ONENESS
As I begin this blog, we are waiting for the airport van to take us from our hotel in Hiroshima to the airport to fly to Tokyo and then fly home to Boston with a stopover in Detroit. It's morning here, but back home the day is just ending. The difference in time is 13 hours, and the distance is about 7000 miles. Languages are different and so are customs, but I feel a strong connection to the people. Here in Japan, people carry their litter home with them, and public areas are super clean and modern. The streets are wide, and sidewalks havè raised lines for the blind to follow to help them navigate safely. People help each other and are universally polite and orderly. There is a single line to enter trains, buses and trolleys. Stations are modern and serve as shopping malls as well as centers of transit. It seems that commercialism is universal, as is the need for economic prosperity. I am impressed with how modern all the cities are and the rebuilding after WWII. Being in Hiroshima, the devastation from war and the need for peace are especially evident. History is alive in every city and town, with Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples sitting amongst high-rise buildings. There are many people on the streets, and everyone is very polite and considerate to each other and to us foreigners.
David and I arrived in the midst of a typhoon, and our plane was diverted to Nagoya, two hours away from Tokyo. We were tired after traveling for almost 24 hours, disoriented and spoke no Japanese. It was late, and we didn’t know how to find our way to our hotel in Tokyo. David called Chika, our tour guide in Tokyo, where it was planned to meet, and she told David to take a train to Nagoya station and then catch a bullet train to Tokyo, and then how to find a taxi to get to the hotel. Without her explicit directions and the help of two women on our first train who used sign language to let us know where to get off, we would not have made it.
This spirit of cooperation and goodwill marked our trip. I loved every meal. I got better at using chopsticks and learned to remember to always keep my area where I was sitting and eating spotless and to say thank you in Japanese. I give thanks for my stamina and my walking poles, and my ability to keep up and travel.
We visited many temples and shrines, and I learned that each one had a distinct stamp called a goshuin. It was given in recognition of the offering of a sutra. I bought a special book to receive this stamp, now given to tourists for 300 yen and carried it with me to each Temple I visited. Being at the temples inspired me to write an impromptu haiku.
Oneness is the goal
Elusive precious flower
Falling gently here.
More to say, but we are off now. ..Safely home as I send this out.
.