Ah, it just keeps on getting better. Today we did NOT go to the local temple. Today we went to three temples in an 80 kilometer ride around this part of the prefecture. But before we reached the first temple we spotted a thatched roof and stopped at a lifestyle museum. The main building was an old farm house with the old architecture you see in the old Japanese movies. It had tatami floors and sliding paper doors. There were no ceilings and you looked up to the underside of the thatching. There were two rooms with tokonoma, the decorative place of honor in a home. One was for entertaining high level guests and the other was the family's living room. In the kitchen there was a team of men making soba noodles (large noodles made from buckwheat) in the old-fashioned style. We toured the farm market attached to the main building and saw many examples of why Japanese cuisine will never be classed among those favored by Joe Sixpack. There were dried mushrooms and preserved fish, roasted grasshoppers and tofu, nota and sour plums, with many other delicacies besides. There were also many handicrafts including fabric, basketry, and wood work.

The first temple was hidden in the hills and was the perfect vision of a Buddhist temple. It lay among giant cedar trees with a stream noisily babbling past. We came in through the series of gates to the arched bride that crossed the stream and then up a long flight of granite stairs to the last gate. Inside were the temple grounds with the main building ahead and various outbuildings around a gravel yard decorated with sculpted trees. There was a belfry with the temple bell, a four foot dome of metal intricately laced with Buddhist themes.

And the peacefulness that has settled over that place was awesome. It was like a vacation from the world. Once we crossed the first gate we could feel it laying it's touch on our minds. Once we reached the courtyard we felt that even a raised voice was impossible. While we were there a car delivered a priest to one of the upper buildings. The crunch of tires on the gravel seemed an obscenity in that place. I left there thinking I would like to stay and learn the secrets of the Buddha but I know better than to try that.

Next we stopped for lunch at a little tea room in a small hillside village. We had soba ramen and rice wrapped in seaweed. There was devil's tongue in the ramen and tofu in the miso soup. For desert we had fruit cocktail with red beans and ice cream. We drank green tea with the meal.

The next temple was on the itinerary because Wakana's father said there was a statue that looked like me. As we climbed the hill to the temple grounds we turned aside to a grove in which there were statues of each of the Buddha's 16 disciples. We stopped in front of one with a large belly and they patted it and said that was it. If I were one to take offense easily I might have. We took some pictures and went on to view the grounds. Later Makoto-san explained that the statue was of the disciple that devoted himself to bringing happiness and comfort into the world and that he had a big belly because he took into himself all the bad luck of the people who came to him. He was a laughing person and a caring person. Makoto-san says that is why I resemble that disciple. I guess I can live with that.

The temple grounds were a study in what you can do when you train and sculpt vegetation and blend it with rock and water. There were simple stone Japanese lanterns set in small points with water around them and bushes and leaves and peace and happiness and quiet and... Take it as read that it was a lovely place. At one point I sat on ck and contemplated a tree standing on one side. It seemed as if that tree was the whole purpose for the existance of the universe. And if that one tree were to die or be blown down the whole temple would cease to exist. I needed a priest to discuss this with but none were in evidence.

Just inside the gate was a little cluter of rocks with a bamboo tube stuck into it. There was a sign, a cartoon that indicated you were to listen to the tube. The sound that floated out of there was otherworldly and beautiful. Apparently there was a pot under the stones and the water dripping on or into the pot made a lovely chiming bell note that seems to float up out of the pipe.

The last temple was a combination shrine and temple. It was the home of a giant tengu mask. Tengu are the shinto spirits with the red faces and the huge noses and this one was enormous. The mask must have been 5 feet tall and the nose was at least as long. This temple was in a village so there was no aura of peace, or at least what peacefulness was there was frequently disturbed by the sound of engines.

Now we are home and headed for bed. Tomorrow is our wedding day. Need my strength for that!