Author: baraimondomecom

Japan has a lot of small details and practices that enhance your day’s experience. Such as:

• When you go into a restaurant, you don’t put your bag on the floor or hang it on the chair behind you. Instead, you are provided with a basket for your things. Keeps your gear out of the way and safe and sound.

• There is a machine that you run your umbrella through to dry it out so it doesn’t make a mess everywhere. 

• You know sometimes when you are in a laundromat and someone’s dry clothes are in the last dryer and you have to take them out to put yours in? Although in Japan they have a washer/dryer combination, if you need to take someone’s stuff out, there is a polite card you leave so the person knows what happened. 

• Some bathrooms have a special button you can press to generate sounds so that your neighbor doesn’t know your business.

• You are expected to preserve others’ tranquility, including not making too much noise with your laptop.

• Phone booths. Yes, phone booths!

Then there are actual little things:

• Garbage trucks and other vehicles.

• The tiniest, most adorable camper I have ever seen.

• Bathrooms.

There are big things as well:

• The public transportation system that goes everywhere, including to the famed Jigokudani Yaen-Koen, or Snow Monkey Park. And, by the way, every train, street car, tram, and bus runs on time. Every time.

• Many cities have walking and biking paths alongside a river. That is, there is a path on each side. No cutting corners.

• Enormous apples. 

Attention to beauty is everywhere, from the tidiness of the avenues -where workers sweep stray leaves into the trash – to even the street art. Check out The Real Street Hole Covers (and Sidewalk Tiles) of Nagano. 

When not riding the train or bus, people walk or bike. They are constantly on the move, not sitting in an SUV in rush hour traffic. Children walk to school – on their own. I’m talking five- and six-year-olds. Crossing the street is safe. You wait for the pedestrian light to turn green, and boom, everyone moves as a mass. You don’t have to press the button for the walk sign or even look both ways. Everyone follows the traffic rules. 

So, there are lots of things to like about Japan. The most intriguing to me is this: You know when you get out of the shower, the mirror fogs up and you have to smear it all over with a towel in order to see your sweet, charming face? This is what the mirror looks like in Japan. 

It’s like a spirit looking after you. 

In short, Japan is a very easy and mellow place to travel. Serene, even.

Japan is located in the “Ring of Fire,” an area of the world with serious geological phenomena such as movement of tectonic plates and the existence of many volcanoes and hot springs. In Japan there are around 25,000 hot spring sources. Proving that Japanese people know a good thing when they see it, they have transformed these founts into onsens, facilities and inns that facilitate bathing in these precious pools. Back in the day, going to a public bath was the only way to come clean, as homes did not have indoor plumbing. Today, turnout at onsens has dropped, but if you don’t go you don’t know what you’re missing.

Sapporo is in the north of Japan, and it is colder than Tokyo. During the winter it gets tons of snow. In one day in February of this year it received 129 centimeters (50 inches!) of the white stuff in only 12 hours. During the fall it is known for the rich and vibrant hues of its ginkoes, maples, oaks, and other trees. 

While in Sapporo we decided to take a bike ride around the Jozankei Onsen just outside the city. Our guide drove us to the Shikotsu-Toya National Park. As we grew closer to the park I started noticing patches of white on the ground. Some of that Sapporo snow. The further we drove the more flakes covered the grass. Oh, right, this was a mountain bike trip!

Eventually our guide parked the van, and we hopped onto our sturdy bikes and set off. After a short time on a busy road we crossed a bridge from which we could look down into the valley and see the flowing stream. The vivid shades of the trees, the crisp in the air, the steam of the water, and the aroma of the conifers combined to settled into my body to create a rich feeling. 

Soon we parked our bikes and made our way along the spring, with the mist rising among the Japanese tourists and the array of sacred objects. It was a moving combination of nature, spirituality, and seeking. 

Next we rode through the tiny village, where shoppers were purchasing lovely items, hungry travelers were lunching, and locals were pedaling from here to there. 

