Tuesday, July 9, 2013

In Which Your’s Truly Encounters God as a Black Cat in a Shinto Shrine and Receives a Blessing in the Guise of a Misadventure

Alright, here is a story I have been meaning to tell, that took place during the Period of No Blogging. Without further ado, I want to take you back to the start of May…

In Japan there are many festivals in May that all fall in the first week or so. This is called Golden Week and it is often celebrated with days off work and lots of traveling. Laura and I decided to take a mini-trip up to Mount Aso, the local volcano round these parts. We took the train early Friday morning and were rather pleased with ourselves for our first trip that we had planned in Japan. And by planning, I mean threw together two nights before. But anyway, the train ride up to Aso is beautiful, and the day was beautiful, and we were both looking forward to a relaxing two days away from the city.

The first day we just hung out mostly. We found our lodgings first, a charming little youth hostel (my first stay in a youth hostel!) that was old, but impeccably clean and run by a lovely couple. We meandered around checking out the town and had lunch at Sakura Café. We had seen the café on a hand drawn map that we got at the station (it was a very nice hand drawn map), and decided to check it out. We weren’t the only ones either. By the time we got there, the line to get in was quite long. But it had a gorgeous garden, with a gorgeous, view and we were starving and figured, “How long can it be?” We waited FOREVER. On the upside, like I said it was a beautiful garden and the view was excellent, and the day superb. So it wasn’t too difficult. Plus, I was feeling lazy. After we left Laura and I agreed that, while the food was not worth the wait or the price, it was still tasty and with everything else it was worth returning to.
In the garden outside of the Sakura Cafe
The view
Sakura Cafe
That afternoon we took the bus over to Aso Jinja, a very famous and large Shinto Shrine here in Japan. We had fun looking around and I got another fortune (only 100 yen and I find them very entertaining, which I don’t think is very PC, but what can you do). We explored the side shopping street by the shrine and discovered the waters of Aso. They are said to have various properties to enhance things like beauty or intelligence. We also discovered the dangers of ordering unknown street food in the land of no trash cans. I really don’t like that white, chewy, sticky stuff that was covered in soy sauce. I don’t remember what it was called, but I know what it looks like and will avoid it in the future. Unfortunately, as above mentioned Japan is the land of no public trash cans so I was walking around holding the stupid thing until I convinced Laura to just eat it for me. Katie and her husband Kazu joined us for the afternoon and evening and we had a very nice time exploring the town of Aso.

Entrance to Aso Jinja
Aso Jinja - the original was said to have been built in 281, the current version was built between 1830 and 1843


One of the oldest shrine gates in Japan
One of the Golden Week holidays is Children's day and these carp flags are decorations for the holiday.
Aso water! Supposedly drinking from this spring will make me a literary genius...


Guess we'll just have to wait and see!
Day two though, is where the adventure really began. We started out fairly early and caught a bus headed towards Aso Mountain. We weren’t going to the volcano itself, but to hike up a neighboring mountain. Or really big hill, cause the Rockies it was not. Poor Laura. Hiking was something I was really looking forward too and we were told it was an easy hike so she agreed to go even though hiking isn’t really her thing. I promised her we would go to an onsen afterwards though.

Need I mention that it was not a stroll in the park? See the pictures below for details. However the view from the top was truly spectacular and we spent quite a bit of time up there, walking along the edge of the crater and seeing the sights.

Looking all cute and excited.... Yay hiking!

Our hike

Me: "Challenge!" Laura: "People think this is fun?!"
Just to give you an idea, we were at the road to begin.

Watch out! It got a little randomly treacherous there...
Made it! 1321 meters or roughly... only one mile? But a darn near vertical mile!


Our view of Mount Aso from the top of Kishimadake







The view was truly amazing



It was pretty funny to compare ourselves to the other climbers. First, there was the obvious, that we were the only non-Japanese there. This really just meant we were greeted either with stares or, more often, a lot of warmth and “Gambate!” or “Fighting!” basically. Also, the other climbers…. Yeah, they were way ready for this hike. Like geared out ready. Laura and I were in running shoes, jeans, and jackets and really wishing we had worn warmer clothes. They had hiking sticks and climbing sticks and packs and food… we had a tiny little backpack with dried peaches and rice cakes cause we were trying to be healthy so we nixed the potato chips.

I enjoyed the hike and I think Laura did too. It was quite a climb though. But like I said the view was spectacular so really, what more can you ask for? Honestly, I thought going down the 837 stairs was harder than going up them, cause it was really steep and I kept feeling like I was going to fall on my face. Thankfully, I didn’t. We took a video which I have also posted below, but the wind was very strong so Laura subbed it. Thanks Laura!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y95P3vqyqBI&feature=youtu.be

So we had a good adventure and headed back into Aso town. There were some shrines and temples that I wanted to check out, in particular one called the Odoriyama Jinja, or Dancing Mountain Shrine that was reported to be very pretty and located in a pretty wood. So we set out with our trusty hand-drawn map for our guide. It went about as well as you might expect.

