Buddhism For Breakfast

She moved to the floor last night. She’s always been the kind of person who liked sleeping on the floor, and with the nights only being 3 degree cooler than the day, she needed the tatami mat instead of blankets to take away some of the heat. And so she lay there. Awake. Trying to sprawl out as much as possible to create as much surface area to cool her blood as possible (thanks for the Surface Area lesson back in 8^th grade, Mr. Baldwin~)… Totemo atsui da yo! (It’s really hot!)

They went down for another very filling breakfast around 8:20am and were told by their Okaasan the a Buddhist priest was going to be coming to the house around 9am to pray at their shrine. She and Katie exchanged wary glances at each other when they heard the car pull up only ten minutes later. Okaasan told them they could go and watch, but they still had the rest of a very large breakfast to finish! They tried their best to hurry as they heard the priest enter the other room and began chanting. She and Katie washed their dishes and then were ushered into the adjourning room by Okaasan (Otoosan was already kneeling inside). The priest chanted in a monotone singsong way, and Okaasan and Otoosan had their heads slightly bowed. Our Young Traveler just kneeled with her hands clasped in her lap and stared at the intricate carvings on the alter and musing about the fact that were she in the U.S., she would be at church right now and instead she was sitting through a Buddhist ceremony and visiting Shinto Shrines the day before… After he was down with his chanting, the priest turned around and was surprised to see the young very-much-not-Japanese lady. He spoke pretty good broken English and simple Japanese for her sake and asked polite questions such as if she was a college student and what she was studying in Japan. He began to explain to the two the different books he had read from and mentioned that as well as the Buddhist alter he had in his house he also had a statue of Jesus Christ. The Young Traveler rolled that over in her mind and added it to the understanding she was getting about “Spirituality” in Japan. He even asked them if they were Christians or read the bible, and when she answered “yes” to both of those he was then surprised that she would answer “no” when he asked if she also had a statue or alter of Jesus… One she finally stood up after kneeling on the mats for so long, her legs striped and sleeping legs gave out beneath her and she had to once again rely on Katie’s support to make it to the next room~

The main event of the day occurred when they traveled to a real castle! (yes... as opposed to all the fake ones she's been to in her life...) She and Katie bought delicious ice cream from a vending machine on their way to meet Ben (or Rizza-san from class), Jenny, Rory and his host mom and her two children.

(Blurry Jenny)

(The tall white building on the peninsula is the Hikone View Hotel
and the green roofed buildings next to it are JCMU)

(GHOST KATIE)

(Ko-chan (5 yrs old) in the green shirt and Ha-chan (2 yrs old) in the pink shirt
with their mother (Rory's Host Mother)  Yoko (and a stranger with dog~))

(Ha-chan and Ko-chan)

(more Ice cream!)

Ko-chan. This kid is tough. He fell so many times on the  stones all over
the castle grounds and never cried. Niether did Ha-chan when she fell either)

After splitting up with Rory and his family so Yoko could get the kids home, the rest of them went to get something to eat. On the top floor of A.L Plaza, Our Traveler found a giant train shop!

 As well as a few notable figures on go-karts below~

And since the day was only going to stay hot, they all went their separate ways after eating and bumming around the shopping center (honestly, this 95+ degree heat ALL DAY (and night) LONG is getting old...)