After we finished the ride we took a soak in the onsen. I knew from my experience at a Korean spa at home what to expect. Hot baths are separated by gender, you shower thoroughly before stepping in, and you don’t wear any clothes. You keep your clothes in a locker and wear the key around your wrist on a bracelet.

I was sitting in the indoor onsen for a while when I noticed women going in and out of an area through a glass door. I was curious, so I passed through the door as well. What awaited me was a lovely outdoor natural pool, with greenery all around and mountains not far in the distance. I settled in, sensing the cool air on my face, breathing in the trees, feeling the steam, and secretly glancing at the beautiful faces of the women around me. This is the kind of moment I came all this way to experience.

Thanks for reading! If you would like to subscribe:

Also, feel free to comment! Your message will not appear right away, because WordPress requires me to approve it before posting. But it will show up, and thanks!

Thanks for viewing! If you would like to subscribe:

We have been in Tokyo for a few days, and I already feel mentally stuffed. Here are some observations. First, Tokyo is big. Really big. Fourteen million people live in Tokyo proper, with 41 million in the greater Tokyo area. That’s some packed subway cars! Tokyo is the second largest metropolitan economy in the world, after New York, and is also home to the world’s busiest train station. Also the location of an 18 floor stationary store that spans two buildings, guaranteeing you’ll never run out of ink. Tokyo is nearly three times the size of New York City. Vast.

The next thing you notice about Tokyo is how clean it is. The streets are neat, the sidewalks are spotless, the cars are spic and span, even the garbage trucks are sparkly. This in spite of there being very few trash cans. You are expected to hold on to your refuse until you find a good place to throw it out, like your home or hotel or a convenience store. And folks really do this; they do not cheat. 

There is a lot of attention to comfort and detail. When you buy something in a store on a rainy day they cover your shopping bag with plastic to keep it dry. 

You can go anywhere you want on a train or subway. There are over 30,00 kilometers of track in Japan. (That’s over 18,000 miles for you Americans!) Fares to travel on the Tokyo Metro run from 170 to 800 yen, around a little over a dollar to slightly more than five dollars. There are bajillions of people in every station, but everything runs smoothly. When you are waiting for a train there is a marker on the platform where you should stand, cuz that’s where the door will open. People queue up to board. The trains are quiet on the outside and super quiet on the inside. Japanese people are careful not to disturb each other with loud conversation. You will never hear some dude on the phone in a Tokyo train sharing details of his latest root canal. 

In addition to train travel, you see people walking everywhere, and biking as well. Young, old, spandex or jeans, bike riders are ubiquitous. My favorite bicyclists are the women who carry two children at a time, one in front, one behind. The moms are wearing dresses and, maybe or maybe not, sensible shoes. I think they have electric assist for the hills, but still, those are some heavy duty quads. Almost nobody wears a helmet. 

There also are bike parking lots all over the place. It’s pretty cool to see that so many people pedal that they need all that space for their wheels. 

Japan’s culture is one of respect. There is a lot of “arigato gozaimasu,” which is a formal way of saying “thank you.” Also a lot of bowing. When we were about to board the Shinkensen we watched a woman on the platform bow in its direction. Then a group of people got on the train and cleaned it, vacuuming the floor and wiping down the seats with disinfectant. When they came out they bowed to us passengers waiting to board. 

All this bowing and cleanliness feels very humbling. It makes me want to be careful not to make a mess and not to be a bother.

Further observations:

*This blog entry has been edited to remove images of people’s faces, as I learned that it is considered an invasion of privacy to post them.

Thanks for reading! If you would like to subscribe:

After months of indecisiveness, then planning, we are now in Tokyo. We sucked up the 14 hour flight in economy class tucked into a middle and a window seat. They say you should get up once an hour on a long flight and walk around. We timed our getting up to when the guy in the aisle seat (lucky fella!) got up, then made a loop in the cabin before squeezing back into our seats. It was not as bad as I expected. 