Part of the problem, I believe, was that Laura and I were having a rather deep discussion about…. Actually I don’t remember what it was about. Idle school gossip I think. Occasionally the conversation would cease and we would mention to each other that we really should figure out where we are.

Me: I think we’re lost.
Laura: *looking around* Yeah…
Me: So anyways, you were saying?
Laura: So then I said….

You get the picture. We were rather distracted. Anyway, the conversation started petering out after we had been walking for quite a while and we started trying to figure out where in the heck we were. Which led us to walking around with my nose in the map and Laura’s nose glued to her phone, and we were so focused on figuring out where we were on the map that we missed where we were on the road and when I looked up I realized we had been walking towards the massive torii gate for quite some time. Actually it wasn’t as huge as some, but it was big enough that we should have seen it three blocks ago. We laughed about it and headed in.
Odoriyama Jinja torii

Odoriyama Jinja

The woods surrounding the shrine; isn't it beautiful?



I have no idea to what kami this particular shrine is dedicated to. It is rather small and old, but so picturesque. I don’t know what it is about Shinto shrines here, but I always feel like I am on holy ground. I think that this particular shrine will always and forever hold a special spot in my heart. I was moving along the path through the woods and I couldn’t yet see into the shrine as we were coming at it from the side. I usually wash my hands and mouth at the appropriate place before approaching the shrine out of respect, but like I said this particular shrine was fairly old and the tap was rusty and looked like it hadn’t been turned on in some time so I continued on to the shrine itself. Laura was some ways behind me, I don’t remember why, and so I was alone when I turned to look fully into the shrine. The front doors were open and sitting there, in the opening, staring right at me, was a black cat. The following will probably seem like crazy talk to most of you, but I swear to you, that to me, it was as real as the burning bush was to Moses. I knew instantly I was on holy ground.

I froze. The cat stared into my eyes and it was God speaking to me loudly and clearly in a way that I have here-to-fore only associated with cats. “Excuse me? You are wondering WHY you are HERE? I shall tell you why you are here. You are here because I told you to come here. You are here because I need you to be here and I don’t owe you an explanation as to why. It’s called faith for a reason. All of this is mine. This country that you call Japan was created by ME. Its people were created by ME. This culture, this language, this ancient shrine are all part of MY creation. Me, the Great I Am. You are here to work with your brothers and sisters, and learn something while you’re at it. You'll need it later. I have plans for you.”

Then the cat turned, twitched its tail, and marched right past the curtain into the inner part of the shrine, the most sacred part of the shrine, where no one is supposed to go. Except, you know, God.

I had really been struggling with why I was here. I had felt like I wasn’t doing anything “missionary like”; that I couldn’t possibly make a change. I wasn’t feeling part of things in church and at school I wasn’t connecting to students because I had so many. The language barrier often seems insurmountable. I had been strongly wondering what I was doing here, and why I was called. How can one be a missionary without language? But, as God reminds me, often in the most unexpected of ways language is nothing in the face of God. He called me here and all I am really asked to do is keep showing up and keep trying.

It has been almost two months since that day at the shrine. Not much has changed except for the most important piece: how I look at things. I no longer agonize about how I can best serve here. I am not frantically trying to be involved in as much as possible in hopes that I can be a good missionary to as many people as possible. When it seems the most like I can’t make a change, I just remember that day at Odoriyama Jinja; the day that God spoke to me in the form of a small black cat.

The rest of the trip to Aso was fairly uneventful after that. We caught the train back to Kumamoto, and were going to stop at an onsen (or hot spring bath) that Laura had found online along the way. We got off at the appropriate train stop and walked through the now empty station and headed for the large map of the area that was outside the station. We couldn’t find the onsen on the map. As we were standing there, the station master, who had clearly just been leaving to go home, approached us and when we explained what we were looking for, he informed us that the onsen no longer existed! And the next train wouldn’t arrive for forty minutes. We headed back to the station to wait. I was disappointed about the onsen, and so was Laura, so we were both feeling a bit dejected.


The scene of the misadventure...
 
It was impossible to stay that way for long. The view from where we were sitting was so peaceful, so full of beauty. It was so quiet, something that I have come to regard as a rare and precious commodity here in Japan. And so our misadventure at the end of our adventure became a gift. It was the perfect ending to our weekend.
.




Until ten minutes later when our train conductor attempted save the rest of us from the biggest bee I have ever seen… But that’s another story for another time. I hope you have enjoyed your adventures with Laura and Caroline and please join us and Morgan next time for a retelling of The Great Battle for Caroline’s Apartment. Until then dear readers!
Headed home to Kumamoto!


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