Chasing Buddha in Kamakura

Mark's third photo at this spot in past 43 years

There’s one high-priority destination that we hadn't been to yet. Kamakura has a special place in the heart of the Toole family—there’s a photo of Mark as a baby being held in front of the daibutsu (giant Buddha) on the steps leading up to the statue. This is one of his family’s all-time favorite memories of being in Japan and a big reason Mark ended up studying and teaching Asian religions.

When Mark traveled to Japan in 2004, he took a photo in the same place as an adult. Plus, we had seen the other two daibutsu that reside in Japan—one at Gifu City and one at Nara. In other words, there was no

And with the rest of us

way we could leave the country without seeing the last of the Great Buddha statues and getting a photo with our daughters.

Relishing a quiet moment overlooking the Sagami Bay

After a five hour train ride from Hiroshima, we stashed luggage in a Tokyo Station locker near the Akihabara neighborhood where we'd stay later that night. On the long train ride, we caught our last glimpse (at least for awhile) of Kyoto and a few other places we’d visited along the way. On the train to Kamakura, the first feudal capital of Japan (1185 - 1333), we read a little bit about the history and the other things we'd see while there.

Benten kutsu cave at Hase-dera 

We jumped on another train to Kamakura. It is getting super hot in Japan, which is a warm-up to the summer we're expecting back home in Greensboro. Hiking up the hill to the daibutsu was challenging, but we fortified ourselves with ice cream along the way, so it was all good.

The bronze statue we were chasing was cast in 1252, and there was once a wooden temple surrounding it that was destroyed by a tsunami in 1495. (To put this in perspective with the girls, we talked about how this was just three years after Christopher Columbus stumbled on North America thinking it was India). Since that time, the statue has stood in the open air.

We also visited Hase-dera, a nearby temple. There's this cool, windy, low ceilinged cave that we went to, which was lined with hundreds of small statues. When Mark visited here in 2004, he placed a tiny statue with our names on it, as well as "Baby Toole" -- I was three months pregnant, so that baby would eventually become Kara. We repeated this exercise, this time with all four of our names.

We placed another statue here keeping in mind family members and friends and saying a prayer for good health, wisdom and ease as we face life's joys and challenges together.

Heading Home

After a morning in rainy Tokyo, we're ready to head home. I'm writing this from Narita Airport, where we'll board a plane in 10 minutes. This has been the journey of a lifetime--a dream that first took root 13 years ago when Mark and I pledged to see the world together, and that we've been working toward ever since. Thanks for coming along for the ride! 

With love,

Mary, Mark, Maura & Kara

Himeji, Kurashiki & Miyajima

We had a few “light” touringtdays throughout the trip, including stopovers and daytrips. In the interest of time, we’re combining three of these days into one post.

Kurashiki

This small town, which is filled with historic buildings, is well off the beaten path.  It made a great stopping point the day after Kinosaki, especially since Mary was knocked out with a 12-hour bug. The girls and Mark went spent the afternoon popping in and out of shops around the Bikan quarter, which featured lots of folk crafts. We stayed at Ivy Square Hotel, a destination for local weddings.

Himeji

We broke up our trip to Hiroshima by stopping at Himeji for a night. It’s a small town with what’s considered the finest castle in Japan. With fortifications built in 1333, Himeji-jo is one of

only a few original castles in the country (built in 1580). The main castle is under construction right now, but we took a tour of the grounds and heard stories about how samurai defended the castle. Maura and Kara got into the samurai spirit, too.

Miyajima

On our second day in Hiroshima, we took a train and ferry to Miyajima, a nearby island, to check out the floating torii gate of Itsukushima-jinja (shrine). You’ve probably seen pictures of the shrine and torii gate, both look like they’re floating on water at high tide.  (Here’s a photo at low tide.) The story is that commoners were not allowed access to the island, and the only way

they could was by boat after passing through the torii gate. We walked into the bay, saw a different ecosystem at work (crabs and other shellfish jockeying for position and nutrition), and placed coins on the torii gate for luck.