For a couple of hours I was engrossed in a movie titled The Way We Talk. (I thought it was a Japanese movie so would get me primed for my adventure in that country. Later found out it was made in Hong Kong. Didn’t spoil it for me though!) It is the story of three deaf friends navigating a world that does not welcome them as they are, but seeks to make them appear as hearing as possible. Sophie was raised with no sign language at all and received a cochlear implant at a young age. She speaks very well and receives praise and opportunities for this. She is chosen as a “cochlear implant ambassador” and makes videos expressing how great the implant has made her life. Alan is another ambassador, who grew up learning to speak using an implant and also using sign language. His good friend Wolf comes from a strong deaf family and is proud of his culture and language, even though he does not have the same doors open to him as Sophie and Wolf.

Early on, Sophie states that she wishes every deaf person could have a cochlear implant and deafness would disappear. Wolf is not too happy about this, and their relationship is off to a rocky start. Over time Sophie becomes curious about signing, and Wolf teaches her. The movie unfolds with pretty much everyone –  Sophie, Sophie’s mom, Alan, Wolf, Wolf’s friends, and maybe even the cochlear implant company reps –  growing as they examine up close and personal all the ways to communicate and how to make room for each.

The movie showcases many aspects of the lives of families and deaf people, including the experiences of parents who think that not allowing their children to sign will “normalize” them, the experiences of deaf children who receive full, accessible language at home and their drive to find it everywhere, and the necessity of all deaf people to forge their own identity and sway others to see them in their full humanity. In that way the movie is not Japanese or Hong Kongese, but universal.

Thanks for reading! If you would like to subscribe:

We are preparing for our next big escapade. It’s time for an international trip, to a country we have never been to. We’re going to Japan!

Preparing for travel is so complicated these days. There are all kinds of YouTube videos to watch so you can see what you are going to see before you see it, apps for train tickets, currency conversion, and language translation, and search engines so that you can find out everything you think you need to know but maybe don’t. I dunno, maybe all of this makes the journey too easy. 

In the mid 1980s Mr. K and I longed for adventure. We worked at full-time jobs with only two weeks of vacation a year. We had a lease on an apartment. And a routine. We felt pretty rooted to where we were. We would read stories about people who had criss-crossed the globe, and we would feel envious. We would go to lectures (back in the day you had to do everything in person, how inconvenient!) where travelers – who did not seem all that different from us – explained how they were able to move from country to country on the cheap, sometimes picking up some money by working, but also living extremely frugally. We read a book “Miles from Nowhere,” which still sits on my bookshelf today, about a couple who bicycled around the world. We really wished we were the kind of people who could do something like that. If only we didn’t have to work. If only we didn’t have an apartment. If only . . .

At some point we realized we really didn’t have all that many onlies. If they could do it why couldn’t we? What we needed was a plan. We read everything we could find about going abroad, saved every penny we could manage, figured out the best gear that would hold up under any circumstance, and cut loose. We wanted to go everywhere.

We obtained a hoity-toity American Express card, not because we wanted to impress people when we whipped it out (at that time I felt it was pretty impressive), but because AmX wouldn’t charge a fee for their travelers checks. Plus, your loved ones could write letters to you, and the company would hold them for you in their offices, which were located all over the world. No email or social media posts. A camera with film you had to send away to be developed. No immediate way to be in touch. The two of us would be the only ones who knew where we were or what we were doing.

We started off with $99 tickets to Belgium on the budget airline People Express. And for the next 16 months we traveled through Belgium, France, Spain, Morocco, Italy, Yugoslavia (a forgotten country, it seems), Greece, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Kenya, Uganda, India, and Thailand.

Our backpacks held everything we needed for daily life. Clothes for warm weather, clothes for cold weather, tent, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, stove, cooking pots, food. 

We used paper maps and books and information we learned from other backpackers in hostels and campgrounds. In India we picked up something that looked like a phone book which included timetables for all the trains in the country. App, schmap!

