More Kyoto

We spent the day in Kyoto again. The crowds there are so overwhelming you just can't see everything in a day that you want to. This morning we visited Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion. It was incredible! We ate lunch at the same Okonomiyaki restaurant we ate at yesterday. True to my word, I have eaten okonomiyakis every day since coming to Osaka. After lunch we headed toward Heianjingu, the Peace Shrine. What should have been a 20-30 minute bus ride took over 2 hours because of the crowds, and we got there just as the place was closing. Don't let the pictures fool you there were mobs of people around us. Even so, it was beautiful.
Love,
Dan

Here's to My New BFFs (that's Best Friends Forever in American Teen Language)

Something that has impressed me about many of the Japanese people we've met this month has been their genuine hospitality and sincere interest in life-long friendships. This past week in Tokyo I've been able to catch up with old friends that I haven't seen or talked to in ten years. Seeing them again was as if no time had passed at all in our hearts. So, for those of you Niigata friends still reading this blog, know that our teary farewells will eventually lead to happy reunions... in less than a decade, I promise.

Especially you, Mari-chan!
(This three-year-old, Mariko, is at the top of my BFF list, right now. Her mom, Taeko, is super-fantastic, too. I can't wait to them again.)

Every girl loves to be princess for a day (or at least long enough to take a pretty picture)

I was feeling jealous of Dan's kimono photo, so I had to post some of my favorites. I think this is the most expensive item of clothing I've ever worn (well over $10k) and I have to admit that I really enjoyed it! Now the biggest challenge of the whole deal was getting up off the floor after this picture. Whatever poise I look like I have here was fleeting.

Kyoto

Rose and I had a fantastic time in Kyoto today. We had a list of 5 places we wanted to visit, but only made two of them, so we're going to head back there again tomorrow. It was more beautiful then I remembered. But, be warned, between now and December 8, several of the temples are doing special lighting ceremonies. They're very inexpensive to attend, and they're beautiful as they light up the temples and the red and gold trees, but the crowds are absolutely unbelieveable. I've never seen so many people in one place as there was on the road to Kiyomizudera this evening. For a half a mile bodies were crammed together as many tried to get up to the shrine and many tried to get down. A policeman yelled at the crowd to move to the left side because a tour group was trying to walk up the right side. The bodies were so packed together that there was no moving to the left or right. So, to my surprise the crowd just started laughing. It wasn't meant to embarass the police officer. There just wasn't any 'left' to move to. Here are a couple pictures from today's beautiful adventure:




Rose in front of the tallest Pagoda in Japan, "Toji" in Kyoto. The Fall colors are perfect right now.


Kiyomizudera was crowded, but spectacular. And all the Japanese trinkets, dolls, fans, etc. you could ever hope for line both sides of the street you have to walk up to get to the temple. If you're looking for any kind of a Japanese gift you will find it here.

From Kiyomizudera you look out over Kyoto and the glowing Kyoto tower. It's indescribable to view the ancient shrines that define Kyoto, and the modern city below in the same view. Beautiful. Spectacular. Breathtaking.

We're going back to Kyoto for more. We just couldn't get enough of it in one day.
Love to all,
Dan

Presentation

Our presentation at the District Conference went very smoothly. We were supposed to use 20 minutes, and we actually went 25, but everyone was so happy with our presentation that it was OK. I was sporting a traditional Japanese Kimono complete with ceremonial Hakama. There's something so traditional and time honored about kimonos that I felt special wearing it.

First we introduced ourselves. I had been singing "Tourianse", a childrens folk song, at most of our club introductions, and was under orders from Tachikawa San to sing it at my introduction here. I sang it at the beginning of my introduction, then the team introduced themselves.

Next we played our Arizona slide show while David played his guitar and sang a Western song. He does a wonderful job of it, and everyone loved it.

Then we each took a turn and answered the question: What's been your biggest impression of Japan? We get asked that a lot as we travel around the country. We each had a picture or two of our time here in Niigata, so we put something in our PowerPoint presentation to go along with our thoughts.

I spoke about religeous differences, or, I should really say similarities. Kenja spoke about the way the Japanese provide almost all of their own food, and the genuine hospitality of the people here. Michael talked about the Niigata Albirex Soccer game and the obvious pride Niigata takes in their team. He then led the 1,500attendees is the Albirex cheer. The crowd loved it. Claudia spoke about everday things, and the similarities between the Japanese culture and her Latin culture, expecially as regards to the importance they place on family. David spoke on the Rotary foreign exchange programs, and the emphasis that seems to be here in Japan on educating their children.

