Japan 2002

Our trip to Japan - September 16 - December 9, 2002

If you've been given this site by someone else and want to contact us, just send an email to <tom@watsonwalker.com>. And feel free to mention our site to anyone else who likes Japanese pottery and/or museums. Click here to see where we went. Click the date and day at the beginning of any paragraph below to get to the thumbnail photos for that day.

12/9, Mon - Tokyo to US - We awoke this morning to a beautiful light snowfall over the garden at the International House. The maples were still red, and the light one inch of powder on them was gorgeous. Little did we know that this light snowfall would continue and delay trains to the airport and also make de-icing of the planes necessary, delaying our 5 pm flight by four hours. It was just enough to make us miss our connecting flight out of Atlanta. But we were lucky and arrived home only one hour late, and with all of our bags.

It was great to be back home! The sun the next day was perfect, although we didn't get out of the condo for another five days due to Tom's continued cold and our jet lag. That left us five days to prepare for Christmas because Kevin, Laurie, Mark, and Jeff are here starting 12/18. We'll think about everything else, including unpacking, after Christmas. Merry Christmas and have a happy, and peaceful, new year!

12/8, Sun - Tokyo - This was our last full day in Tokyo and we think we made the best of it. We've included several additional photos of things we see all of the time and don't want to forget (our hotel, our neighborhood, the subways, and the night lights). We started at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum to buy a scroll we had seen yesterday (a copy of a well-known Musashi Miyamoto painting). Then it was over to the Tokyo National Museum to see the change in exhibits. We're glad we did because they brought out some great paintings from their permanent collection. We could take photos, but use no flash, so some of the photos are blurry. We then headed to Shinjuku for its large Virgin Record store. But we first took in some art exhibits and did some Christmas shopping at some of the large department stores. Then at last to Virgin Records, where they provided free use of about 25 Apple computers. We ended the evening back in our neighborhood in Roppongi to repeat our Thai dinner from Thursday night. They must have a different chef on Sunday night, because we then had to stop at our favorite sushi place for a second dinner. Then home to pack. We start heading to the airport at noon tomorrow for a 5pm flight, and should arrive in Sarasota the same evening (9pm on Monday). We might hit the early morning fish market tomorrow, but probably won't be able to upload our last day's photos until we get home. See you there!

12/7, Sat - Tokyo - Tom is almost over his cold, so we set out with several goals in mind today. The first photo was taken in Ueno park, a very large park that contains several museums. The blue tarps are set up by the homeless and are apparently tolerated by the powers that be. We've seen them throughout Japan but usually without the big tarps. Our first stop was the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is having a special exhibit of paintings by Tan'yu Kano (1602-1674). This year is the 400^th anniversary of his birth. He was the son of the man who started the Kano school of painting, and he did most of the major painting for Ieyasu Tokugawa, one of the more prominent shoguns, and his family. We've seen his work in several museums and temples on our trip. No photos were allowed so we bought the catalog. We next went to Takeshita-dori (street) in the Harajuku area to look for some T-shirts for Christmas gifts. Unfortunately it was very cold, rainy, and miserable (which didn't stop anyone from shopping). Also it was the main shopping area for teen-agers (and they were there in great gobs). And finally, we found that nobody is selling T-shirts in this cold and miserable weather - sweatshirts are what's hot now. So we settled for a warm cake/coffee café. We also tried round the corner at the Oriental Bazaar, a store featured in the guide books. They didn't have much that we hadn't already seen at cheaper prices. Our final activity was a delightful meal at the home of Hanspeter Amend and Makiko Mori, a Servas couple. Servas is an international group of people who like to meet foreigners (http://www.servas.org/). You can stay two nights with a host, or simply meet with them, like we did. They were a delightful couple and we laughed all evening. Makiko fixed a delicious Japanese meal for us. Hanspeter showed us his software to teach Microsoft skills, and Makiko showed us her calligraphy. On our way home, we tried using a new subway line (only 6 months old), but it involved a complicated train switch. Yasuki Hayafuji, who works for the Japanese bank UFJ and who speaks excellent English, took us under his wing and helped us out. It was fun to talk to him on the way home. He worked for a couple of years in London. We had to leave our hosts earlier than we wanted tonight and Thursday night because they lock the doors at midnight where we're staying. We got home at 11:45pm, which is very late for us. P.S. If you notice white highlights in my hair (Cheryl) in these photos, it's because I haven't been able to see my hairdresser in three months. And I'm not willing to try miming how I want my hair done here. I could end up with a hot pink spike hairdo!

12/6, Fri - Tokyo - The Karaoke may have been too much for Tom, because he woke up feeling worse today. But he bravely dragged himself around a major department store for several miserable hours, offending huge numbers of Japanese by blowing his nose in public, trying to find a few Christmas gifts.

12/5, Thu - Tokyo - We were still taking it a bit easy today, so only went to two museums. First was the Tokyo Modern Museum of Art. Most of the work was done by Japanese painters during the last century. The special exhibit was 'A Perspective on Contemporary Art,' and it also contained work from artists we saw last year at the Venice Biennale. For example, the life-like sculpture of "Big Baby #3" (about 4 feet tall) was by Australian Ron Mueck, who produced the fifteen foot high young 'Boy' in Venice. We then walked over to the Museum's Crafts Gallery. They had an exhibit of work done by Gonroku Matsuda with several lacquer and cloth pieces. Then it was time for a nap before meeting Cybele Erwin and Kapil Kamra for an Indian dinner. (We met Cybele in Kyoto on 11/21.) Dinner was delicious and on the way out of the restaurant Kapil mentioned Karaoke. Tom had been wanting to see what it was all about, so we tried it, in spite of his cold. The place Kapil picked just happened to be a building that we photographed on 9/16 because of its science fiction-themed façade. We've included it again. We signed up for an hour, but extended it to two hours because we were having such a great time. We thought it would only be fun if you had a lot to drink first. Wrong! We were totally sober, and it was a blast. You are given a private room about six feet by ten feet long, a large-screen TV, two controllers to bring up the songs, two songbooks showing the selection numbers to use, and two microphones. You pick out a song and the words are shown on the screen along with orchestration - but one with the melody line totally removed! Then you sing into the mike. It's amazing how difficult it is to remember the rhythm and melody of some of the most familiar tunes. It was especially fun having two generations there, although they knew a lot of our old standbys, too. We sang tunes made popular by U2, Elvis, the Eagles, Joan Baez, Paul Simon, Queen, Chuck Berry, Tex Ritter (Tom wanted to sing 'High Noon'), Beatles, Carole King, Tina Turner, and Diana Ross. Two hours passed very quickly, and then we rushed (walked) home, because there's a midnight curfew. Now we see why the Japanese love karaoke so much!

12/4, Wed - Tokyo (no photos today) - Tom was still sick today, so we stayed in to surf, read, and nap. In the evening we met Doreen Simmons for dinner. (Along with her many other interests, jobs, hobbies and connections, she's the sumo commentator for NHK TV who was kind enough to show Tom around earlier this trip - see September 19^th.) She suggested Erawan's, a terrific Thai restaurant near the International House. It was absolutely terrific, and the hot chilies seemed to clear Tom up a bit. He was totally animated by the end of the evening.

12/3, Tue - Kasama - Tom stayed in the hotel today. He surfed, slept and listened to Glenn Gould play Bach via the laptop. But the good news is that he thinks he's on the mend. We've both gotten hit during this trip with colds (unusual for us), but there are a lot of people here that sneeze and cough into the open (no handkerchief). It's hard not to catch something. I wanted to see an exhibit of Itaya Hazan (see 11/30) in Kasama. It should have taken a couple of hours, but took over 3 to get there. At one time I started getting nervous because I couldn't see any English signs on the platforms (they were very small). I was afraid I would miss my stop, so I asked if anyone knew when Tomombe was coming up. And old Japanese gentleman had just gotten on the train and said in excellent English: "Just follow me - I'm getting off at Tomombe." I felt very relieved until he sat down and promptly fell asleep. Would he wake up in time? Sure enough, he did. My first stop was at the Ibaraki Ceramic Art Museum, which was having a display of contemporary ceramics, including part of the Idemitsu collection of Itaya Hazan. It was excellent, although I only took a couple of photos before I saw the 'no photo' sign. Then I went to the Kasama Nichido Museum of Art. Half of the museum was closed. In getting to the other half, I passed a very elaborate old oriental hotel with a lobby that looked like a museum. I've included a few photos. The other half of the museum had one small floor of traditional art, one floor of western contemporary art (Kelly, Lichtenstein, Stella, Warhol, Rauschenberg and Johns), and two floors of western style paintings by Japanese artists. It's amazing that some of these tiny museums, in small towns in the country, have collected some of our most well-known artists. We've seen it time after time. And the paintings are in their permanent collection, not simply on loan. My last stop was a museum in the old home of Kazo Tanaka. Apparently he was quite well-known (at least here in Kasama). His son now runs the museum. I liked his work, although it was all huge (6 feet and higher).

12/2, Mon - Tokyo - Tom came down with a nasty cold and fever this morning, so he stayed in bed. I went shopping to check out the department stores. It wasn't a great idea because the Christmas shoppers are out in force (and I don't care for crowds). But the day started out sunny and warm and Ginza was a very Christmassy place to be. I even found a couple of things I'd been wanting. When I returned, Tom was about the same, and still had a temperature. We'll check it out tomorrow. We don't have any photos for today, but we did upload our photos starting with November 29. Have fun!

