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Japan 2007 Travelogue This is the 7th year i have gone to Japan for a month. Every year I have extraordinary adventures.. meet interesting people, have new insights into the mountain, Japan, Reiki and my own life. This is not a formal document.. Just a "as I get to it" writeup of what is happening, that may give you some sense of why i love japan and the mountain, and the joys and frustrations of what it is like to really be there. I will be leaving for Japan Oct 16, and returning Nov 13th.. If you are returning to read this document, just go to the bottom of page and work up. i will put a series of **** before each entry to make it easy to search for.. **** Pre trip Notes* Oct 8th Found my passport where i left it for safe keeping in my computer bag. I bought my ticket some weeks ago. They have changed the travel pattern to Japan. I used to fly to Osaka, now it is just much more expensive, adn so is cheaper to fly to Tokyo/Narita, take a but to the Haneda airport, then fly from their to Osaka.. Grumbles.. is going to add a lot of time to the trip, but what can you do? It does make it more realistic to include the Tokyo piece and then the Kyoto piece for future tours, since while I am willing to do this.. is alot to expect a group to do. APAN AIRLINES 16OCT LOS ANGELES CA TOKYO 120P 440P
Now I get to Japan ahead of the tour group. i think the tour group and myself having jetlag at same time is bad idea. also it gives me a chance to make any fine tuning on the trip on the ground. Plus.. i go for myself, not just the tour, so is important to me to have time to myself on mountain and not just show up witht he group. Every day i go is like getting a series of attunements. **** Oct 18 So I am in Japan. This journey was a lot of hussling, and almost screwups. Jeff says it is because I keep traveling on void of course moons astrologically. So Thursday I was mostly packed, and we had some friends over and a figured heck, the plane doesnt leave til after 1, i can finish packing in the morning. So Friday morning i realized that while all my clothes fit in my big bag, i had way to much stuff that needed to go into the travel bag. So i finally weeded it down to the travel bag and small backpack, and my purse of course, and figured great, we are only 10minutes later leaving than I thought we should be. Then it suddenly hit me, as you might have figured out yourselves in the previous paragraph. I can only take 2 bags and 2 carryons, and I had 3. This resulted in a lot of last minute cursing, but i finally switched to a larger day pack and got under way. Between the delays of package rearranging and greater traffic than we expected we ended up getting to the airport only 2 hours before the flight, and not 3. So Jeff left me off, and I went in. It took me 1 hour and a half to get through the a) checkin line, b) baggage xray line, c) security line, so instead of my usual leisurely perusal of books and stuff in airport i got to my gate about 10 minutes before they started boarding. So Then the long flight begins. And it does take forever. 11.5 hours is a long time on a plane. At least they have movies. They have about 5 channels with movies on your little personal tv in front of you. Each channel repeats a given movie over and over, and you just flip back and forth. So I watched Harry Potter, Oceans 13, 1408, and part of die hard, read a book, wrote in a journal, and sent a bunch of Reiki to stuff. We got in a little late to Narita, and I had to go to another airport to get the flight to Osaka. At the airport they told me that next time i could fly into Itami rather than Kansai, and not have to switch airports. This is what happens sometimes when you book online. So my luggage was late getting off the plane, plus customs, etc, I then had to get on a bus for over an hour, then I had to figure out a whole new airport, and got on so late that i had to take all my luggage jogging through the airport straight to the gate so they could put it on the plane. But I did it, and it was fine. Note to self.. Need more than 3 hours to change flights if there is a 80 minute bus trip in between. Got to Osaka, went to MKtaxi and they took me to guest house. Osaka and Kyoto are not close. Took about 1.5 hours to get to Kyoto, and let off other passengers then let me off. It usually takes longer than that when i come in during the day because of traffic. Got to the guest house about 11:30, got checked in. Sure is nice to come back to a place I know. Is same room i used a few years ago. Has a futon on the floor, and a desk. Next week i can switch to the room with a bed I usally use. Slept soundly til about 7, and here I am. reading email, typing up my log. Had an idea about jetlag. Keying into to rhytm of earth below feet. Will see how it works. Til Soon... ****** OCT 19 Yesterday I spent most of the morning in my room, getting organized, writing my log I got an email that Lauren was coming into town. Lauren took Reiki 1&2 last year and so this year is talking Reiki Master She is originally from Oklahoma city, but lives in Guam. So around noon, I walked down to the place where I rent a bicycles every year and they told me they didnt have any. So I walked down to Kitaoji station, and picked up a couple of the English Bus Maps I like to use to get around Kyoto. I seldom actually use the buses, but all the stops are labeled in English, so when walking down a main street that has bus traffic, but no readable English street signs it allows you to figure out where you are along the road by reading the bus stop names and comparing it to the map. Kept walking to the meet Lauren, and because I wanted to see the guest house she was staying in. It is another very inexpensive place, called. Yurakuso http://homepage3.nifty.com/yurakuso/index3.html I stay in a guest house call Green Peace. Yurakuso is a similar kind of place, but less homey. The rooms are a bit nicer but the atmosphere outside the rooms is more of a warehouse or cell block. Both of these places are really sort of like hostels, designed primarily for college students. Not really what most of my primarily adult students want. I will get the report from Lauren on what it was like at night. Timing wise I got there and was looking around, and couldnt find an office to ask