The Art of Bathing: Onsen at Kinosaki (by Kara & Mary)

The walk to the onsen

What we wore in Kinosaki

Ready to hit the streets and onsen

We think Mark looks a lot like Kinosaki's mascot

The best way to cool down

Showers and baths at home are pretty unceremonious. Bathing is done regularly, privately and (at least for us) pretty much on autopilot. We don't think about it much. And we certainly haven't invited friends and family to partake it in with us.

Kinosaki, a beautiful town in the northern coast, is an epicenter for practicing the art of bathing. It’s a town of hot springs where people wear yukata (formal robes that, for women, look a little like informal kimono) and geta (wooden sandals) in the streets as they move from onsen to onsen. (Onsen is a hot bath--hotter than any hot tub we've ever been in.) And bathing is a social event that’s central to good health and longevity. It’s done together. So, when in Kinosaki…

We arrived at our ryokan, another beautiful space that gave us access to seven of the public onsen in town, plus the private ones onsite.  Our host asked Maura and me to select yukata that we would wear during our stay (except for sleeping). Mark and Kara were provided with theirs. It was fun to look at the colors and patterns, and we selected ours under our host’s watchful eye.

There was only one problem. Now that we had them, we had absolutely no clue how to put them on—a fact that became painfully obvious later on.

Yukata-ing Up

There’s a precise way to wear yukata, and getting it wrong has implications. (For example, if you pull the right side over the left side instead of vice-versa, that’s dress for a funeral. Bad karma, people. Bad karma.) We found instructions, followed them as closely as we could, and were ready to hit the streets. Until we weren’t.

A staff member stopped by our room, made a clicking sound with her tongue, and set to work correcting our yukata mistakes. We were unwound and rewound into our garb, watching carefully because we would have to repeat her actions after each bathing experience. To be honest, it stressed me out a little bit.

We put on our geta, which was a new experience for us. They’re basically wooden platform flip-flops that have a groove cut out in the sole. These shoes force you to walk slowly, especially on the stone streets, unless you want to make a lot of noise or risk spraining an ankle—not on our agenda for the night. We arrived at the first onsen without incident.

What You Do at Onsen (by Kara)

At an onsen, you:

• Get undressed and put your things in a locker or basket.
• Enter the washing area, where you sit on a plastic stool, run water in a bucket and use a washcloth to wash your body. You also wash your hair.
• Rinse off until there are no more bubbles and rinse off the stool.
• Get into a bath that's bigger than a hot tub. You are in the bath with other people (girls and women). Some onsen are inside and some are outside. (I like the one that was outside--we sat in the water on rocks watching a waterfall.)
• You don't bring in a towel, but you can put your washcloth on your head to help you stay cool. Don't put the washcloth in the water!
• Stay in for as long as you want--usually between 5 and 10 minutes. It's hot!
• When you are done, go back to the locker room and change back into your clothes. 

Togetherness (by Mary)

We went to two onsen that evening—one before dinner and one after.  After getting out of the first onsen, we needed to get dressed again in yukata. Several older women (in various states of dress) rushed over to help us, showing us how to do this. Tradition is important here, and there’s pride in doing things correctly. I think they didn’t want us to be shamed by not being properly dressed. Women all over the world, at that very moment, were taking part in similar actions to provide guidance and assistance to their daughters, sisters, aunts, nieces, and perfect strangers as part of a larger sisterhood. That’s just what we do.

The second onsen was my favorite. We were getting the hang of this bathing thing and having some fun with it. The women were incredibly social, and there were lots of toddlers and girls running around the dressing room, too. Honestly, it felt like a girls night out minus the cocktails. Women talked and laughed in groups together, and it was no big deal that we were all as naked as the day we were born. (Mark’s experience was a little different—as you might expect, it was a bit more subdued and he said he could hear the laughter of the women through the walls.)

For obvious reasons, we don’t have photos of the onsen we visited. We do have recommendations, however, if you want to travel to Kinosaki to experience this for yourself.