12/1, Sun - Tokyo - Our theory that small, private, museums provide some of the best art was undermined yesterday, but greatly reinforced today. We visited three museums (all with only two or three rooms) and they were superb! We were glad we'd planned on museums today because it was cold and rainy all day. The first museum was Sen-oku Hakuko Kan. We only knew it existed because of a poster at another museum. They had one room containing 25 Chinese paintings from 1620 to 1900. Some of the photos are a little blurry - flash, which allows faster shutter speeds, changes the colors and usually bounces back. The room also contained a vase that must have been from Itaya Hazan (see yesterday), but it wasn't labeled in English. Another room contained about 25 ancient Chinese bronzes (14C-1C BC). The exhibit was excellent. Our next stop was the Nezu Institute of Art. Their major exhibit was early Karatsu ware. Karatsu was where we stayed in the ryokan on Kyushu. We had not seen this type of ware in Karatsu and the exhibit explained that the old style had not been carried forward. There were some great shades of green that you only tend to see on the Chinese tri-color (green, orange, and cream) pottery. There were some very interesting designs. We have a catalog of the entire exhibit. There was also some very nice calligraphy by Ryokan and I'nan Yamamoto. One calligraphy piece had the funny title: "Du Fu's poem on the Eight Immortal Drunkards of China" by Ike no Taiga. Even nicer than the exhibit, however, was the garden. It's impossible to believe that one of the nicest gardens we've visited this trip was in the center of the business district of Tokyo. It was large, had many, many, sculptures, colorful trees, and a lovely large pond. Fortunately for us, the colors were still vibrant. A little tea in their gazebo and we were ready for the Suntory Museum of Art. The Suntory usually exhibits glassware, but this month they're having an exhibit dedicated to Kawabata Yasunari, who won the Nobel price for literature. The show contained some of his art collection (Ike no Taiga and Yosa Buson, for example), some of his books that were published, and his study and writing tools. He had also collected water droppers, some small Rodin sculptures, and several contemporary artists. It was a great way to spend a rainy day.

11/30, Sat - Tokyo - I (Cheryl) just wanted to stay in bed, but we've shortened our time so much in Tokyo that we had to get moving. It was a fairly disappointing day today (as you'll see). We had been excited to see the Idemitsu Museum in Tokyo because we had enjoyed two wonderful exhibits at their smaller Osaka branch. Unfortunately, today was the opening day of a ukiyo-e painting exhibit, featuring Utamaro and Hokusai. These are the colorful Japanese ladies that are fine but just not our thing. There was a ceramic vase by Itaya Hazan, a potter who paints gorgeous flowers on his pots. He was born in 1872 and died forty years ago. Idemitsu Museum has just completed a series of five books of his drawings and are advertising their exhibit of his ceramics and drawings which starts next February. We'd like to see it, but we settled for a couple of books about him instead. He's called the "master of modern Japanese ceramic art." Next, the manager of our hotel had told us about a private gallery, the Seikado Bunko Art Museum, which was somewhat distant, but was having a 'great' exhibit that ends tomorrow. We've been extremely impressed with all but one of the small private galleries so far, so we decided to try it. It took about two hours to get to the gallery. We saw the famous, and beautiful, tenmoku tea bowl that was advertised on the posters, but little else of interest in the one-room museum. Then it was two and a half hours back (due to rush hour). Oh well - tomorrow we'll stick closer to the center of town and get a little more done.

11/29, Fri - Kyoto, Uji, Nara, Tokyo - It was a hectic day! We packed up and left our bags at the hotel. Our first stop was the Zen Museum of the Honozono University. The university itself is a zen university. They were having a special exhibit that included several zen scrolls by Ekaku Hakuin, Jojetsu, Tanyu Kano, Tesshue Yamaoka, Shutoku, Yu-seong Kim, and Kaio. No photos, but we have two nice catalogs. Then to the train station for a 20-minute ride to Uji, most famous for its tea and the Byodoin Temple. It was built in 1053, and this is the same building! It is the image shown on the 10-yen coin. It's a small temple, but has two long open wings and a hall out the back. It is called the Phoenix Hall because of its shape and the phoenixes on the roof. Hidden almost underground, so as to not disturb the view, is a quite modern museum with scrolls and sculptures from the temple. The most unusual items were samples of the 52 flying bodhisattvas (apsarases) on clouds which line the wall behind the large statue of Buddha. Very nice wood sculptures! Inside the temple itself is the large, seated, Buddha. The grounds were also beautiful today - it was sunny, and the colors were terrific. We then walked just over the Uji bridge to the site of a 900-year-old tea shop. Koji Ito (from 11/27) had recommended it because it belongs to the family of a friend of his (Yuka, the daughter of the family, who is currently in Canada setting up an import shop for the tea). The current building is 330 years old, but the Tsuen family has been selling tea for much longer than that - since 1160. It is Japan's oldest tea shop and has had 22 generations of Tsuen family owners. (The first Tsuen was a samurai who guarded the bridge and later sold tea to travelers.) Tom had some mochi in a sweet bean tea soup ('zenzai') that he liked a lot. Of course we had to buy some of their tea. Back on the train to Nara (another 35 minutes). Last time we saw a temple, the garden, and the national museum. This time we headed to the 'Rowhouse for Stubborn Craftsmen', a reconstructed area with several craftsmen showing their work and giving displays. We were too late to see any of the demonstrations, but the highlight of the day was the Boku-Undo Co., Ltd. - a sumi (ink stick) company. The company was established in 1805, and has been kept in the same family. We met Nobuyoshi Matsui and his wife. He's the overseas trade director and speaks English. The top floor had a display of beautiful ink sticks and other items and a video showing the manufacturing process. The steps are: burn pine in pots to make soot on the inside of the lids, melt bone glue, blend the two together and knead it, knead again by hand and add perfume ingredients, separate by weight, place in molds and press (even small sticks need 30 minutes of pressing), dry the sticks with ash several times (seven days for small sticks and 20-30 days for larger sticks), air dry the sticks, rinse the sticks, polish and shave the sticks, color with gold, silver and other colors, and finally pack them up. The second floor had work places for demonstrations, but we were too late for those. The first floor had a retail shop where Tom found some things he liked. We finally headed back to Kyoto (40 minutes), had sushi, took a taxi to the hotel to pick up our bags, then headed to Tokyo on the 2.5-hour Shinkansen train ride. After working with a taxi driver who had no clue where the hotel was, we finally arrived at the International House of Japan (where we started our odyssey many weeks ago) at 11pm. Whew!

11/28, Thu - Kyoto - Today was another very special day. We finally found the Ike no Taiga museum open (it was closed last Wednesday when we first tried). Before that, though, our cab driver wanted to show us the Matsuo Taisha Shrine which is special to the saki makers - and drinkers - of Japan. As for the Ike no Taiga museum, there were some great paintings there, but they stopped our photo taking after two paintings, and unfortunately they were also out of catalogs. Soba noodles made for a warm lunch. The museum and soba restaurant are within walking distance of the Kokedera (Moss Temple - real name Saihoji Temple) where we had an appointment at 12:30. In order to see the temple garden, you first need to spend an hour with the monks. We sat down at small individual tables, each with an ink stone, ink, brush, paper weight and paper. We were given a sutra (Buddhist teaching) that we were supposed to copy, writing over the faint characters on the model. We started writing, then the monks came in for a quick prayer, then everyone (but us) recited the sutra to the rapid beat of a drum. Finally, we continued our calligraphy efforts. When you finished your sutra, you wrote out a wish, your name, address, and date, then took it to the alter. My (Cheryl's) wish was for a peace-loving US president. This all took about an hour. It was neat, the recitation sounded great, and the golden chandeliers (that's not what they're called inside a temple, I'm sure) were awesome (sorry, no photos allowed). The grounds of the moss garden were worth the delay. Great moss! Even better, we were close to Jizo-in, the bamboo temple. There Tom loved the bamboo, and the small temple with screen paintings was great too - and we were alone! So we sat for a while and listened to the birds and the bamboo. Our next journey was back to the antique street to buy two scrolls - one for Tom and one for Daphne - by the artist Seikan Kato. Tom saw his calligraphy exhibit on 11/22. We found out that he runs a calligraphy school. The owner of the shop, after showing us the scrolls, gave us tea while they were wrapped and the credit card authorized. We admired his collection of antique ink stones and brushes. We continued our evening by walking through the rest of the neighborhood searching and finding a painting supply store we had read about. We found a nice sumi-e book and jade water dropper for Tom. Kyoto Station then gave us the strength to continue - money (ATM machine) and sushi.

11/27, Wed - Shigaraki - We headed for the Miho Museum today (15 min. by train, then 50 min. by bus). "Mihoko Koyama and her daughter Hiroko Koyama, on behalf of Shinji Shumeikai, a Japanese spiritual order, commissioned architect I. M. Pei to create a museum for (the) extraordinary collection of over 1000 works of art from around the world" (collected by the founder of the religion, Mokichi Okada, b. 1882). In the photos you can see a distant building and bell tower that mark the headquarters for the order. The museum is a really beautiful building. It's very modern, but you can see that he retained elements of traditional Japanese design, especially in the roof line. The collection was excellent as well. And they even had an extremely thorough (and lengthy - up to 10 minutes on an item) audio guide in English that described at least half of the works. The current exhibition centers on Bactria (central Asia), but we enjoyed the permanent collection more. It included art from Japan, China, Korea, Egypt, Persia, and south Asia. In the Japanese section we saw two paintings by Ike no Taiga (photos 63-65), whose museum we'll be seeing tomorrow. While at the museum, we met a delightful young couple, Koji Ito and Yasuko Okamoto from Shigaraki. They were kind enough to drive us back to Kyoto, and we joined them for dinner at a great wine bar. Every food dish was superb, and something that we would have never known to order. (Cheryl did bypass the cow intestines, however.) It was a great, but tiring, day!