One of my favorite memories was sleeping in our tent on the roof of a mud hut in a Kurdish village in central Turkey. At night the sky was lit by the billions of stars in the Milky Way. I had never seen anything like it. I stood there in the middle of the desert, staring up, imprinting the vision on my brain so that I could always return to it. It was a spectacle I will never forget. To be so far from home, in (what to me was) a desolate place, in the middle of the night, with sleeping strangers all around, and experience this gift from the heavens. It changed me. 

When we go to Japan, I have a funny feeling we will never be all that far from a city or town. Our backpacks will contain mostly our clothes, maybe some special tchotchkes that we purchase. We’ll have sim chips for our phones. And there’s always wifi! We’ll be able to send photos and messages from pretty much anywhere to pretty much anyone at pretty much any time. At the same time I hope I don’t let instant connectivity interfere with my connectivity to the place. I’ll be sure to look for those moments of quiet and awe, when I can be subsumed by the miraculous workings of the unfathomable universe. 

Thanks for reading! If you would like to subscribe:

One of our stops during our latest trip was one of my favorite places, Lake George. I first visited Lake George when I was eight years old. I was with my family, and we were tooling around in our travel trailer. There were six of us in our family. Our parents slept on the dinette which folded down into a teeny bed. Each of us kids had a bunk of our own. I loved being outside during the day and sleeping in our cozy little home at night. It seemed like a great way to see the world. Or at least a few states anyway.

On one of our journeys we stayed at Lake George. The Town of Lake George is located at the south point of the lake, which is set in the Adirondacks. I don’t remember much about this first trip there, but I do remember standing in a little gift shop made of logs and thinking that it was magical. A real-life log cabin.

Mr. K and I visited Lake George in 1990 just after we found out our Darling was deaf, when she was ten months old. We brought the book “Joy of Signing” with us and feverishly looked up signs when we wanted to say something. “Bird!” “Water!” “Mountain!” We took a ride on a steamship called the Minehaha, which blasted a loud whistle when it was about to leave the dock. Can she hear that? we wondered. After a while we stopped wondering what she could and couldn’t hear and memorized the book. 

Our next sojourn there was for a Half Ironman triathlon in 2019. It was memorable, in part because RunningBarb forgot to register. I went to pick up my bib the night before the race, and the guy at the desk told me my name wasn’t on the list. Guess I was too busy training to sign up. Luckily they let me in anyway. We stayed at a funny 1950s style motel called Adirondack Oasis. When I went to the registration office the lady pulled out a spiral, lined notebook, like the kind you used to – well – take notes in, and checked off my name. For soap there were two bars of Cashmere Bouquet, each of which lasted for one shower.

The scenery for the tri was stunning. The sun rose over the lake in the morning, casting shades of pink across the sky. During the swim the lake water was crystal clear, which was sheer delight. The first four miles of the bike leg were pure uphill. At the time I did not have a fancy watch, and I never took into account elevation. I should have known that a race in the mountains that starts at a lake would have some uphill, right? But I was happy for the downhill at the end. The run was along the beautiful Warren County bikeway. I am happy to report I finished second in my age group! Out of two! 

For dinner we went to Mario’s Restaurant, which has become my favorite restaurant in Lake George. It is (another!) 1950s style establishment, with real tablecloths and candles, and waitresses that don’t call you “guys” and give you plenty of time to enjoy your meal. 

On this outing we camped at the Lake George Battleground Campground, biked the Warren County Bikeway, listened to the song of the Minehaha, and dined at Mario’s. The memories threaded together as I recalled anew the many gifts in my life. 

Thanks for reading! If you would like to subscribe:

Mr. K and I have been gone for about a week now, tooling around the northeast United States, living in our home sweet home camper van, seeing friends, and lovin’ life. We have a few days between social gatherings and decided to spend a few days on Cape Cod. While we were there we thought we could take one of the ferries to a nearby island, like Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket. Being a lover of the classic novel Moby Dick, it seemed to me that Nantucket was the better choice. Sounded like a scrubby place full of whalers, sea captains, and adventure. “Thar she blows” and all that.