Impressions and Lessons of Hiroshima (by Maura and Mary)

View of Hiroshima from our hotel

Atomic Bomb Dome

We arrived in Hiroshima in the early afternoon. It's a booming city that sits in a bowl with mountains to the west, north and east, and the Pacific Ocean to the south. We stayed in the tallest building in Hiroshima, and have a great view of the modern buildings that now make up the city.

Peace Memorial Park

Children's Peace Memorial

We learned a lot here about the devastating effects of nuclear warfare (and war in general), the power of forgiveness, and the need to continuously work for peace. There were moments of horror balanced with the understanding that peace is attainable. That might be the biggest lesson Hiroshima has to offer all of us.

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum (by Maura)
After walking around for a bit, we went to the Peace Memorial Museum. It is all about World War II, the bombing of Hiroshima, and the need for peace in the world.

Here are some things that I found interesting:

Hiroshima was where the first atomic bomb ever made was dropped by the US on August 6, 1945 at 8:15 am. It destroyed 90% of the buildings in the city--only a few places remained, such as what's now called the Atomic Bomb Dome. Between August 6 and the end of 1945, more than 140,000 citizens of Hiroshima died as a result of the initial blast, burns, or illnesses caused by radiation. Survivors today still suffer the effects.

Hiroshima used to be a city of academics, and then served as a military stronghold during the Pacific War. After the atomic bomb was dropped, it was named the city of peace. 

Many citizens here work to make sure that this kind of devastation never happens again. Since 1945, every time a nuclear bomb is tested anywhere in the world, the mayor of Hiroshima sends an urgent letter to the leader of the country pleading for an end to nuclear proliferation and testing. The last letter we saw was dated October 2013. It was addressed to President Obama.

Memorial to those who died as result of A-bomb

There's a famous story about a girl named Sadako Sasaki who lived in Japan when Hiroshima was attacked. Her house was 1.6 kilometers from where the bomb had exploded but somehow she survived. She was later diagnosed with leukemia because of the radiation. She was told that by making 1,000 paper cranes  she would heal so she started to make them. She died after making 644 cranes. After that her classmates made the rest of the cranes that she set out to make. Once a year people from all over the world make paper cranes and send them to The Peace Memorial Museum to remember Sadako. In fact, my Sunday school class made cranes two years ago to be part of the celebration and remembrance. 

Letters from mayor of Hiroshima

Epilogue (by Mary)
It was a lot to take in. We watched several videos about the people who died that day and first-hand accounts of the survivors. We looked at a singed tricycle that a father had buried alongside his three year old son who had been riding it that day, which he excavated forty years later. We read gut-wrenching stories about the injuries the bomb caused, and saw the remains of clothing that had been on the bodies of victims during the attack. The intense human suffering that war causes is on display here--there's no escaping it. The girls had a lot of questions, mostly about "why", and we tried to answer them as best we could.

One thing we noted was the tone of the exhibits. We expected more finger-pointing at the US and a sense of anger about the event from the Japanese perspective. But, overall, that's not how we experienced the museum or our time here. The exhibit reiterated over-and-over again the role Japan had in the war, including some statements about relations with China and Korea that we hadn't read at other museums. It was almost matter-of-fact about the US use of the A-bomb against Japan. And that surprised all of us. 

(As a side note, we don't read kanji. So we can't be entirely sure that the Japanese words and English translations were exactly the same in terms of tone. If there's one thing we've learned, it's that  words don't always translate well from language to language.)

A few things we don't want to forget or that we want to check into further:

• Hiroshima (unlike Tokyo, Kyoto and many other cities across Japan) had not been bombed prior to August 6. The US had selected four cities that could have been targets, and the weather in Hiroshima was just right the day of the strike. (This is the same reason Nagasaki was chosen for the second atomic bomb, dropped less than a week later.) According to what we read, the US military selected a city that had not been heavily bombed because they wanted to see what the effects of an atomic bomb alone would be. When the bomb was dropped from the Enola Gay, two other planes were monitoring the effects and taking photographs.
• Hiroshima was expecting to be bombed, so when the many junior high school students were engaged in demolishing buildings so that fires would be isolated throughout the city. Many of the casualties were students who were working on the demolition, as well as Chinese and Korean workers who had been forced into labor.
• In addition to ending the Pacific War (American perspective), another reason given for the US dropping the bomb on Japan was to demonstrate the US's power to the Soviet Union. The German's had already surrendered in May 1945 -- terms were being settled and territory divided among the Allied countries, and the Soviet Union was staking claims, so the US wanted to back them down. They calculated that an atomic strike would do just that.
• Hiroshima and Nagasaki lead the world in working for peaceful end to nuclear disarmament through a variety of associations, including Mayors for Peace, which meets every other year and includes mayors from all over the world.