11/26, Tue - Kyoto - We planned a whirlwind day today because we're running out of days left in Kyoto, and have far too many things to see. So we started off at nearby Higashi-Hongaji Temple, where they were having their Ho-onko ceremony to commemorate the death of their founder, Shinran Shonin (1174-1268). There were probably 1000 people in the temple kneeling on the floor and listening to the monks chanting prayers. (Maybe they were thanking the founder, because one night the goddess Kannon apparently appeared to him and told him that vows of abstinence and celibacy weren't required. He married soon thereafter.) Tom loved the sounds and bought a CD. We next went to the Miyako Messe and the Fureai-kan (or crafts exhibit) again (we had to rush through it on the 20th). We watched videos of various cloth, bamboo, stone, metal and wood crafts. Just across the street is the Hosomi Museum. This is a private museum that contains the Japanese art collection of Mr. Hosomi. We had lunch at their museum café. Our next stop was the Annex of the Kyoto Municipal Art Museum. There were two groups of artists giving free exhibits. It's neat that the city provides this huge space for new artists. As you'll see, one artist who was very good at silk screening, liked women as subjects. One that made us laugh was a huge yellow canvas, with an actual size Chiquita Banana sticker painted on it. Then we headed to the Heian Shrine, which we had seen only from the outside on the day of the Jidai Matsuri parade (10/22). It was one of the biggest shrines we've seen, and the giant concrete torii gate is appropriate - it's still large even though it's several blocks away. (The torii gate is normally right at the entrance.) Our last stop in this five block area was the Kampo Museum. This is a museum dedicated to Harada Kampo (1911-1995), who was 'widely regarded as perhaps the most outstanding Japanese Calligrapher of the 20^th century'. The calligraphy was ok, Tom said, but we both thoroughly enjoyed a much larger exhibit of Australian aboriginal art which the museum collected several years ago. It's a continuing and interesting departure from their roots. They had many videos showing the artists making or explaining their work. Finally, we taxied to the Nomura Museum, another private museum that is dedicated to the tea ceremony. It showed the usual tea bowls and noh costumes. It, in turn, was just across the road from the Eikan-do Temple, which was having a special opening of its treasures to the public this month. There were paintings by Togetsu, Hasegawa, and Kano, but no photos were allowed. The plum and bamboo paintings were tremendous! After touring the temple in our socks (and rapidly freezing feet) we headed for the Museum of Kyoto, which provided more of a historical view of Kyoto. A free volunteer English guide showed us the main exhibits. We think we made good use of today! As we hinted above, the weather took a dramatic turn today and dropped by many degrees. It's supposed to be rainy and cold (low 40s) for the next week. We can't complain because we've had absolutely beautiful weather for most of the trip. That's what coats and umbrellas are for!

11/25, Mon - Kyoto - Today was a very rainy day, and since all the museums are closed on Monday we headed for another temple, and are very glad we did. We saw Ryoanji Temple, and it was extremely beautiful in the rain. In the last few days we had started seeing trees past their prime, but at Ryoangi, the trees seemed to be just hitting their peak. The rain makes the bark appear black and the leaves just glow. Ryoanji is actually best known for its rock garden, one of the most famous Zen gardens in Japan. Most of the screen paintings were elsewhere or not on display, but we did buy a print of their well-known dragon painting by Min Cho and took a picture of it - see photo 25a. We had lunch in a tofu restaurant on the temple grounds called 'Ryoanji Seven Herb Tofu'. Tom said the tofu was delicious. And the grounds of Ryoanji are just as beautiful as any of the gardens we've seen so far! We then headed to Kitano Tenmangu Shrine where they hold a flea market on the 25^th of each month. They had everything except what we were looking for - some T-shirts. We then headed back to our little antique street from 11/22 and stopped to dry off in a little coffee shop and bakery. We still chuckle at the sign to the eating area with the word "Information" in English and everything else in Japanese. We checked out some more of the stores and some calligraphy prices and then headed to Takashamiya Department Store. The bigger department stores often have excellent exhibits of local artists or competitions. We didn't particularly care for their current art exhibit, but they had some individual displays by local craftsmen. Mr. Muku, for example, was an excellent woodworker who made platters, vases, and furniture from a very lightweight wood of a type called keyaki. We also spent time looking at the ceramics in the department store. This is where the inexpensive production pieces from the pottery villages must end up. The prices are very reasonable, but the pieces aren't really unique. They're replaced by a very similar piece right after one is sold. We've indicated some of the prices so that you can see how the costs run. Totally unique pieces from the master potters are much more expensive. At our sushi restaurant in the department store our waitress made us an origami swan while we ate.

11/24, Sun - Kyoto - It was a temple day, today. We started at Tofukuji Temple because it was supposed to still have great leaves. This is the busiest day of the fall tourism and we think ALL the tourists came to this temple today. It was really, really, crowded. The leaves still had some nice color left, but it wasn't worth the crowds. We tried to find a nearby pottery street with a pottery museum, but the museum was closed and we only found a couple of kilns showing their wares. Most of the shops were closed, so we'll try to return. Lunch was at the Kyoto Park Hotel (next to our next two stops). First we went to Sanju-sangen-do (Rengeo-in) Temple. This had a 390' long wooden hall (built in 1164, burned, and rebuilt in 1266) that contained 1000 five foot tall, 21-armed, Kannons (Buddhist goddess of mercy) made of cypress and covered with lacquer and gold. These Kannons surrounded another large seated Kannon, and also had twenty-eight guardian deities in front of them. Outside we saw some Buddhist monks performing a ceremony. They lilt a large bonfire, only sixty feet away from that that 740-year old wooden hall! We don't know what it was all about, but the chanting was nice. Our last stop was at Chishakuin Temple. They had a special showing of some of their art. There are works that are supposed to have been done by Hasegawa Tohaku (see yesterday), but we couldn't see the resemblance in quality. We saw several other paintings on screens and a very nice landscape garden. Back at the hotel before supper we watched Assashoryu win his fourteenth bout and accept the sumo championship trophies. We extended our stay in Kyoto until the 29^th because we just can't see everything we want. Our schedule's been updated.

11/23, Sat - Osaka - Today we went to Osaka to see a museum we had seen once before but which now has a new exhibit. It's the Idemitsu Museum (where we saw the Sengai paintings). This time they have an exhibit of paintings called 'Hasegawa Tohaku and Masterpieces of Momoyama Paintings'. They were right up Tom's alley. By the time we returned, it was time for sumo (and a nap for Cheryl).

11/22, Fri - Kyoto - It was a very full day today. We started with the Kyoto Museum of Modern Art. Their definition of 'modern art' differs from ours a bit because their permanent collection was from the late 1800s to early 1900s. They had several paintings that Tom liked, and several ceramic pieces from Kanjiro Kawai. Their current exhibit was of German crafts and design following WWI. As we said, 'modern' is open to interpretation. Across the street was the Kyoto Municipal Museum. The current exhibition was 'Picasso and the School of Paris: Paintings from the Metropolitan Museum of Art'. It was from a March 2000 exhibit, and they had some Matisse, Miro, and Modigliani paintings as well. (No photos) Another exhibit was by a sumi-e artist who did very large paintings, black on white. We 'think' his name is Bokujin-kai, but can't find him on the internet, so we aren't sure. There was also an exhibit of new kimonos and ceramics. After lunch back at the Modern Art museum, we headed to the Miyako Messe, a large exhibition hall with a permanent crafts exhibit in the basement. On the first floor, they were having a bonsai exhibit. In the basement was 'The 1^st Kyoto Design Biennially 2002', which contained posters and photos of art design (probably students, but could be commercial designers). They were both innovative and beautiful. Very impressive. In another exhibit, the Nippon Art Phote (ARP) was displaying several photos. Excellent! Finally, we visited the basement of the Messe and the permanent home of the Fureai-kan (or crafts exhibit). This contained samples of many types of Japanese craft work along with video tapes showing how the work was done. This was excellent too, and we plan to return in order to see all the tapes. We then made our way to the Sento Palace, the section of the Imperial Palace grounds that was a residence for retired emperors. Since Japan no longer allows the emperors to abdicate, this residence is no longer needed. We had a 1:30 appointment for another Japanese-speaking tour of the gardens. We've seen more beautiful small gardens, but the design for this large garden was the best we've seen on this scale. The colors are still hanging in there. After the tour we wandered down a street near the palace that was full of antique stores. We found scrolls (expensive), go boards (for Tom's son, maybe), ceramics, and several brush stores. One of the brush stores was having an exhibit of calligraphy by Seizan Katou. It was a fun afternoon. We came home so Tom could watch Asashoryu win his sumo match today, which means that he'll win the whole tournament on Sunday, because nobody else can now equal his number of wins. If he wins the January basho, he can move up to the top class of sumo wrestler - yokozuna. By the way, we'll be in Osaka tomorrow and won't be uploading any photos.

11/21, Thu - Kyoto - Watch out - we've uploaded 161 photos today! And we're doing this from a dialup connection, too! We met a lovely Japanese lady from Tokyo today who said that this year's leaves were the best in the last ten years, but that last week was the peak. We find it hard to believe that they could be more beautiful than the scenery we've been seeing. Today was cloudy all day, but the colors were still magnificent. You'd turn a corner and go "WOW!" We started at the Shisen-do Temple, a small temple built in 1641 in the northeast of Kyoto. The leaves were wonderful, and the small gardens were superb. We had an appointment at three pm for a visit to another imperial villa, so started walking the two miles. We passed a small temple gate on the right and decided to wander in. This was the Enko-ji Temple, which wasn't in any guidebooks, but turned out to be our favorite of the day. It was built in 1601 by Shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa. The garden was truly superb. On leaving, we met a delightful woman, Cybele Erwin. She's from Boston, but has just moved to Tokyo with her husband. We all headed to the next temple, Manshuin. This had several paintings by Tenyu Kano and his students and brother. (We'll get to see an exhibit of his paintings in Tokyo - Cybele said it was great.) The paintings were old, but still beautiful, and the leaves were also in great form. The sun would have helped, but the colors were still shocking. We finally arrived at the Shugakuen Imperial Villa, and took another tour in Japanese. This is one of the largest gardens in Japan (133 acres), and, being on the side of a mountain, is designed to appear as part of the mountain. They use the mountain as 'borrowed scenery' or 'syakkei.' Sushi and sumo and photo uploads finished our day.