We boarded the ferry along with a few hundred other tourists, all seemingly landlubbers like us. I quickly noticed that they were not just landlubbers – they were very attractive lubbers. Well-coifed – well, at least until the ferry started moving – and expensively dressed. Some of the women wore long, flowing dresses with a lovely print. The men were clad in fashionable shorts with complementing jackets. They looked like they were on their way to a wedding, or a tennis club fundraiser.

I felt like I had walked onto the stage of a Ralph Lauren photo shoot. I had never seen so many blond-headed people in one place in my life. And the sun glasses! I squinted to read the brands. Ray-Ban, Prada, Kate Spade, Versace. No Captain Ahab here. I felt conspicuous in my biking shorts and running shirt from the B&A Half Marathon from 2019, with peepers from L.L. Bean that I bought in 2017. Everyone was pretty nice, though. 

We had brought our bikes and set off to explore the island. The boat people matched the homes. Sprawling, stately saltboxes, with expansive manicured green lawns. And the flowers! Hydrangea blooms as big as your head and in every shade of violet. Luscious roses, delicate Queen Anne’s lace, and vibrant goldenrod. Later I read that there is poison ivy on the island, but honestly, I think that is illegal. Gardeners were out there digging, planting, trimming, watering, and sweating. It takes a lot to stay beautiful, that’s for sure. 

The Nantucket tourist office touts its bike paths, and there are a few that run across a large part of the island. I had visions of pedaling through the woods, with the smell of pine trees and wildflowers. However, they mostly ran along a busy highway and sometimes stopped and started sporadically. All the same, we did get to see some beaches and lighthouses.

As it got late in the afternoon we grabbed some ice cream and boarded the return ferry. I learned a valuable lesson on this trip: Don’t expect a place to be the way it was represented in a made up story written in 1851 by a guy who had never been there. 

We got back to our campsite and ate a dinner of rice and beans. We had bought some wine in the local grocery store and opened it. It tasted spoiled. That’s the life for RunningBarb!

Thanks for reading! If you would like to subscribe:

Did you ever see those YouTube videos about the guys who find a fish, or a turtle, or some other sea life all twisted up in a net or fishing line and unable to move? The guys grab a knife and cut the netting away – slash slish slash – so that the little guy can swim off. Heroes! 

Well, RunningBarb had a creature-saving experience of her own recently. I came in from a run and perused the garden in back of my house. (Or what passes for a garden, anyway.) I noticed the grate over my basement window well was out of place. And it was twisted up with some netting I had put over my herbs to prevent them from being eaten by anything with more than two legs. Next, I saw a black elongated object wound up in the mix. Gasp. It was a snake that had slithered through the netting and gotten stuck. He must have really tried hard to loosen himself, because it was all a big mess.

At first I thought he was a goner, but then I saw him move slightly. Okay, it’s not too late. I ran into my house and grabbed a pair of scissors. This was not going to be easy. The netting was digging into his skin. How do I fit a pair of scissors in there without hurting Mr. Slither? I started by trying to cut around him as much as possible, so he would not be stuck to the larger piece of netting. He really couldn’t move his head much at that point. Then I realized my scissors hadn’t been sharpened in 143 years. What I needed were some good tools! Back into the house for some real scissors and my pocketknife. I was able to slice away more of the netting, and I could slide the knife between his skin and the net without hurting him. I was making progress.

By now his head was loose, and he was darting at my hands, flashing his tongue, and trying to bite me. I was pretty sure that my guy was non-venomous, but what do I know from snakes? Anyway, I did not fancy a trip to urgent care. “Nature of the problem?” “Snake bite.” “Huh?” 

Into the shed for some leather gloves for protection. How do I handle his crazy head? Maybe grab it to keep it still? But – snakes!

I kept cutting and cutting, and, to my amazement, eventually he was free. RunningBarb is a hero!