where Lauren was. A few minutes later I spotted her, coming out of the restroom having just arrived a few minutes earlier. This was about 1:15 pm, she was coming in from a 9:20 am flight, and yes it does take that long to get to Kyoto from the Osaka airport. Travel takes time. So we went to Kitaoji station. I got a little lost, but made it to the street in time to meet a couple of European tourists looking for the Golden Pavilion. So I gave them one of my Bus Maps. I had happened to have picked up earlier. So we went to Kitaoji station, and had lunch in the Vivre mall above it at a little buffett place I had been to before. Cost was a little less than 1400 yen, and it had something rare to find in Kyoto, Green lettuce salad, as well as some rice and pasta dishes. There are other places to get salad in japan but it is treated like a minor side dish of about 1/2 cup of leaves. Japan is very difficult for people on raw food diets. There was of course seaweed salad, edamane. The other impossible diet in Japan is low carb. Just dont go, or plan to eat out of your suitcase. It is a bit awkward to get to Kurama from the subway. What I do is go to the end of the line, Kokusaikakon, walk north about 4 long blocks through the neighborhood my friend Mary lived in, and end up at the Iwakura station, its probably about 1/2 a mile or so. Getting on the train I am stilll kind of focused on the inconveinence of everything I have to do to get to Japan and this mountain, and wondering why i do this every year, but once the car reaches the Ninose stop and I feel the chi of these mountains all those doubts stop, and the wonder begins, and by the time I get to the mountain I am eager. We got up to the mountain around 3:30, and took the cable car up. Lauren did really well for a person wearing flip flops, but if you go please wear sneakers. We saw my friend at the wood and bamboo gift shop, and said hello. He was glad to see me, but since he spoke no English, and I speak no Japanese, we mostly just smile at each other. He tried to talk to me about the fire festival on monday, so i told him my bi-lingual friend Linda-san would call him. (pick up phone, and say linda san). This is when not speaking Japanese is the most frustrating. He handed me an envelope with 12000 yen in it from selling 4 of the books I had given Linda who had given them to him. He proudly showed me his remaining book. I took the envelope, and will talk to him on Monday through Linda about selling book and taking a commission. The two women at the entry gate were extremely happy to see me, and greeted me as a celebraty, of course in Japanese. I think it is in part about the book, but I dont know for sure. It might be just that they know me cause I come up so many times in a 4 week period, then disappear for another year. I have about half a dozen people who work on the mountain who recognise me and greet me. The rest dont really pay any attention. I am not sure what the size of the staff is on the mountain, I am guessing it is 15-20, about evenly split between men and women. There is so much I dont know. The Buddha building was closed, but we connected energetically to him through the doors. I suppect they start closing things around 4pm, and this was about 4:15. We wandered through the main temple, and Lauren had the calligraphy done in her journey book, then started hiking up to the summit, taking our time, enjoying some of the many high energy spots along the way which she is particularly good about finding. We got up to the top and took the side route to Osugi Gongen, the place where Usui recieved the Reiki, and it felt wonderful. We explored a little, and then I did an attunement on her. Afterwards we sat in the energy. Right before I did the attunement I was inspired to greet the area of earth beneath the great dead tree Osugi Gongen. "Hail the Tengu of Kurama mountain." and to my surprise I got an energetic response of earth energy. I said the mental equivalent of "Hold on a few minutes, I got to do this attunement" then I spent some time with this energy. Some of the energies on the mountain are very friendly and greet everyone, sort of like happy puppies. Other energies, often the most powerful ones do not, they choose who to speak too. Often when you first speak to them you get a sense of indifference, or even, 'go away kid you bother me.' It is alot like trying to speak to a human being you don't know who is living at their home. Some are eager to speak to anyone, others prefer their privacy. So I talked for a while, and I got the sense of being asked what I want. I gave the answer in my head, that I wanted all the usual things, fortune, fame, continued love, health, and added and of course to be useful. I think it was the being useful that caught its attention. So I talked about my desire to be useful to the salvation of all souls I can reach. (Talk like this comes natural in high energy fields) I talked about the work I have done, the people I have taught Reiki too, my connections to Jizo and Kwan Yin, and my work with ghosts, spirits and guides. I felt like I had a column of purifying fire between my hands, and I put myself and many of the people i care about in it, and felt them strengthen and purify in the life-giving flame, impurities burning away. Sent lots of energy into the projects I am doing, and to all the people whose prayers I carry. Headed down the mountain slowly around 6. We waved at the webcam at the Yuki shrine. By the time we got to the bottom it was very dark. Fortunately the trail from the main temple down to the bottom is lit at night. We called Linda from a borrowed cell phone from the Patalya van, and asked her to meet us for dinner at Demachi-yanagi station. We ended up at the Falafel place. I got really tired around 9, but forced through it. Got home around 9:30, and played on my computer and did email til about midnight. Then got up around 6 and started typing this entry. Is the only problem with journalling. It takes time! **** Monday October 22nd Weather has turned cold. I been teaching Reiki the last few days, we did go up to the mountain yesterday for the afternoon, and I buried the crystals for Michael and Laurelle, which I will pick up the day before I leave Today is the fire festival of Kurama.
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