form of transport (I'm tempted to hitch-hike again, but might give it a miss for something only a few kilometres away) to the temple. I imagine it will be something of a shock changing from my current beer and sake drinking, late night late morning, noodle slurping adventurous backpacker lifestyle to an austere monastic lifestyle, but we'll just have to see how it goes. I am indeed very excited about it. Here I go!

I finally feel at home in Kyoto. There are so many familiar sights on the roads, I know the stations, the train lines, the different areas of town. I have even picked up some of the Kyoto dialect, and feel very cultured trying it out. I know the best places to eat, the cheapest places to shop, the best way to get around...It must be time to move on then!

Today I head out for Fukui, around 2 hours North of Kyoto, a small city facing the Japan Sea. Tommorow I will check-in at Eihei-ji, a rather large zen temple (http://wikitravel.org/en/Eiheiji). It is around 750 years old, and was the temple of Dogen Zenji, one of the truly great Zen Masters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogen).
Here I will spend four days living with the monks, doing as they do.

It is a strict temple, even by Zen standards. The day begins at 3:30 (yep thats right...I expect my body to be very, very indignant when I try to wak it up at that hour), with meditation in the pre-dawn. The day is spent doing a mixture of meditation, sweeping and cleaning the ancient temple grounds (as a form of meditation), eating special `pure` meals in a ritualized fashion, listening to Zen masters lectures on Zen practice, and more meditation. Everything is done in absolute silence (except the lectures, obviously), and is very strict and ritualized. Reading the above list, something in me is certainly screaming `RUN NICK RUN RUN YOU CAN`T DO THAT YOU`LL CRUMBLE AND DIE RUN RUN RUN`. Indeed, the people that have done it say it is incredibly difficult, especially as they insist that you sit in at least half-lotus position for all meditation, meals and lectures, which becomes painful even for flexible people. However, everyone who has done it also agrees it was an unforgettable, amazing, wonderful experience, and they are glad they did it. As far as true Zen experiences go, this is as real as it gets.

Needless to say, I will not be able to blog or receive any other communications for this time. You`ll just have to find some other form of entertainment until I come out the other side.

Wish me luck!