11/20, Wed - Kyoto - The fall leaves are really wonderful. We lost part of the morning because we headed out to the country to see a museum with a well-known painter, but neglected to read that it was closed on Wednesday. Because we had an appointment in the area to see one of the Imperial Villas, we were stuck for three hours wandering around in an area without much going for it. The Katsura Imperial Villa only allows guided tours (in Japanese, of course), and doesn't allow photos - even outdoors! So the few photos we've got are outside the villa. We're glad we went, but we've seen other gardens we like better. Our second stop was to see some calligraphy at the To-ji Temple in south Kyoto. They have the tallest pagoda in Japan and several gold Buddhas and other statues. It took us several tries to find the actual exhibit - it would be so nice to speak Japanese! But we got home in time for some more sumo!

11/19, Tue - Kyoto - You need to get reservations from the Imperial Palace Household in order to visit three important gardens, so we headed to the palace to reserve for the next three days. We went to the train station to get cash, stopping for lunch at our favorite revolving sushi bar. A taxi got us to Kanjiro Kawai's old residence. He was the famous Kyoto potter that we liked so much in Kurashiki (11/17). His residence is very impressive, and the upper rooms overlook a two-story atrium in the center. There were several pieces of his work, but we saw the larger collection in Kurashiki. Behind the house was his pottery studio, a small kiln, and a large 8-chamber noborigama. The chambers were so large we could walk through them standing upright. Then we headed up the 'chawanzan', or teapot alley. One of the teacups that Tom got had a Haiku by Matsuo Basho (1644-1694): "Even in Kyoto-- hearing the cuckoo's cry--I long for Kyoto." There were many small shops, including one containing work by Yuzo Kondo (1902-1985). He's supposed to have created the largest porcelain plate, and we think we saw it in Kasama on October 4. The street led up to Kiyomizu-dera Temple. They had huge grounds, and the largest number of tourists (and tour buses) that we've seen to date. Everyone was here for the leaf viewing, and it was, indeed, beautiful scenery. One maple tree can have brilliant yellows, brilliant oranges, and brilliant reds, all on the same tree. Finally, it was back to the hotel for an hour of sumo, followed by a great , cheap dinner at "Royal Host" across the street - like a slightly upscale Denny's. Cheryl had tacos.

11/18, Mon - Kyoto - It's only an hour from Okayama to Kyoto on the Nozomi, the fastest Shinkansen train. We got very lucky on arrival and were able to change our reservations from 2 nights in Kyoto, 4 nights in Osaka, 2 nights in Kyoto to all nights in Kyoto with the exception of the 23^rd. We don't like to move all that much. It was chilly and a little overcast this afternoon, but we had wanted to see one of the gardens today. We headed to the Daitoku-ji Temple in the north part of the city. It's a huge complex with only a few of the many sub-temples open to the public, and is the headquarters of the Rinzai School of Zen Buddhism. The first sub-temple we saw was Kohrin-in. It was almost empty, wasn't mentioned in any of the guidebooks, but was one of the best of the sub-temples. It had a rock garden, very nice paintings, and some fiery red maple trees. The colors were gorgeous. The second sub-temple was Daisen-In, and is known for its large rock garden, fine paintings, and the oldest Tokonama (alcove) in Japan. This is where the tea ceremony was created by Sen-no-rikyu. Our third stop was outside of the Daitoku-ji Temple, to the Hoshun-in Temple. This was one of the more commercial temples we've seen so far. The garden, Kagantei, was very nice. Our next stop was back to the Daitoku-ji sub-temple, Koto-in. The final sub-temple was Zuiho-in, a zen monastery with its gardens dedicated by a Christian feudal lord. By this time, the weather was getting downright chilly, so we headed back to our ritzy hotel and the last hour of sumo on TV.

11/17, Sun - Kurashiki - It was a stellar day today. The sun was shining and it wasn't quite as cold today as we headed to Kurashiki on a 15-minute train ride. Kurashiki is known for its museums and beautiful canal area. On our walk from the train station, we saw several pottery shops displaying Bizen-ware, and finally arrived at the canal area, where the willows and red maples looked beautiful. The Ohara Museum of Art, modeled after Greek temples, contained many of the old western masters (El Greco, Gauguin, Picasso, Rodin, Matisse, Renoir, Manet, and Monet), an exhibit of contemporary work (Yves Klein, Rothko, Jasper Johns, and a large selection of Sam Francis), a crafts gallery (Japanese prints, wood-block prints), and a great collection of some pottery masters (Shogi Hamada, Bernard Leach, Kenkichi Tomimoto, and Kanjiro Kawai). We were both impressed with the work of Kawai, and are excited that we'll see more of his work in Kyoto, his home town. Unfortunately, photos weren't allowed. Our next stop was the Kurashiki Museum of Folk Craft, which had a few interesting pottery pieces, baskets, textiles, etc. The Rural Toy Museum and shop was next. The owner of the museum, Hiroyuki Ohga, displayed the 90cm spinning top he used to make the Guinness book of records in 1983 with the longest human-powered top spinning at 1 hour, 8 minutes, and 57 seconds. Lunch was some okonomiyaki, which Tom had been wanting to try again. It's a pancake/pizza/omlette with, in this case, cabbage, bacon, egg, and noodles, fried on a griddle. We saw more pottery shops, and were impressed with Naoto Tsuneki, a young man from Kurashiki who is currently working in Hokaido (the northern Japanese island). He happened to be in town visiting his mother, who runs a gallery containing only his work. He uses the Bizen technique in Hokaido, but seems to be more artistic (and talented) than most of the local potters. He says that he produces about 2,000 pieces a year, using two firings a year (spring and autumn), with each firing taking about two weeks. We bought one of his great vases. Tom encouraged me to see the Kurabo Orchid Center. There were some lovely orchids, but Selby has a better display. Tom's day was made complete when we were able to get back for another couple of hours of sumo with English commentary. The crowds were still checking out the new Pokemon game at our train station, and Tom had his picture taken in front of some of the game characters. My day was complete when Tom agreed to take me to our favorite Indian chain restaurant for dinner. It was in an arcade, where we first found a Maruzen store and spent a great hour looking at more crafts (pottery, painting supplies, and other crafts) and at a good selection of English books. Imagine our surprise when the hostess at the restaurant gave us a telephone and said, in effect, "It's for you." It turns out that our cell phone fell out of my (Cheryl's) pocket in the taxi and the taxi driver had returned it to the hotel, and the bell girl remembered where she'd directed us for dinner.

11/16, Sat - Bizen (actually Inbe or Imbe) - This 700-year-old town is the sixth of the 'six ancient Japanese kilns' that we've visited, and is the home of Bizen-ware. It's 45 minutes by train from Okayama. Our first stop was the Bizen Ceramics Hall, which has many examples of both old and new Bizen-ware. They also have an excellent English guide to Bizen pottery. All of Bizen-ware is fired without glazes, so that just the firing and a few additions make the designs. (It's also only fired once - no preliminary "bisque" firing like we're used to.) There are seven techniques used in Bizen pottery, and sometimes multiple techniques are used on the same pot. Pictures 13 through 20 show examples of these: 1) gomma - the ash of the pine wood fuel flies through the kiln, lands on the pots and is melted (usually on pots that are closest to the fire mouth); 2) sangiri - this finish occurs in pieces on the floor buried in ash where flame and air don't pass through (this 'reduction' effect produces blue and grey colors; 3) hidasuki - rice straw softened by pounding is wrapped around a pot producing streaks in various red and red oranges colors where the straw and pot touch; 4) botamochi - a spot of a different color may be seen where a flattened piece of "high refactory clay" is placed against, or laid on a pot; 5) aobizen (blue Bizen) - an unusual effect produced by "gas clouding" (?) around a piece in the kiln; 6) kasegomma - we found no description for this one; and 7) fuseyaki - when two pots are stacked one on top of another a different color appears where one covers another (such as a sake cup placed upside down over the mouth of a sake bottle). We also watched a great video on Bizen-ware with English subtitles. I goofed up BIG time today by forgetting extra photo memory cards, so we had an extra stop for a digital cartridge. Tom's still speaking to me (only because we found a card in this small town!). Our next stop was the Fujiwara family compound. There are three generations of potters here: Kei (grandfather), Yu (father), and Kazu (son). There is a Web site for some less expensive work done by the studio potters (but still designed by Kazu Fujiwara) at http://www.fujiwarabizen.com/. Although nobody was working today, we saw their kiln and working area. Then we headed to the main pottery street where you can find showrooms of actual potters, and sometimes see the studios and kilns. One of our favorites was a studio that had recently (within a day or so) unloaded a large noborigama kiln. There was still ash over most of the pieces and one person working to clean them with sandpaper. He had a lot of work ahead of him. Having already read about the Bizen techniques, it was neat to see how they were applied. We were especially attracted to the hidasuki method where the clay turns orange where the rice straw touches it. By the way, these kilns are usually fired for twelve days, using red pine tree wood - about 3000 logs for one firing. After the firing, the kiln must cool for ten days before it can be opened.