Next, I presented Tachikawa San with a gift from us, and Governor Watanabe with the gift that District 5510 Governor Tom Burns sent for him--a beautiful hand made Kachina Doll.

Lastly I offered words of gratitude to the District, the clubs that hosted us, and the families that opened their homes to us. We ended with the song, "Itsu Made Mo". Several of the members of the audience sang along with us. Claudia cried through most of the 2nd and 3rd verses, but the rest of us got through it ok.

I cannot imagine a District that could do more for their GSE Team than Niigata District 2560 has done for us! They have treated us like royalty, and been sensitive to our every need. Thank you Niigata! We will try to live up to your hospitality when your team visits us next year.

Dan Hill

With Love: Japan in Photos

My home stay mother Eriko, myself, and Eriko's sweet friend Natsuki.

I bought each of us flower rings and had Eriko's husband Rey take a "girl power" picture.

Sorry for the delayed posting. As usual, I'm posting pictures of various activities that we did. Sometimes I can account for the places where the photos were taken and others, I can't. We moved around so much and met so many people that I'm not quite sure which picture belongs to what activity with a specific rotary club. So please forgive me. While my memory may be bad, I will never forget the wonderful people we've met and the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity we were given to get a glimpse into your lives. Here are a few more standouts.

During a night of karaoke, Dave-san took this picture of Daniel-san. Doesn't he just look like a poster boy for rotary?

This night his repertoire included a few Japanese selections, most sung the way Daniel-san likes best, opera-style.






These are costumes that children use every year at a matsuri (festival). This museum rotates the costumes used for the festival twice a year.

I wish I could remember the name. This was taken during a week where we changed clubs every day for what felt like 7 days in a row.




This activity was quite fun and took us all back to our arts and crafts days. We each got to make a rice paper postcard, a coaster and a book mark.

You lined your little rectangle with brown rice goo and began a process of dunking and swishing. You dunked it into the water, kept a little on top of the rectangle and then swished the water forward and backward, then side to side, and then dumped the water out. You did this three or four times.

Then you moved on to a station where you removed your wet postcard from its wooden frame and placed it onto a handkerchief. You lightly used a roller on it to get the last bit of water off and to smooth it out, before moving on to the ironing phase. Then your ironed it over and over again until dry.



This picture doesn't do this guy justice. He is HUGE and stands guard outside the gates of a ginormous Buddhist temple that we visited in Sado island.

We learned that he looks mean because is meant to keep you on the path to enlightenment.






This was taken at the temple. I left this temple--which had gigantic trees at least hundreds of feet tall and that would need 10 people to wrap their arms around their trunks-- very inspired by nature. I've been a desert-dweller for so long, I've forgotten about the color green and the peace plants can bring.




This was my host-father on Sado island, Di-san. He does all of the cooking at home, which was quite surprising to me considering that it's still traditionally considered a woman's role.

He and his wife Mi-san are a very fun-loving couple. Di-san could not pronounce our names, so I became Kura-san and Kenja became Ken-san (a nickname she informed him wouldn't fly with anyone else).



This is a picture of Princess, one of Mi-san and Di-san's children. She is laying on a wooden floor that has a heating system built into it. It feels wonderful to walk on without socks in winter.

Di-san builds and renovates houses and sells fireplaces. He has his hands in a few things since 1,000 people leave Sado island a year and the island has many abandoned, decaying homes.



Now this guy, whose photo I took at the aquarium in Niigata, looks like he has human lips.

Maybe he's smiling? Or maybe he sees something he'd like to eat for dinner?






I had to put this picture of Nozawa- san and I together because I teased him incessantly. He is such a sharp dresser and has his initials engraved on the cuffs of his dress-shirts that I referred to him as Japan's version of 007.

Here I am trying to assume a Bond Girl pose. We're both trying not to laugh.




Maruko-san, I miss you. This darling girl is the daughter of my last home-stay parents Nori-san and Momo-san. They are the hippest young couple I've ever met. They have a cozy apartment in Niigata filled with cool stuff and books everywhere.

Maruko made me breakfast one morning. She makes the best eggs! Everyday she would write a message for me on her white board. Then her mom, Momo-san would translate.