Birthday Cake, Sacred Deer and the Big Buddha at Nara

With her birthday cake

We arrived in Nara the afternoon of Maura's 11th birthday. Being Maura, she was game for almost anything--her only request was that we have cake to celebrate. After ditching our bags, we had a fabulous dinner of kamameshi (rice dish cooked in an iron pot), then we started our cake quest.

Feeding the sacred deer

Much to our chagrin, things close down early in Nara. Sweet shops and grocery store--closed. We were saved by a nearby 7-Eleven that had one piece of chocolate cake on the shelf. We added a single Pocky stick (chocolate covered sweet) to serve as as candle and voila! All in all, it was a memorable day for our girl. (BTW: Maura and Nara rhyme. We planned it that way.)

Deer Park Inn

Todai-ji

Daibutsu (Great Buddha)

Mark reaching out to replica of Daibutsu's hand

We've stayed in a lot of interesting places for the past three weeks--from modern apartments to business hotels, from ryokans to a monastery. But a bunkhouse in a forest teeming with sacred deer was an unexpected twist planned by the husband. We had a private bunk room for four (the girls got the top bunks). Our host was in the process of fixing up the inn, which was clean and quirky and interesting. We met a couple from France and two students from Hong Kong (originally from Chicago and Colorado Springs). It kind of felt like a youth hostel. Or a commune. Take your pick.

About Those Deer

Kara squeezing through enlightenment hole

In pre-Buddhist times, deer were considered "messengers of the gods." Today, the deer in Nara are National Treasures and they have run of the town. You can feed them special crackers if you wish to partake. (I did not wish to be mobbed by the mangy creatures, but the rest of my family members had no problem with being chased and slobbered upon.) After watching an older woman sweeping up after them, I had a whole new appreciation for the practice of taking off one's shoes before entering a home.

Why Go to Nara? 
Once the 8th century "deciders" determined that Japan should have a permanent capital, Nara became the "it" town. However, as Buddhism teaches, nothing is permanent. After about 70 years, the capital was shifted to Kyoto. According to what we read, Nara had a pretty good run.

And Maura...

The main attraction was the Todai-ji, a temple which houses one of Japan's three Diabustsu (Great Buddhas). The den holding the Buddha statue is the largest wooden building in the world, and it's much smaller than the original building that burned down in the 1300's. It's truly a remarkable sight, and the statue itself is a work of human ingenuity. 

I tend to focus on the lotus flowers at temples like this. They've grown in significance for me personally because (to me) they're symbolic of being open to -- or closed off from -- both the immense joy and suffering of life.

And Mark (terrible photo due to uncontrollable laughter)

After viewing the Great Buddha, Mark, Maura and Kara joined throngs of school children to see if they could squeeze through a hole in the base of a wooden column. As the story goes, if you can get through the hole (which is as big as the Daibutsu's nostril), enlightenment is yours. Even the girls struggled a bit,  but watching Mark wiggle and squirm his way through was hilarious.People stuck (no pun intended) around to watch, and it was with great joy that he secured his future status.

Surprises

Our family post-enlightenment

I have a theory that the more people you talk to, the more interesting things you stumble upon (or are led to). When we met a woman lunching outside of her office, we struck up a conversation. She asked if we had been up to the rooftop of the building. We hadn't, and she told us how to get to the top. We're so glad we did--we were rewarded with a beautiful view of the mountains, the city, and some benches where we could sit and take it all in.

Same pagoda from rooftop

Garden in Nara

Girls with mascot of Nara