This was another product we found in our hotel closet. Margaret and I decided to try it out since we were afraid we might have the “anxious smell”.

Saturday morning it was time to end our stay in Kyoto and move on to our first stay with Friendship Force in the town of Nara.  After one last 7-11 breakfast (black pepper fried chicken, rice ball with egg, latte), Margaret and I took a short walk on the path that runs along a stream right next to our hotel.  We’ve seen paths like this throughout the city, making it a wonderful place for running or biking.  We enjoyed watching all the locals walking their perfectly manicured dogs along the path.

After that we headed to the station.  Two of our Nara hosts, Keiko and Kazumi, were kind enough to take the train down to meet us in Kyoto, presumably to ensure that we didn’t get lost on the way.  This was just as well, because I think we may well have done something wrong if waiting for the train ourselves.  First off, when our train arrived, the doors opened on the opposite side (next platform over) to let off the passengers.  On my own, I would have probably been frantically running around the train trying to get on.  But no, this was just an excellent Japanese system that avoided collisions between outgoing and

Morning walk in Kyoto

incoming passengers.  (Not that there would have likely been collisions anyway.  For both buses and trains, the Japanese line up neatly in a straight line while waiting to get on.)  Also, there was a delay before the doors on our side opened.  During that time, we saw a train attendant go through and spin around all the seats on the train, so that passengers would face forward.  Then a man came through with a vaccuum cleaner.  Only once the train was completely clean and ready did the doors open.

We’d gotten onto the platform by scanning our credit cards at the turnstile, as instructed by Kei and Kazumi– then grabbed a group of seats together.  After we got onto the train, there was a series of announcements indicating that on this train, you needed both a reservation and a ticket to ride, and if you didn’t have a reservation, you must exit the train immediately.  Again, on our own we probably would have panicked at this point, but Kei and Kuzomi seemed unmoved, so we stayed put.  No one ever checked our tickets, so I’m not actually sure if we somehow had a reservation, or if we were being scofflaws.

After a short train journey to Nara, we arrived and met our hosts, who brought us to a welcome lunch at a nearby restaurant.  It’s hard to capture how kind and welcoming everyone has been.  We’ve been fed, made comfortable, and entertained in every way.  Most of the group is older people, and many of them didn’t start learning English until they were in their fifties or older — but by practicing diligently through weekly lessons and conversation groups, they’ve become more fluent that I would have though possible.  They have so much energy, even those that are in their 80s.  I think of them like hummingbirds — beautiful, dainty, and in constant motion.  (We Americans are more like Golden Retriever puppies —we mean well and try to please, but tend to bumble around and knock things over )

We’re getting to try lots of interesting food, even if we often don’t know what it is.  Our welcome lunch today featured several different dishes, from miso soup to steamed egg to a kind of salad with rice, raw tuna, vegetables, and salmon roe.  Some things are a challenge to eat with chopsticks, but I surreptitiously watch our Japanese hosts to see how they approach it.

After lunch we went back to our individual home stay homes to settle in.  My host Nobuko and her husband Yoshio have a lovely home in a quiet residential neighborhood.  Margaret and her host, Kazumi, came by for coffee and conversation, and two other members who live nearby stopped by as well.  Yoshio

Nobuko (Non) and me

loves American music from the seventies (the Eagles are his favorite), and eventually showed us his hobby area.  We climbed a ladder up into a loft, which was full of speakers, record players, records, and other sound equipment.  Yoshio builds many of his own speakers and loves to come up here to listen to music.

Dinner was a delicious Japanese curry — similar to, but a little different from, curries that I’ve had at home.  They brought out sake for me to try as well, and presented me with gifts from Japan.  (They seemed to enjoy the maple sugar candy that we’d brought from the US, but it’s possible they were just being polite — they don’t seem to eat a lot of sweets here.)  Then, it was time for an early bedtime after a tiring day.

Non and Kazumi