On this night, she drew Manga-style pictures of her family and I. I'm the bottom character with the nice hair and red lips :-)

On my last day, she and her brother Kinta collected yellow and red leaves for me and Maruko made me a beautiful fall bouquet.

District Conference

We are here! It's District Conference time.
Here's a couple of interesting tidbits we've learned so far:
1. This district has a little over 2,000 Rotarians in it.
2. 1,500 of them come to District Conference. That's a little over 60 percent. We're told that's normal in the Districts throughout Japan.
3. Most of the attendees do not stay the night in hotels. They ride the trains in the morning to get here, and home again at night when the activities are over.
4. I spoke with the Niigata District Foundation Chair, Kannari San, this morning. I've been talking to a few Rotarians about the possibility of our District doing a matching grant with their District to provide some help in the area where the earthquake hit three months ago. It was nice to talk to the main guy who could help with that. I learned that the Districts and clubs throughout Japan, and their sister clubs around the world had already raised over $100,000 for relief aid. Kannari San is visiting the area again next month and is taking our offer of help with him. He will contact us if there is a project we can help with.

From Sado with Love

Every day the scenery gets better and better. I see things, and I think, it can't get any better than this, and then I am proven wrong. Part of the credit goes to Mother Nature. The Fall Colors just keep changing to richer tones of red and yellow. The rest of the credit goes to the Niigata GSE committee that arranged our schedule. Talk about saving the best for last. We have just spent two days on Sado Island, and enjoyed scenes of beautiful mountains, fantastic sea scapes, and Japanese heritage like no where else. I'm going to attempt to include a few pictures here. Everyone else is good at this. Hopefully it won't take me too long to figure out how to put pictures into a blog. Here goes:



This picture if from our visit to the Tagame Elementary school. The children were wonderful. It was a wonderful experience to feel the childrens excitement at our coming to their school.



I told you earlier about the great time we had at the Niigata Albirex Soccor game. This group of fans coninued to sing, dance, and cheer for 30 minutes after the game was over. The excitement was a like a fever that spread to all of us. We didn't want to leave the stadium.



Back to Sado. This is Kenja in front of a 300 year old shrine. It was a picture perfect place to enjoy Japanese tradition without the crowds that you get in places like Kyoto. If the world ever discovers Sado Island they will need to add more boats for transporting people back and forth.



More Sado. The shrines, and the gardens are spectacular. Wabisabi at it's best!



Wabisabi is the art of letting Mother Nature make things beautiful. Like a fine wine getting better with age.

A Moment of Zen

One of my favorite experiences this month was zen meditation with the Muramatsu RC. I've practiced a variety of meditation in the past decade, but this one really brought me closer to enlightenment... I actually transcended to the heavens for a moment. Let me explain: after 15 minutes into the experience I was just beginning to forget about the pain in my legs from trying to maintain a half-lotus position where my knees keep wanting to bounce back up to the ceiling. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale... like they taught me in Thailand, and let everything else float down stream. Yes, I was getting to that moment of focus and relaxation when **SMACK**. To the left of me, Claudia has just been "awakened" by the monk. You see, in zen, they do this thing where they hit you hard on the right shoulder to make your brain happy and alert so you can meditate better. I knew that, but still I thought, oh, no... he's coming for me next, maybe if I pretend to be deep in meditation he'll move on. Well, it can't be as bad as it sounds, I thought. But it was. Jupiter's moons, the Big Dipper, Orion's Belt, the Big Bang... I saw it all in that moment of illumination and then for the next moment I went blank. But I guess I learned the lesson. It was ZEN. Or, as Dave and Mike like to say when something in Japan baffles us, "its all about emptiness."







As you can see in this photo, the monk is very carefully plotting his sneak attack on Claudia's right shoulder. And you thought they were all innocent peacemakers, didn't you?

Reunited and It Feels So Good

Me, John Reynolds (a genuine soul), and Kenja singing "Livin' on a Prayer"

Hola!

If you have been missing me, I'm sorry. Everyone here thinks I haven't been writing because I feel like crap. My stomach is always queasy and now I have a cold to boot. But rotarians here tend to my needs. I could open a pharmacy with the medicine I've been given. I have awful tasting Chinese medicine balls for nausea, pills for headaches and cramps, antibiotics, cold medicine, cough drops. You name. I got it.

