Japan – Home hosted visit – Kyoto | The Escapades of Pookie and Allan

After breakfast this morning, we broke up into groups of five and went off to a Japanese family’s home to meet with them and see what their life is like.

We were greeted warmly by Masanari and Noriko Nakagawa. Masanari spoke some English, so we were able to understand most of what he was saying. Noriko didn’t speak much English at all. They have two boys. One boy is a fashion designer and the other boy is a dentist. They have four grandchildren. Masanari makes sake and he and his wife own a liquor/convenience store where his sake is sold.

Masanari was very proud of his home, and showed us many of the artifacts and paintings that he had collected over the years, some were worth quite a bit of money. He took us on a tour of his home, showing us the living room, the kitchen (where a cold storage bin was embedded into the floor), their bedroom (where they put away their bedding each morning into the closet and take it out the next evening to sleep on), the bathroom, with a very deep tub, and the upstairs roof area where we could look over the city and catch the breeze.

He is very interested in baseball and loved to play it. He was hit by a ball years ago that fractured his finger and it wasn’t set correctly so his finger pains him at times, especially when he does the calligraphy for which he has won three gold medals. Allan and he enjoyed talking about the Japanese baseball players. Masanari is a big japanese Tigers fan. He is proud of the fact that his youngest grandchild also loves playing baseball and does very well.

Masanari showed us his record player and then brought out old LP record albums of The Ventures, Elvis, Glenn Miller, and Percy Faith, to name a few. He sits in a little room by himself and loves to listen to the oldies.

He showed us the photos of his parents, that hung above a shrine to them, and he showed us a beautiful painting on material, the painting he said was over 400 years old. It looked like it had just been created.

Then the wife offered to dress me in a kimono. The kimono was beautiful and she was very adamant about having my clothes tucked in so they weren’t seen, and she placed the bottom of the kimono a certain way so as to hide my socks. Masanari gave me a fan, and had me hold it just so, and Allan took my picture.

After the tour, we were invited to sit down at a table in the dining room. The table was similar to the one we dined at last night – you sit down on a cushion on the floor and put your legs down under the table so they hang straight down into a huge opening. In that opening was a flame heater with a grate, upon which you placed your feet to keep warm.

We were served tea and red bean paste cakes and when the repast was over, Masanari brought out paper upon which he had written in calligraphy, his name, address, date, and also the beautiful saying Ichi-go ichi-e, the Japanese four-character idiom that describes the cultural concept of treasuring the unrepeatable nature of a moment. The term has been translated as “for this time only.”
Masanari then wrote our names on the paper and presented it to us, along with two pottery sake cups.

Allan and I presented the couple with candy from our home town, as well as some note cards that I stitched with Japanese motifs as well as notecards of my water color paintings, as a thank you for their hospitality.

Before our cab came, Masanari took us over to his liquor store and we had a small glass of his sake, which was very good. We had our pictures taken with Masanari and his wife and then we were off to meet the rest of our group and had lunch together before boarding the train for the two hour ride to Kyoto.

We ate our lunch at the train station mall, which is enormous. There are restaurants one after the other, and beautiful stores selling everything you could imagine. Everything is open, no doors for the most part, and it was lovely to walk past all the lovely displays and take in the smells that mingled together – perfumes and food.

We boarded our train and arrived in Kyoto and went to our hotel, the Vista Premio Kyoto Nagomitei. Then, it was off for an orientation walk and out to dinner. Tonight we had Western and Japanese mixed, with small hot dogs and French fries, along with tempura and a small pancake/pizza. For the first time, we didn’t have rice. I missed the Japanese fare.

After dinner, we all walked over to the train station which, in the words of Hiro, is like Disney World. On the way we passed some temple gates that were very elaborate. We arrived at the Kyoto station and went up three elevators to the very top to see the “big stairs”, with 171 steps with about 15,000 LEDs that generate a light show, created for whatever season it is at the present. It was a pretty fantastic display.

We took a cab back to the hotel as the weather turned breezy and cold, and we didn’t want to walk the two miles.

We’re interested to see how our bathroom shower works tomorrow morning, as It is different from any other shower we’ve ever seen. There is a small tub and an area next to the tub where you stand and shower. It’s all open, so it will be interesting to see where all the water goes.