11/15, Fri - Okayama - Two hours on the Shinkansen got us to Okayama. Our hotel is one of the nicest on this trip - it's Hotel Granvia, part of the JR (Japan Rail) line of hotels, and it's right at the station. Okayama is a good place to base while seeing two major pottery towns, and it has several museums. Today was mainly museums. We've found that the further we are from Tokyo, the less English we find in the museums. In this case, we're pretty far, and there was no English. Looking at a museum is like looking at cave grottoes - we can make up whatever story we want about what we see: 'Yep, that looks like it's from around 500 BC' and 'That might be Chinese.' We started with the Okayama City Orient Museum, which was focused on musical instruments of the Middle East. One of the real surprises was a photo of a large Buddhist statue that we assume is the one of the ones the Taliban destroyed. We had seen photos in the US papers, but this photo mad us realize just how large it was. It was carved out of a mountainside and could be seen throughout the city. Our next stop was a writing store where Tom found some goodies to bring home. Then to the Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art. They had a few nice scrolls for Tom, but the majority of paintings reminded us of old European oil paintings and didn't hold our interest. The most interesting exhibit was one we had already seen in Tokyo on October 2 in a department store. On display were kimonos, wood items, ceramics, dolls, metal work, and lacquer ware. To get to the next museum, we walked by a few pottery showrooms, where we got a preview of the local pottery. Most of the designs are made without glazes, and just use the fire and ash of the kiln for decorative effects. They were a little expensive in town, but maybe they'll get cheaper in the actual towns. Our next stop was at the Yumeji Museum, dedicated to a painter of that name. We didn't really care for his work. The last stop was at the Okayama Prefectural Museum, near the Korakuen Garden (we'll see that on Monday). The museum had some archaeological displays, and some masks and hats to try. The best part of the day was finding that our hotel is showing sumo (with English as a second language option) each afternoon. Tom was in heaven.

11/14, Thu - Fukuoka - While Cheryl searched for a new coat, gloves, earmuffs and scarf, I set out to attend one last day of sumo. I got an expensive box seat again, but this time a little lower and right behind two press people and a TV commentator. The advantage to me was their monitors. I could see all the NHK TV instant replays. In other words, I saw each match two or three times, sometimes in slow motion. I even got to throw a seat cushion at the end! This is their custom after a really big upset. Coming home in the taxi I heard the now-familiar strains of "Comin' Through the Rye" which is played for the blind when the light changes at an intersection. A slow Russian folk melody is played when you can cross in the other direction. I joined Cheryl and we toured department store Mitsukoshi's craft exhibits, featuring people making all sorts of uniquely Japanese things, such as wood carvings, pottery, jewelry, brooms, sumi-e brushes, other brushes (like hair brushes and mustache brushes), textiles, and lacquer ware. All of the large department stores devote at least one full floor continuously to cultural exhibits, art shows or demonstrations. Christmas is in all its marketing glory here, and it's only November 14^th. It's a little early for us to get into the spirit. By the way, we're moving to Okayama tomorrow, and we don't think we'll be able to upload photos again until November 20^th. But keep sending email because we'll probably find an internet café or two.

11/13, Wed - Onta & Koishiwara - Okay, now we're really getting out into the country. The two towns we wanted to visit are so small that most people haven't heard of them. It took an hour yesterday with the hotel staff to figure out how to get there. Normally we would have taken two days on different trains, buses, and taxis to see them. Instead we opted to treat ourselves and took a one-hour train to Hita City and then rented a taxi for the day. We had a sheet of paper from the hotel that showed the order of the towns: Onta, Koishiwara, then back to Hita City train station. With the hotel staff we had determined the average hourly rental to be about $25 an hour. Explaining this to the cab driver took some doing. He asked the other dozen taxi drivers if anyone spoke English. They had a very good laugh over that joke! At last we took off, because he knew the towns and where to stop. And we were very thankful for the taxi, because it was freezing! Tom didn't bring his heavy jacket, and I wore a thin skirt and no socks. It was very, very, cold in the mountains. The trees are turning colors there, but we didn't get any really good photos of them. It was a beautiful drive. The first pottery town was Onta, which is known for two things: its method of making clay and its use of slip "chattering." We started at the Onta Pottery Hall with examples of original Onta pottery. There are ten or so families in the village, and they all make pottery. A small stream through the village provides power to break up the clay. A "kara-usu" log with a scoop cut out of one end is used. The scoop fills with water and, when full, tips the log up, pouring the water back into the stream. When the water is gone, the log falls downward and pounds the clay into a powder. The log thumping can be heard throughout the village day and night, and is called "the heartbeat of Onta." The potters specialize in using slip in unique ways. They put slip on in a "chatter" method, which causes the slip to bunch up a little, causing regular patterns. You'll see it in the photos. They use a variety of techniques on the slip. They also use a lot of glaze drips. Unfortunately, we were unable to catch many people working (it was lunch time), so we couldn't see the whole process. We saw most of the family display areas (many weren't manned at all), then headed to Koishiwara (see http://www.kougei.or.jp/english/crafts/0420/f0420.html). That town is larger, but the potters use the same slip techniques. We first went to a large showroom with examples of pottery from fifty or so nearby potters. Then we went to the Koishiwara Pottery & Traditional Craft Center to see some examples of both early and contemporary Koishi-ware. Everything was in Japanese, of course, but we were able to use phone numbers to find some potters we wanted to visit. So with the Japanese map and Japanese taxi driver we set off. Most of the work used similar techniques, but the large pieces were what really differentiated each gallery and potter. The galleries were simply small rooms added to the working studio and home. Our last gallery was our favorite because of the designs. It's the kiln and studio of Takahiro Ohta and his son Mitsuhiro. Takahiro's father was one of the Mengei potters that included Hamada Shogi. We saw one of Mitsuhiro's works at the Mino Competition earlier in the trip. His plate was on one of the posters. We caught them working just before a break, but we did see something interesting. Takahiro, who is the current master potter, was actually doing some production work (i.e. twenty bowls, all the same size, thrown off the hump). It was unusual to see a master potter doing that type of production. He had one additional person in the studio doing the glazing and a student (who spoke wonderful English) who was making a huge bowl. Then we headed back to Fukuoka for another great Indian meal and another fun trip to a bookstore. (P.S. We finally found some rooms in Kyoto, so we have updated our itinerary.)

11/12, Tues - Fukuoka - Cheryl stayed at the hotel today to conquer her cold. I went over to the Fukuoka Art Museum and saw Buddhist relics of the Soto sect, some old paintings (no photos allowed) and statues, and some modern art as well. I enjoyed one full room of humorous paintings by the 19^th century Zen painter Sengai. I took one picture from the handout. There was also a special exhibit by a 77-year-old calligrapher named Sekiryo Kitabatake. He was kind enough to autograph his book for me. After asking about my interests, he decided on the characters for "innocent spirit." I'll try to live up to that. After lunch at the museum, I taxied to the Kokusai Center again for another afternoon of sumo. This time I bought the most expensive seat available (about $100) and sat of a cushion in a box - about four feet square. The guys in the next box were Tadayuki and Tohru Araki. They're 25-year-old twins, and both are driving instructors. They had a good time yelling out encouragement to the wrestlers. They would even relay (amplify) requests from the older ladies behind us. For supper we had a great Indian meal at the Nankan restaurant, and afterwards we wandered through a couple of bookstores.

11/11, Mon - Fukuoka - We attempted to visit the Shofukuji Temple, the first Zen Buddhist temple built in Japan. It had very large grounds, but was one of the loneliest places in the world. We didn't see a soul, all of the doors were closed, and we couldn't see a thing inside. But we did get a glimpse of our first truly red tree of autumn. We then walked to the Kushida Shrine, the oldest Shinto shrine in Fukuoka, founded in 757. The current structure was built in 1587. It's the center of the Yamakasa Festival in May, and has one of the floats on permanent display. The float is huge, as you can see from the photos. Across the street was the Hakata Machiya Folk Museum. There were small crafts for sale in the first shop, an demonstration of weaving in the second, and a small museum showing life in the Meiji and Taisho eras (1868-1926). Next, having read about nearby Canal City, we thought it would be a good place to have lunch. It's a huge shopping mall/hotel/business center that was built in 1996 along a 180-meter canal. It's very unusual for Japan, and reminded Cheryl of San Antonio's Riverwalk, even down to the three-story Christmas tree. The marketers have brought Christmas to this Buddhist nation because everyone likes to give and get gifts. The Buddhists don't seem to have a lot of gift-giving holidays. They tend to pray on their holidays. There are a lot of name brand stores (Coach, Sports Authority, The Gap, etc.), a 13-screen movie theater, and a Hyatt Regency. Tom tried the buffet lunch at the Hyatt. Although he tried a lot of new things (including five desserts!), he bypassed the raw kangaroo (the restaurant has an Australian theme). After looking at the shops and a large Sega entertainment center, Tom left for more sumo, and Cheryl headed back to bed. The cold is getting better, but needs a lot of rest. From Tom: Sumo was especially enjoyable today because I stood for a while at the end of the aisle where the wrestlers enter the arena and got to see all of them up close. (And I left the camera with Cheryl which freed me to really see.) Then, upstairs in my seat, I met two charming fellows from San Diego, California - Allan Oglesby and Fumio Mizumo. Fumio predicted nearly all the winners, and Allan is refusing to let three recent back surgeries keep him from enjoying life - in this case a four-week self-guided tour of Japan. Way to go Allan!

11/10, Sun - Fukuoka - Cheryl woke up sick with a slight fever and a sore throat. (She asks, 'Was it the fish??') So I (Tom) took off for a morning walk looking for the festival parade. I didn't find it but a friendly man who spoke a very little bit of English and his daughter offered to show me the festival. That turned out to be a second tour of the city fair we saw yesterday, but I appreciated the gesture. I did see some nice jazz dancing. Around 11am we set off on a series of three train journeys which took us to Fukuoka. While Cheryl crashed and uploaded some photos, I took in the last part of the first day of the winter sumo tournament, always held in Fukuoka. Here you can see the wrestlers up close since they enter the arena from the main concourses. That was great! Tonight we're just enjoying being back on-line - and the heat works!