But alas, I have been remiss in my blogging duties because I have had no internet access for what feels like an eternity. For a country responsible for many wonderful things like great cars, cameras and other electronic equipment, few people are aficionados of the internet, neither at home or at the office. We've learned that because many of the businesses in the countryside of Niigata are owned by older men, the internet technology that we Americans seem to be unable to live without, is quite a hard sell. Although Tokyo, the Manhattan of Japan, is a different matter.

But thanks to my hotel, I am up and running again. Yay!

Rather than try to convey everything that has happened in words, I've decided to let pictures do the talking. So please enjoy. (Yes Vicki, I love the word "so".)


This picture was taken at a school museum in I'm not sure what town. It struck me because I find it impossible to sit like this for five minutes, much less a whole school day! But I recently met a foreign exchange student from Panama who is studying in Japan. She says she still has to sit like this sometimes and assured me that it gets easier with time.




This is my favorite picture. As you may know by now, I love taking snapshots of real life. This mom and her son were sitting on a bench enjoying their ice cream during a huge chrysanthemum festival that had the biggest flowers I've ever seen from a single stem. You'll have to ask Dan to post his pictures. He snapped photos of plants while I was more interested in the life happening around me.


This picture was taken during one of our hotel stays. Fujii-san (the rotarian next to Dan) surprised Dave with a writing lesson. I forget the Japanese word for it. But it's OK, I guess. Since I am the one who knows the least Japanese and Dan's excuse for me is that Spanish was my first language. That's how he introduces me at every rotary meeting. Since my favorite word is "wakarimasen", which means, "I don't understand." Anyway, this picture makes me sad because everyone got to write their name in Kanji except for me :-(

Dave has informed me the word I was looking for is Shodou. No Shodou for me.



This photo was taken at a Buddhist temple. This shrine really touched my soul because it was dedicated to the unborn. I thought of all the heartbroken mothers and fathers who never got to bring their children into the world and watch them grow. My heart ached for these families who leave children's toys and clothes at the shrine.

Later on in the tour, there was also a shrine for children who died at a young age. For someone who has no children of her own, I was really touched. I love children and can't imagine the world without their innocence and laughter.







This sweet lady is permanently bent over like this. Dan says many women who worked in the rice fields find themselves in this state.

I will always think of her before complaining about a hard day at the office.

She keeps the temple grounds clean. On this day, we found her raking leaves on a cold day with the tiniest rake. If the fields didn't do this to her back, this rake (about as long as my arm) definitely did. I held myself back from helping her hold the bag.






We stayed at a grand old house with old school glass walls and rice paper doors and lots of history. It was so cold!

To keep warm and after being kept indoors for so many rotary meetings, we were eager to get outside. Early one morning, I snapped this woman tending to her small patch of land.



The house we stayed at was cold but it was great to experience a very traditional Japanese way of life. And the rotary group who hosted us was wonderful. Everyone was very warm and welcoming and it was the first time, we got to see rotarians' families. Kids were running all over the place and they stuck to Dave, as he put it, "because they have the same attention span," like glue. The family atmosphere was awesome.

These are some of the treasures in the attic.

some observations

Claudia and I have had several opportunities to talk with women here about balancing work and family life. The days when a woman walked ten paces behind her husband are definitely over, but there are still some defined roles for men and women. In this part of the country its pretty clear that a woman's role is to take care of the children and the home. (But I do think this often means they are very much in charge of what goes on in the household and I certainly don't think that all women feel oppressed by this role, either).

Everyone explains that a significant challenge for working women is a lack of child care options aside from parents or in-laws. As a result, most women who have children must stay home until the kids are old enough to go to school. The oldest girl child, like the oldest boy child, is encouraged to continue the family business. Some take this path, grudgingly or happily; others do their own thing, often to families' dismay.

So, while women may be encouraged and supported by spouses and families to go to work, they may not necessarily be able to have a long career. This is also one reason why many women in the big cities are postponing childbearing or choosing a career over having a family.

[Interesting side note: many women can take up to a year off from their jobs without pay for maternity leave. Also interesting: when I asked a room full of men if anything like paternity leave existed and they looked perplexed. When I asked them if there is talk of such a thing in the future, they laughed.] 　　

Of course there are women who completely defy the norm, such as Kashima-san, my current host mom. She's amazing! After her husband passed away from cancer 17 years ago, she hasn't missed a beat. She raised her two children on her own and helped found the Tainai Nakajo Rotary Club as a charter member. She's had a career as an architect, she hikes, she does yoga, she cooks a mean oknomiyaki (yes Dan, you should be jealous), she's a grandmother of two, AND she looks younger than me (now it's my turn to be jealous).

