Day 12 Kyoto: Temple, shrine and meditation

Evan:

    Everyone in Japan has been so nice thus far, & my second host-family is also like that. My host mom, host dad & host twin brothers are so generous & kind, even when I mix up the names of my host-brothers. They let me help make Tako-yaki & gave us some umeboshi (pickled plums) to try. Even their dog チーズ ("Cheese") is so nice! I'm getting sick of waving goodbye to such nice people, but today I had to do it one more time. 

Grant is staying with the same host family, so my host dad took Grant, me and my host mom to the train station, and my host mom led us all the way to Osaka station.

From there Grant and I took the train ourselves to Kyoto. It wasn't as difficult as I had imagined, everyone in the group made it to Kyoto okay, we were even 5 minutes early.

After dropping off out large packs at the traditional Japanese inn in Kyoto, we headed to Kiyomizu-dera, which has the "love" temple inside. It was high up on the hill, but the long trek uphill was worth the view of Kyoto we got to see! Inside, we drew Omikugi (fortune-telling sticks). I got no luck. Sensei said the fortune said I might die! (Not really I'm sure). We saw heavy traditional poles & did the walk between the love stones. 

 The Love stones are 2 rocks about 30 feet apart from each other. You have to walk from one stone to the other with your eyes closed. If you did it, you would find love. It was a lot harder than it seemed. We drank from the clear-water mountain waterfall (the Kiyomizu part) so we would live long. 

After Kiyomizu-dera, we had lunch (sukiya restaurant) & headed for the Inari shrine. It was phenomenal! There were thousands of 10-foot tall red-painted torii gates. Some of us walked up hundreds of steps to the top of the mountain. It was a 30-minute, leg-breaking challenge to climb to the top. It was such a beautiful shrine. There was so much to see, I wish we would have had more time, though after that climb I'm glad to be headed to meditation now!

Tami:

    We just finished meditating and it was a very unique experience. We all sat on top of たん (tans) and had to sit up straight, have our hands placed in a certain way, breathe, and try to forget everything. 

The monk leading the meditation also mentioned that we might get hit. Nagai-sensei explained to us that this may happen if our breathing is off, or we need to being our focus back on our meditation. It's not really punishment. Evan volunteered before we started to show how to get ready for the hit, but it turned out that Evan didn't really get hit like we thought. During the third and final session of our meditating, the monk went over to Mr. Zurn. We heard six loud slaps and then it went quiet again. Nobody else volunteered except Mr. Zurn.

I don't remember how long we were meditating in total, but I think everyone was able to find a little peace within themselves at the end.

Now we are on the train headed back to our Japanese traditional inn. From there, we get free time to eat dinner and do whatever we want. Our curfew is 11 PM so we get quite a bit of time. Today was a busy but fun day. I can't wait till tomorrow when we get the entire day to ourselves!