11/9, Sat - Hagi - Knowing of our interest in pottery, our hosts arranged for a friend of theirs, Shogo Nakahara, to take us to two old samurai houses and then to the house and studio of Gesson Hamanaka, and his wife Haryu and son Shiro. Hamanaka has had exhibits in New York and Tokyo, but he's first generation - his father was a doctor. We also met Takuya Satake who showed us around the place. He's a photographer who put together an exhibit of his photos and Shiro's pottery. He lived in San Francisco for seven years and so could speak great English. After having tea and buying a book and piece of pottery, we were driven by Haryu to the Kumaya Art Museum. There we saw scrolls, paintings and pottery. Across the street was a pottery shop with some nice (and cheaper) Hagi pottery. It's a pinkish clay with a clear glaze, and over time hot liquids cause it to change color slightly and show more dark crackles. Then back to hotel - Tomitaya Hotel - to see our room. We thought it'd be a western-style business hotel, but it was futons (and disappearing heat) all over again. Then while looking unsuccessfully for a lunch spot, we took in a few minutes of a fair at city hall. From there we taxied to Shogo's gallery to have tea. A woman there said there was an abridged Noh performance on the old castle grounds from 4:20 until 5:30, so off we went, stopping first at the shops near the castle. Cheryl froze slowly while making a video of part of the performance (so Tom could watch without distraction). Afterwards we headed home for a real Japanese fish dinner with many strange courses, and, as I said, a heater that kept timing out.

11/8, Fri - Hagi - Today was our longest travel day of the trip. We left the hotel at 9:30, headed for the post office to drop one more package, then took a 4 hour trip to Fukuoka. From there we had to take three trains to Hagi, arriving at 7 pm. It was really cold when we arrived, we were quite hungry, and knew there'd be nothing available at our minshuku (a smaller Japanese inn than a ryokan, and similar to a B&B). Tom headed to a nearby place that had red lanterns outside. We thought it was a yakitori restaurant, but it turned out to be an 'itzakaya', the Japanese equivalent of a pub. They had a lot of beer and sake, and several choices of grilled food. We couldn't make out a word on the menu, and they didn't speak any English, so we simply pointed to dishes that came out of the kitchen that looked good. It was all delicious! While we were eating, we heard what sounded like heavy rain. It turned out to be hail - large hail! Only this morning it was sunny and warm in Kagoshima, and now it was hailing. A fellow at the bar (he was a local hairdresser) offered to take us to our lodging, which was only half a block away, but we would never have found it ourselves. This was the Suzume-no-Oyado minshuku recommended to us by our hosts at the Yoyokaku in Karatsu. It is run by a young couple and could probably accommodate four or five couples. Our rooms were the largest and had both a sitting room and a bedroom. The entire place was decorated especially well with scrolls, screens, and pottery. In a minshuku, you set up your own bed, which we were now pretty handy at. Our only problem came at night. Heat on this freezing night was provided by a gas heater. At midnight, it started to beep quite loudly. We turned it off, waited for a bit, and by pressing a variety of buttons (labels only in Japanese, of course), finally got it started again. In another hour, it shut off again. Tom lay there wondering whether he'd awake in the morning or be gassed during the night. Cheryl wanted to end the mystery and light a match. We ended up donning extra clothing and shivering ourselves to sleep. It was probably just a timer mechanism.

11/7, Thu - Izumi - The other day Tom was talking to William Shiraki, another guest at our Yoyokaku ryokan. He told Tom about the Russian cranes that migrate to Kagoshima prefecture in mid-October and stay until March. That sounded interesting to us, so we headed to Izumi City (1.5 hours) today to see the cranes. There are about 10,000 cranes in the area we saw. The most common seem to be the hooded crane and the white-naped (but red-headed) cranes. We couldn't get very close, but it was fun to see so many cranes in one place. They have an observatory on the site. Tom ordered an unknown dish for lunch (no English menu, but he knew it had noodles in it), and I ordered just plain gohan (rice). Next we looked at the tourist stalls with tea, delicious tangerines, gourds, and other local specialties. Then we headed for the Bukeyashiki district in Izumi, which used to contain 150 samurai (warrior) houses. One of the two houses that are open is called 'Ito-yashiki', and it's 300 years old. The second is 'Saisho-yashiki' and it's 250 years old. Not having a map, and meeting hosts who couldn't speak English, we don't know which was which. Back home in Kagoshima, we found an internet café, no thanks to the cantankerous taxi driver. We were able to catch up on a few emails, but (unfortunately) were also able to find out the results of the election. Being pro-environment and anti-war, we guess that we're in the minority. Cheryl cried and Tom started to think about how we can make more of a difference. Listening to Katherine Harris for two years will be unbearable! The café was also a 'comic' (animation DVD) store. The Japanese are very much into animation and comics here. Finally we decided to check out our hotel's teppanyaki restaurant. This turned out to be Cheryl's favorite meal since coming to Japan, featuring roasted garlic, good vegetables and tender steaks. They skip the flashiness (tossing salt shakers, etc.) here, and the food is extremely good.

11/6, Wed - Kagoshima - Our first trip was to see a small village called Miyama. We took a 15-minute train to Injuin, then a long taxi ride to Miyama to visit the Chinjukan pottery and studio. Most, if not all, of the kilns around Kagoshima are run by Korean potters whose ancestors were forced to come here by the Satsuma clan because of their pottery skills. This studio is owned by a 14^th generation Korean who started here. They make white and black Satsuma-ware. The off-white clay body was supposed to be as white as porcelain, but they were never able to make it pure white with the local materials. There is a fairly large family museum with pieces from earlier generations. The dragons and detail work were incredible. A large studio was behind the kiln and showroom. We couldn't see all of it, but we saw one potter, one trimmer, and eight painters. It was more of that production work, but everything is still done by hand. We don't know if some of the items are created from molds or not. Since most of the kilns in town were closed, probably because of a 4-day ceramics fair that ended on the 4^th, we headed to the next town, Kajiki. There are some potters on the outskirts of town that specialize in black Satsuma pieces. This is called Ryomonji-ware. Our taxi driver figured out that we were running out of time and the kilns were far apart, so he volunteered to stay with us for our visits. Our first visit was to a single potter, Gungi (we think that's his last name). He threw a few pieces for us and showed us his father's kiln, which is no longer being used. The glazes were very nice and included an unusual bumpy glaze they call 'dragon skin'. Our next stop was at a larger pottery. This had a larger showroom, a very large noborigama kiln (that takes 26 hours to fire), one man glazing, one throwing, the woman in the salesroom was painting, and another workman was making clay. He had an motor-driven setup that pounded rocks into clay. Our evening ended with a Japanese dinner at our hotel. Tom, of course, ordered the raw fish full meal. This consisted of a lot of sashimi, several pickled items, rice, fish clear soup, and fruit. One of the more unusual items was kibinago, a raw silver striped, sardine-looking fish. Cheryl had tempura.

11/5, Tue - Kagoshima (only 10 pictures - they're above in 11/6) - Another move day today. We headed for Kagoshima on a slower train that took 2.5 hours. We sat in the 'Top Cabin', which is a closed off area of four seats at the front of the Green Car (we don't know why). The weather started warming up as we neared Kagoshima. It's a sea resort most of the year and our hotel window is filled with the view of their most important sight - Mt. Sakurajima, a still-active volcano. It's been quiet this year. Three years ago some ash fell on the city. It used to be on an island until 1914, when it erupted and merged with the mainland. This is quite a swanky hotel, but it has no internet access, so we're offline for a few days.

11/4, Mon - Kumamoto - We didn't feel like heading for the small pottery towns today, so we went to a local park, Suisenji-koen. It was a tourist spot, but with our incredible luck this trip, we happened to find some people celebrating Shichi-go-san (Seven-Five-Three Children's Festival) early because it's a national holiday today. The festival is normally held on November 15^th each year. Parents dress their 3-year old boys and girls, their 5-year old boys and/or their 7-year old girls in their best clothes (usually kimonos for the girls and haori jackets and hakama trousers for the boys) and visit a Shinto shrine to pray for a healthy and happy future free of sickness and misfortune. The children get what's called 'thousand year old' candy as one of the gifts for the day. We watched one entire ceremony as the Shinto priest blessed and prayed for a girl. It being a little cold out today, we walked through one of the long, covered shopping arcades. There was a small parade of thirty people wearing samurai-like costumes. Tom thinks they were advertising something like a new restaurant. We'll get the flyer they gave us translated. We spent some time in Tower Records and a book store, and had lunch at McDonald's. (Well, we HAD to see if the burgers and fries taste that same as in the states. They do.) Tom is especially fascinated by the small phones here. People stare at them for hours on end, pushing the buttons, but not making a call. We can't figure out what captures their attention so much. Is it a game or email or both? We watched two women stare intently into their phones during our entire lunch. So all in all, it was a relaxed day and a nice break from the trains, busses and villages.

11/3 Sun - Kumamoto - A cold, rainy day - good for museums. Because Tom likes Musashi Miyamoto we first took a cab to the Shimada Art Museum, a private museum specializing in his works. (A famous 17^th century artist and swordsman, he spent the last few years of his life here.) There were a few of his paintings, a collection of swords, and an opening by a local potter. Next we tried to find the sword fighting and archery competition at the Kumamoto festival (at the castle), but it was rained out. So next was the Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art, Chibajo Branch. They had exhibits of contemporary artists. Then we walked to the Kumamoto Prefectural Traditional Crafts Center to see the local crafts including bamboo ware, furniture, children's toys, pottery, and cutlery. From there we walked to the main branch of the prefectural art museum to see the Auguste Rodin exhibit (all the way from Boston) and a show of Buddhist statues. Our last stop was the city museum - geology, anthropology, archaeology, etc. Whew! Before dinner we bought Tom a warm hat and coat in the Tsuruya department store across the street. After dinner we walked a little of the Kamitori arcade street, stopping at two bookstores. A note about dinner last night: sometimes even with an English menu you can't win. It had one French word we didn't know, and the waiter said it meant "ribs." But unfortunately for Cheryl, it turned out to be a small bowl of pork pate with some dry bread. C'est la vie!