This has been a fascinating topic for us and I await Claudia's article ;)

Niigata Albirex, Rah, Rah, Rah!!!

Wow!!! The last couple days have been filled with great things. We enjoyed a one night stay in the Taikanso hot springs spa resort. We were served a wonderful steak dinner in our room, and were able to enjoy a quiet evening relaxing and enjoy the hot spring baths. There was a public bath on the 1st and 3rd floor. Both had indoor and outdoor baths with views overlooking the beach and the Sea of Japan. There was also a private hot bath on the balcony outside our rooms. If anyone's looking for a unbelievable wonderful place to vacation and relax, I have a great recommendation for you.

Next I moved in with my new homestay family, the Kohinata Family. They are wonderful. They are very relaxed and informal, and we can enjoy each other's company without have to be too formal with each other. I'm really enjoying my stay here, even though the days are so full with things that we don't get to spend that much time together.

Last night was an incredible adventure. A highlight of my stay, and maybe a highlight of my life. The District Governor here is one of the owners of the Niigata Albirex Professional Soccer Team. He arranged a private skybox for us to watch the game against Tokyo. I have never done that before, and maybe will never get to do that again. I was like a child at Christmas, only 10 times more excited. I was so desperate to share my excitement with someone that I called home from the skybox, even though it was 1:00 in the morning there. I was hoping to talk to our Brazilian foreign exchange student, because the Niigata team that we were cheering for had two Brazilian players on it. Niigata won, and both scores were made by Edmillson, one of the Brazillian players. My heart was racing, I was so excited. I don't know how we will ever be able to thank the Niigata District enough for all that they have done for us. My heart is becoming so full with gratitude and love, sometimes I'm afraid I won't be able to speak, that if I open my mouth, I'll end up crying like a baby.

Thank you!!!
Dan Hill

The Local Talent

Last Night, after a fantastic dinner of horse and seafood, I retired to Kato-san’s house in Murakami where I am staying. A big thanks to the Murakami club for and Kato-san for hosting me this week.

I knew tonight would be special because Toru-kun, Kato-san’s youngest boy, had invited a friend of his to come over to the house and chat. I knew he could play guitar, but I didn’t know to what extent. I didn’t know how special this kid was.


Yutaro Takahashi sounds like an average Japanese name but this could not be further from the truth. From the kanji is his family name, which is a mezurashii variant of one of the few kanji I recognize takai, to his pure enjoyment of speaking the English language, this kid is unique.

Just for kicks I asked him to play my guitar and show me how it is done. It was mindblowing. I recorded him playing a song that he wrote and I got his permission to put it up here on the blog. To be fair, he had no idea that we had an internet space for this sort of thing, so he wasn`t doing this to show off, only because I asked him to.



The songs name is “Litany and Judy.” Yutaro gave me a present of a cd with three songs he wrote and subsequently recorded in his basement. This is good stuff. We talked until about 23:00 and he kept asking me to play something for him, but in the face of that level of skill, I had to decline. Repeatedly.

We talked at length about his plans for the future, specifically music and education. Yutaro wants to study abroad in the USA or England. We talked about GSE and that led into discussions about the other Rotary programs available for foreign exchange high school and college students.

Yutaro seemed very excited about what little knowledge I could give him about the programs and I truly hope he takes advantage of them. He appears to be a person who truly has a lot to offer.

I keep saying that Japan’s treasures are it’s people. This kid is definitely one of them. A big thanks to the Kato family for giving us a place to hang out, and a total WOW to Yutaro Takahashi for taking his Friday night to hang out with a strange guy from half a world away.

Aunt Bea

I've been living with Aunt Bee for the last three days. No kidding. She's the real life Japanese version, and she's wonderful. She constantly moves about the house taking care of everyone. She's up and the crack of dawn. She interupts her cleaning to see me off as I go jogging. When I return my bath is drawn, and she's preparing a 10 course breakfast. When I go to my room she has washed, dried, ironed, and hung up my clothes. When I'm dressed and ready she has breakfast served, and her husband and herself are seated waiting for me to join them to eat. I wish the world could freeze in place for a few months, or years, I could get used to this kind of treatment real easy. Goodbye Aunt Bee and Dr. Honma. Thank you for the wonderful Itareri Tsukuseri (wonderful hospitality) that you have shown me.