Not really. I was the one who spread the netting out in the first place. It was my job to fix the problem. To be fair, I never imagined such a fat snake would be able to sneak into those teeny tiny net openings. And once he was released I could see he was no lightweight either. He looked to be around six feet long and two inches wide across his neck. Or whatever it is that snakes have under their chin. Mouth. What have you. 

But now I know better. I gathered up all the netting and threw it in the trash. I hope all critters, far and wide, enjoy seasoning their wildlife food with my parsley, basil, and rosemary.

Last I saw Mr. Slither, he was making his way towards my basement door, looking for a way in. I hope he thought twice about entering. Dude, haven’t we had enough excitement for one day?

Thanks for reading! If you would like to subscribe:

I have just read a fascinating account of a woman who, among other things, lived for 12 years on a cave. On purpose! Or, to fulfill a purpose, you might say.

Diane Perry was born in London in 1943. Her father ran a fish and seafood shop. Her mother stayed home and raised Diane and her brother. Everything looked pretty typical from the outside. But from the inside, Diane’s inside, to be more specific, it was not. Diane never felt as though she belonged there. She liked being alone and was drawn to the food, customs, and culture of the East, even though she did not know anyone from that part of the world. She also knew that when she grew up she wanted to be a nun, although she did not know exactly what that entailed. 

Her mother was a spiritualist, holding seances in her home and seemingly communicating with beings who, well, were not in the room. Combined with her natural curiosity, this led Diane to all sorts of unanswerable questions like “Is there a God?” “Why do we suffer?”  “How do we become perfect?”

Then, as an eighteen year old she borrowed a library book titled Mind Unshaken by John Walters. Halfway through reading it she announced “I’m a Buddhist.”

This guided her on a path of learning and discovery that would last to this day. (And, as she believes, will continue into her subsequent incarnations.) She moved to India, partnered with a guru, and became ordained as a Buddhist nun (the first Western woman to do so), receiving the name Drubgyu Tenzin Palmo. She lived in a monastery for six years, the only woman in a group of 100. Then her teacher suggested she go up into the mountains of northern India, where she could focus on her spiritual development. With others, she identified a cave at 13,200 feet elevation which, with a little improvement, became her abode. She spent the next 12 years there, growing her food, hauling her water, and sleeping in a two and a half foot by two and a half foot meditation box. She spent most of her time in meditation, with the last three years in full retreat. This meant total isolation.

We don’t know much about the nature of her spiritual experience during those years, because that is not something she chose to talk about. She did say there were times when she felt like her body was flying, when she experienced “incredible awareness and clarity when everything becomes very vivid,” and she felt “bliss.” The goal of all of this was to understand the nature of the mind. 

After all that time, what pulled her out of her retreat? Boredom? Hunger? Cold?

No, it was the police knocking at her door (rock?), informing her that she had to leave India because her visa had expired. The domain of bureaucracy had intruded on the realm of introspection. But it was just as well, because she was ready to get back to the West, to learn more about where she had come from.

She settled in Assisi, Italy and soon began enjoying pasta and tiramisu (good choices!). She studied history, philosophy, and music. When others got whiff of where she was they began inviting her to teach and present at conferences. She has always been interested in – and disappointed by – the role of women in Buddhism. She had seen that they neither received the same respect as men, nor did they have equal opportunities to learn or practice. She wanted to rectify that. So, dedicated to the path as ever, she went on a world-wide tour in support of a new nunnery. The logistics of establishing such an edifice were astounding. There was financing to be found, land to be bought, building permits to be obtained, and architectural plans to be developed. But Tenzin Palmo was not deterred. She had the resolve to make it happen.

The Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery recently celebrated its 25^th anniversary. There are 115 nuns from Tibet and the Himalayan border regions, living, studying, and practicing there. Tenzin Palmo (now Jetsunma, a term applied to revered teachers and practitioners), a modest woman with no money and virtually no belongings, has changed the course of history for adherents of her practice. It is remarkable to think about what one person can accomplish when she possesses discipline, dignity, and determination.