11/2, Sat - Kumamoto - With great regret, we left our ryokan in Karatsu today. The Yoyokaku ryokan was one of our most delightful experiences, and we can highly recommend it. The hosts, the Okochis, were extremely friendly, helpful, and also spoke excellent English. The entire staff was the most observant we've ever seen. They spoiled us! At the start of the photos today, you'll see the wonderful gardens of the ryokan, and pictures of our hosts. We returned to Fukuoka (hour and a half) and transferred to another line for Kumamoto. We had run out of cash and couldn't find a way to get any in Kuratsu, so we used Fukuoka to replenish our wallets. By the way, the Lonely Planet guide to Japan is invaluable in that it shows the locations of international ATMs! Kumamoto is a castle town, and they're having a castle festival that started today. We'll probably arrange our schedule to see part of it tomorrow. Our room in the Nikko Hotel has a direct view of the castle. After a dinner in their restaurant specializing in grilled food, we started our photo uploads from the previous four days. It's good to be back online!

11/1, Fri - Arita - Today was the start of another ceramics festival, this time in Arita, a 20-minute ride from Imari (the town we visited yesterday). We first went to the Kyushu Ceramics Art Museum in Arita. Most of the exhibit didn't hold of lot of interest for us, but some of the educational exhibits were fine. 'Arita-ware' refers to porcelain pottery that typically has a blue, very detailed, underglaze, a white/clear glaze on the white porcelain, and a red overglaze. Of course, they also produce celadon porcelain and several other unique glazes. One of the features of the museum is a ceramic clock, made of ceramic gears and figurines, much like the German mechanical clocks that open up and go into motion every half hour. We then headed for the ceramics fair. It wasn't so much a fair as a sale held by ceramic wholesalers in their showrooms. There were about twenty dealers with large showrooms and back rooms with exhibits. We found some great buys. Shabu-shabu was our dinner pick for tonight.

10/31, Thu - Imari - We walked to the Float Festival Hall, the storehouse of huge floats that will be used in a parade this weekend. We'll miss the parade (no rooms in the city), but we got to see all of the floats and a video of a parade. We missed our train by ten minutes, so had to wait an hour and a half. That gave use some internet time, lunch time, and time to browse a Karatsu pottery shop near the station. Then we took a one-car train for an hour to Imari. This town is slightly smaller than Karatsu, where we're staying, but is known for its painted porcelain rather than the more natural look of Karatsu. There are about 30 kilns in Imari, which we did not have time to look at. Instead we headed for a small village, Okawachiyama, outside Imari, where there are another 30 kilns. This village was, without a doubt, the prettiest place we've seen. It's nestled in the mountains with winding streets. Every house on the main street is either a gallery or the home and showroom of a potter. We saw a few small studios and kilns. Everybody was getting ready for a big ceramics fair tomorrow, so the showrooms were bursting (and they gave us the 30% discount that's normally given on fair days). It poured all day long, but it was a magnificent day anyway. We hadn't expected to like the pottery because it was supposed to be mainly the very detailed blue painting on white porcelain, with some red and enamel colors. We normally like the simpler styles. But we were happily surprised to find a lot of really beautiful celadon, and many new glaze colors that we've never seen before. We also had a chance to see another small production shop. Here they take three firings to complete the pieces: bisque, first slip and glaze (generally blue on white porcelain), then second glaze (generally red). In one kiln, there were three people working on painting (one drawing on a pattern selected from a book of patterns, one adding the first blue underglaze, and one adding the second red overglaze). In another room, Tetsuya Yamamoto impressed us with his throwing ability. He would take a block of clay, wedge it about 100 times, center it in one effort, pull it up with one or two pulls, shape it with one or two pulls, pull in and form the neck with two or three pulls, then finish it. All of this took less than ten minutes and produced a fifteen-inch tall jar. And during this time, he threw it in such a dry manner that no wet clay or water came off the bat (wheel). His clothes were unmarked, and it was late in the afternoon. Very impressive! We captured it on film to show at the studio. Dinner was at the Karatsu Seaside Hotel, overlooking the bay again. Tom treated Cheryl with a purely western dinner. Tom had some especially tender Imari beef. The rain was pretty heavy and the surf was heavier than usual (and lit up by the hotel's lights). It was eight at night and there were three surfers (in wet suits because it was extremely cold) taking advantage of the surf.

10/30, Wed - Karatsu - We had breakfast in the ryokan - Cheryl had Western food, while Tom had the Japanese breakfast and got to experience new tastes. Our host was kind enough to drop us at the Taroemon Natazako showroom and introduce us to Bob Okasaki. To keep things straight in today's diary, let us explain about some of the families here. The Natazako family has been well known in the Karatsu area for many generations. Taroemon Natazako 12^th was a National Treasure. He had five sons, three of whom have studios in the Karatsu aream and we saw two of them. Taroemon 13^th, one of his sons, has a showroom near the station where we were dropped off. Bob Okasaki is a fourth-generation Japanese American who came to Japan thirty years ago as a potter and married Taroemon 13^th's daughter. Bob is a well known potter himself and was kind enough to spend all day with us explaining Karatsu pottery. We were thrilled to have a native English speaker with whom we could discuss what we've seen so far. One of the neatest things he showed us were the pots glazed with rice straw ash. We first looked at the Taroemon Natazako showroom, which had items from their studio, collected items, and items from several generations of Natazakos. We then went to the Seaside Hotel to see an exhibit of Bob's pottery, and a hotel exhibit of the Natazakos. We had a great lunch viewing Karatsu bay. Then we headed into the countryside to Bob's studio. It's very large and private. His showroom had some really excellent pieces. We just had to buy a couple of them. He then dropped us off at another Taroemon 12^th son, Takashi Natazako. This son had just left for an exhibit, but we got to see his son, Taki, and daughter, Hanako. She's the potter we met yesterday at her ryokan exhibit. She took us for a tour of the studio, kilns, and showrooms. One of the potters was at work wedging clay, then 'throwing off the hump'. That is, he'd place a HUGE piece of clay on the kickwheel (rotating clockwise, unlike in the USA), then center a small piece at the top and make a low bowl. It took about 45 seconds for each bowl! These bowls are then given to Takashi, who adds his unique designs. Of course, Takashi also throws his own pieces. Dinner was at the Yoyokaku ryokan again. This time it was a Japanese fish dinner, with many courses: appetizers, slightly seared fish, sashimi, cooked fish, vegetables, fried seafood dumplings, rice and clear soup, then fruit. What a spread! We rolled off to the room to analyze the day's photos.

10/29, Tue - Karatsu - After three hours via Shinkansen, we arrived in Fukuoka. We wanted to confirm how to get to Karatsu, but nobody could really explain it. They just said 'subway', so we looked at the subway map and it appeared that we needed to change to a JR train at a certain stop. This was confirmed in some of the web literature we have. So at that stop we got off, only to discover a sign saying Karatsu was further down the line! We jumped back on again before the subway (now above ground) started moving. Then a lady indicated we should move up one car toward the front. Sure enough, a few stops later, our old car was uncoupled and stayed behind at the station while we sailed on. Karatsu is right on the sea, and we can walk to the beach from our ryokan (if it were warm enough, which it's not). Our ryokan is named Yoyokaku, and is owned by Den Okochi and his wife Harumi - they're fourth generation owners of this hundred year old inn. A ryokan is a traditional Japanese inn. The rooms have floors of straw tatami mats, and you sleep on futons on the floor. Most of the furniture is designed for sitting on the floor. This ryokan is really lovely, with all twenty rooms facing a garden of old pine trees. Because they had to redecorate fifteen years ago after a typhoon, the rooms have their own baths, toilets, and heaters. (This is very uncommon in ryokans.) Our set of rooms is huge compared to the tiny hotel rooms where we've been staying. The host and his wife both speak excellent English, and have a great Web site at www.matsuronet.ne.jp/yoyokaku. We told them we were interested in ceramics and Den suggested we come see an exhibit inside the ryokan that was closing today. The exhibit was by Hanako Nakazato. She's currently living in Vermont studying under Malcolm Wright. He, in turn, had studied under her grandfather, Taraemon Nakazato (XII), a Japanese National Treasure. Her father is Takashi Nakazato and has a kiln in Karatsu which we hope to see tomorrow. His works and those of his son Taki are displayed in the ryokan also. Dinner was shabu-shabu and was served in our room by Keiko. There was a plate of vegetables and a plate of meat. You cook both briefly in a broth and dip it in a creamy mixture flavored with onions and garlic. We both loved the meal. After you've cooked the food, you add rice and egg to the broth to make a soup. That was delicious too. Dessert was fruit. Then we put on our yukatas (robes) and went downstairs to take advantage of the large communal baths (one for men, one for women). Cheryl was alone but Tom had a companion. The bath water was about the temperature of a hot tub. You wash and rinse with a hand-held shower sitting on a low stool, before entering the tub. Finally futons were laid out in our room, we set out our computer, and settled in for the night.