Japan's Greatest Invention

Great cars, awesome mobile phones, mind-boggling technology and incredible toilets are among Japan's many accomplishments, but not much (in my view of the world) can rival the o-furo. There are few things more wonderful than a hot bath at the end of a long day, and the Japanese have mastered the art. Built on ancient tradition, baths in modern houses are set up so that you take a steaming hot, ultra-cleaning shower before entering an even hotter tub to cleanse away any remaining impurities and woes from your day. No wonder they can come up with all of those handy inventions!

Noodles and Spoons

I held $12,000 in my hand today. It wasn't as heavy as it sounds.

Also, It was Hammer Time again today. More on that later.

We started out the day on a bus talking at great length with some of the Rotary members about the service projects they are involved in. Rotary is a huge proponent of education and, as such, nearly every rotary district has scholarships for high school and university students.

Rotary in Japan does alot of work all over the community but often does it by assisting other groups so that Rotary doesn't actually get the credit for it. Humility is very central to Japanese culture.

This discussion took place while driving to a Soba noodle shop to actually make noodles from scratch. Making food from scratch is something I haven't done in perhaps two decades.



This guy was awesome. He turned these indeterminate lumps of stuff into these giant pancakes.



Which we then cut into smaller and smaller pieces with this wicked blade and eventually turned into noodles.





Afterward, we sat down and talked with the Rotary Members more over lunch. These folks really do alot, especially behind the scenes.

One of the large sources of income for this region for decades has been flatware manufacturing. We got to tour a museum and then several businesses that work with metal, flatware, and polishing.

Here's a quick filmstrip tour of the experience.



It's always hammer time in japan.



The $12,000 solid gold spoon.



I got offered a job as a polisher. Does it suit me?



We finished the day with a relaxed dinner filled with great conversation and got to see some traditional fan dancing,





some magic, and I got to play some guitar and sing for the Rotary Club. They were a great audience. Tomorrow we head out for another club and another ryokan. Adventure awaits.

Sign Shite Kudasai--Can I have your autograph

The other day we asked Tachikawa San, our amazing GSE Chairman here in Niigata, if we couldn't visit some schools, and hospitals, and old-folks homes--places where we could interact with Japanese people. We've toured several factories that have been very interesting, but we wanted more interaction with people and less with machines. Sure enough, the very next day our factory tour was cut short and we were taken to the Tagame Elementary School. It was amazing. The children conducted an entire program for us in English that was fantastic. The drum club played for us and tried to teach us how to play. It was funny to see 3rd graders sound so good, and us sound so bad. The children study English, so were asked to introduce ourselve in English. I opened my mouth to speak and got about three words out. I was so overcome with emotion at how beautiful their reception was that I couldn't talk. It was embarrasing. I had to take a moment to compose myself before I could go on. Later during a little free time the kids lined up to ask for our autographs. They also filled our arms with the Japanese and American flags that they had made and signed with their names for us to take with us as souveniers.

Tea with occasional Hammers

Early in the day we went to talk to a local business owner about his IT and E-commerce infrastructure. He had some pretty tight security.



But not all his employees were uptight. One in particular was a right jolly fellow.


I wandered around a little and found the room where they make the ID's for the verification purposes mentioned above.


After a great lunch in the company cafeteria, staffed by some very jovial ladies, the Mitsuke Rotary members took us into the country to a historical museum that everyone was calling my confusing names like 'archives' and 'folk materials' but really it was a museum of farming implements from the surrounding area. I learned that even mukashi ni, in old times, it was Hammer Time.

We left the museum as a Middle school class was on their way in to get a view of their past and went on down the road to a little house in the middle of a sea of ta; rice fields.

As it turns out this was a Tea House. It was the real deal too. The owner had retired from a lifetime of salary work and travel and built the house we were in to take up the spare time he had. He decorated it with all the implements he had acquired during his travels, and hired some attendants and a Tea Master. Now we reap the benefits of his labor.



All in all it was an experience that I won't forget. Our hostess's kimono was beautiful, as you can see.



Even the surrounding grounds were lovely; accented by the rain falling messily into the ponds and rice fields around us.


The Mitsuke Rotary Club is having a welcome dinner for us this evening, which I am sure will be absolutely fantastic, so time to clean up and get presentable.