10/28, Mon - Osaka - Today we headed for "Expo '70 Commemoration Park," a very large complex north of Osaka, built to replace the buildings of an expo held in 1970. There are a few museums, an amusement park, and several gardens. The "Tower of the Sun" in the photos is at the entry. The first museum, the Osaka National Museum, was fairly small and had just contemporary works. But they did have paintings by Richard Serra, Mark Rothko, Ellsworth Kelly, George Segal, Sam Francis, and a huge standing ceramic wall by Miro. It was nice, but we were looking for traditional Asian Art. Then we found the National Museum of Ethnology (cultural anthropology). It was created in 1974 to provide information on the "societies and cultures of the world's ethnic groups." We first went to their special exhibit called "Wrapping up Culture." It was a large exhibit showing materials used for wrapping things (food, gifts, babies, loads, etc.). There was a demonstration area on weaving and wrapping. The regular exhibit in the main building was immense! We were given English video guides (like a little pc screen hanging around your neck) and started in the first room at 2 pm. The exhibits for each area were so immense, and the level of detail so great for each display, that we believe it would take two or three days just to listen to the video guide. Because we couldn't see it all, we decided to come back later in the month, and we rushed through it. Even that took an hour. We didn't even get to see all of the rooms. There were also big courtyards that contained large ships such as Chinese junks. All in all, we probably saw twenty boats of some sort just inside the museum. We can hardly wait to get back and see it thoroughly. It puts the Smithsonian to shame. Our last stop was the Osaka Folk Crafts Museum. This was also a small museum, but had an excellent exhibit on "Yi Dynasty (1392-1910) Korean Craft," and another exhibit on the pottery of Shoji Hamada. This was the largest collection of his work that we've seen so far. What a great day! (The last photo is a Halloween surprise guaranteed to scare you! Thanks, Jann!)

10/27, Sun - Osaka - Today was another museum day. And we treated ourselves by using taxis instead of the mile-long subway walks. The first stop was the Fujita Museum of Art. It holds a private collection from the Fujita family, and like many of these small, private collections, had some excellent pieces. Outside the museum was a family pagoda and a teahouse. There was a private tea ceremony going on at the time, but one of the greeters took time to show us the small waiting room and also how to use the cleansing fountain. First you take a dip of water from the fountain into the ladle with your right hand, then pour water over your left hand, switch the ladle to the left hand and pour water into your right hand; then take another ladle of water with your right hand, pour some into your left palm, and drink it out of your palm; then take another ladle of water, tilt it up, and let the water run down the ladle handle onto your hands. Then put the ladle back. Our second museum was the Manno Art Museum, which is on the 13^th floor in the busy Shinbaishi section of town. It's a contemporary museum, but also shows traditional work. The funniest was a huge white balloon shaped like a bowling pin, with red spots filling the inside of a real teahouse on the museum roof/balcony. The walls of the teahouse had large polka dots like the ones in pictures 13 and 14. Finally, we headed to the Osaka Municipal Art Museum, which is located inside the Tenno-ji park. To get there, you must pass through 'karaoke alley', as Tom calls it. It's where a dozen of Osaka's homeless set up generators on Sunday and charge people to sing in the park with their karaoke machines. It's really pretty funny if your ears don't mind the off-key singing. The art museum was having a special exhibit of black and white pottery from Cizhou, China. The permanent collection was more to our liking. The garden, Keitakuen, was pretty, but it was late and getting cold so we didn't stay. We ended with another sushi-go-round near our hotel. This one had the same low prices (120 yen or 80 cents for two pieces), but had its own set of specialties that we hadn't seen before.

10/26, Sat - Nara - It takes an hour train ride to get to Nara, which became the first capital of Japan in 710. On our way to the temple area we explored three shops featuring There is a huge park, Nara-koen, which is home to several temples, two art museums, and 1200 deer. The deer are protected because in pre-Buddhist days, they were thought to be messengers of the gods. We were headed for the Nara National Museum, which was opening a once-a-year, two-week exhibit today to display the Shoso-in treasures. These are treasures given to the Todai-ji temple when the Great Buddha was first installed there in 752. There were scrolls, crowns (partial), clothing, etc. We didn't take the time today to see that Buddha again, as we've seen it once and we'll be back in three weeks. We then saw the old museum, with its Buddhist sculptures. We then headed for the Kofuku-ji Temple, which was transferred here from Kyoto in 710. The temple area consists of about a dozen buildings including a five-story pagoda (the tallest in Japan), a three-story pagoda, the Kokuho-kan (National Treasure House), the Temporary Golden Hall (it looked like they were starting construction on a large building next to it), and the South Octagonal Hall. The last two items are not open to the public on a regular basis, but we saw them and the Treasure House in conjunction with the Shoso-in exhibit. There were some very large, and beautiful, Buddhas in the two buildings that aren't usually open. No pictures were allowed, so it's a short photo day. Aren't you lucky!

We forgot to mention that while talking to a fellow traveler, he mentioned a less expensive way to travel. He's staying in a dorm for $20 a night. He loves it because he's meeting people from all over the world, getting their suggestions on places to visit, AND he gets to speak English with them. So you can visit here on any type of budget.

10/25, Fri - Osaka - Today was a relaxing day in Osaka, although we did manage to go to a great museum. It's the Osaka branch of The Idemitsu Museum of Arts. (We'll be going to their main museum in Tokyo when we return there.) There were two exhibits. The first contained paintings by Sengai Gibon (1750-1837), a Zen priest who excelled in poetry, painting, and calligraphy. We think he also excelled in humor, because many of his paintings make you laugh. He gave away his paintings and drawings to anyone who asked. One piece of poetry of his was probably given to one of the requestors:

They seem to think
My study is a kind of toilet,
They each come
With a roll of paper.

The Idemitsu Museum has the largest single collection of Sengai's works. The second exhibit was of pottery from Karatsu. That's the town that we're heading to on Tuesday. Our evening wound up with a treat for us both. Cheryl got an Indian dinner, and Tom found a Tower Records. What a great day!

10/24, Thu - Himeji - Himeji Castle is said to be the grandest of the 12 remaining feudal castles in Japan, and this castle, called the "White Egret," certainly looks the part. Speaking of parts, it was used by Kurosawa in his 1985 film "Ran." It's very large and very impressive. We took a one hour train to the city of Himeji, and walked to the castle. The route through the grounds took us through guard stations and the women's quarters before getting to the main tower. The castle grounds are on a hill, where a fort was first built in 1333. The castle, as it looks now, was completed in 1618. It was well-fortified, but it never had to be defended. A beautiful garden complex, Koko-en, was built next to the castle in 1992. It's comprised of nine Edo-period gardens, each quite different. In the middle of all this serene beauty, they had a gaudy samurai and kimono-wearing photo stand where you could take your picture. So we did. Thanks to Kyeonghun Yeo (from New Jersey!) for taking our tacky picture.

10/23, Wed - Kyoto - Today was a museum day and we headed for Kyoto again. First we found the Kyoto Raku Museum. It was fairly small, with three rooms and about 50 teabowls. The lighting didn't allow for decent photos, so we've only included a few. But we're bringing back a book of their full collection. We then went to the Kyoto National Museum. It wasn't as extensive as the other museums we've been seeing and didn't have a large gift or book shop. Our last stop was back in Osaka, at the Kinokuniya bookstore, reputed to have the largest selection of foreign books in the city. It was one of Tom's son Jeff's favorites when he lived here. By the way, we've decided to confirm our seats back to the US on December 9^th and not try for December 1^st (see above). We may use some of the extra days in Kyoto.

10/22, Tue - Kyoto - We went back to where we left off in Kyoto yesterday, to the area of the Nanzen-ji Temple in the foothills of eastern Kyoto. Coming from the subway we were lucky enough to discover a small subsidiary temple, Konchi-in. We had it all to ourselves. It has beautiful gardens and buildings. After walking through, we discovered that we could buy a guided tour (in Japanese). We did, mainly because we hadn't seen a screen painting of a monkey by Tohaku Hasegawa (1539-1610). We saw that and more: wall paintings, and an eight-window tea room. Next we visited the larger Nanzen-ji complex. It's the headquarters of the Rinzai sect of Buddhism. There was a raccoon under one of the buildings that they were trying to lure into a cardboard box by offering a hotdog. He got away with the hotdog. We also took a hike to a hydroelectric plant based on false or misunderstood directions from the Lonely Planet guide. The canal was pretty anyway. From there we caught a cab over to the Heian Shrine to watch the end of the parade celebrating the founding of Kyoto. It's called the Jidai Matsuri or Festival of Ages. The participants represented many different historical figures and periods. Kyoto was founded in 794. A brief stop at a crafts shop full of tourists from tour buses and some great, cheap sushi at the train station concluded day two of Kyoto.

10/21, Mon - Kyoto - In the morning we took care of laundry and filled out and mailed our absentee ballots. We headed to Kyoto around noon to walk along the "Philosopher's Path," which is a path along a canal which passes several temples. It's named for a philosophy professor who walked there in the early 1900's. A half hour train ride and a 45 minute bus ride got us to the top of the path, which is the site of one of Kyoto's famous temples, the Ginkakuji Temple (or Silver Pavilion). This temple started as a villa for the eighth shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimasa, in 1482. Only two of the original twelve buildings survived the Kyoto fires and civil wars of the 1600s. The shogun because a priest in his retirement, and the buildings have been turned into a Buddhist temple. The 'silver pavilion' isn't open to the public. We paid extra to get a guide to take us into the second surviving building from the 1400's, the Togudo Hall, which was the shogun's study. His study became the model for future tearooms. The Main Hall was built later, in the mid Edo period (1723-76). There is a Sakyamuni Buddha image in the alter, and paintings on screens by two well-known artists of the 1700's, Yosa Buson (who also wrote haiku) and Ike no Taiga.. The garden is beautifully conceived, much of it covered in moss. Although it was raining in the morning, the sun came out while we were there and the moss, pine trees, and maples (that were just starting to turn), were just perfect. We then walked along the Philosopher's Path. There were paths leading to some smaller temples and tearooms along the way, but it was starting to get dark and the temples and shrines were closing. There are some older houses on both sides of the path, but there are plenty of newer buildings, some of them quite large and expensive. We were tired, so Tom had some hot pork dumplings, green tea and bananas to go from the Kyoto underground and I had bananas and some cheese and crackers in the room. Oh, a note about our comment about a 'bargain' hotel room for $150. It's a bargain because of our requirements: high-speed internet access (very few hotels in Japan have them), close to a train station, relatively new, English-speaking staff, and quiet. If we'd give up a few requirements, we could stay in business hotels or small ryokans for $50-75 a night.