Month: April 2019

Slippers

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Things, UncategorizedLeave a comment

We were in Japan for an Awakening to Presence (ATP) workshop.  This is the course work I did from 2007 to 2014.  There is a class and a public workshop in Japan and I have never been to one of their classes.  I decided it was time to go experience what it is like in Japan.  The class/workshop is done at a retreat center in the mountains near Bessho Onsen.

The ways of the retreat center and Japanese people are different than ours in many ways.  One of the things that is different is shoes.  Shoes are not used in homes.  They are not used in some restaurants, but are ok in others.  I couldn’t tell what the difference on restaurants was.  We met the Japanese assistant teachers at the train station and got in a couple of cabs with them to go up to the retreat center.  We were arriving early with them to prepare for the class/workshop which would start a day later.  I’m glad we arrived with them as it would have been more difficult to navigate the cultural differences without them.  When we got to the retreat center, we walked up a steep path to the main retreat center building.  This was the building where we would eat and sleep.  There was a large raised deck.  They put their suitcases on the deck on their sides.  Then wet towels were brought out to wipe off the wheels and bottoms of the suitcases.  I would have messed that up if they had not showed us what needed to be done.

Then you take off your shoes and put them in cubby holes.  There are around 60-100 pairs of slippers near the cubby holes.  None of them are fit for a woman.  They are all giant, but probably too small for some larger men.  They basically fit no one.  But you have to wear the slippers as you walk across the decks.  I’m not quite sure how to walk in slippers that keep falling off while carrying a newly cleaned suit case.  Then when you get to the room we are sleeping in, the bathroom or the room where we are to eat, you take the slippers off at the door and go in socks.  When you go into the bathroom, you leave your deck slippers at the door and put on bathroom slippers.  That seems like a lot of effort to me.  Then when everyone is at dinner there a ton of slippers outside of the dining room.  When you leave the dining room, the slippers you came in with are gone and you end up taking any slippers you can find.  This makes no sense to me.  Is it cleaner to wear the same slippers someone else was wearing an hour ago than to just forgo the slippers altogether?  It definitely would have been safer as I was constantly shuffling just to not toss a slipper across the deck or to face plant when one came off as I was trying to step on that foot.

I love the idea of no shoes indoors, but I’m not quite on board with deck slippers.

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Electric Bikes

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Things, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I’m in Japan for an ATP workshop.  We arrived a few days early to check out the small town near where the workshop will be.  We’ve covered most of the village of Bessho Onsen on foot so far.  We were told by our Airbnb host that the town had bikes we could use for free.  There’s another section of town we could get to and explore if we had bikes.  There are some more temples we could see also.  We went down to the train station to “rent” the bikes.  They are electric bikes.  I’ve never ridden an electric bike.  They do seem to be all the rage lately so this should be fun.  This is a mountain village so it’s not flat.  The electric bikes should help with the steeper sections of journey as well.  But, of course, there is no flat open place to practice.  Nor did I have any thought that I would need practice.  I get on the bike and pedal to cross the street from the train station to the sidewalk on the other side of the street.  One half pedal rotation was like three.  I shot like a rocket across the street squeeling like an 8 year old girl.  For some reason, unexpected speed made my body think it needed to turn the handle bars sharply to the left.  I almost spun out in the middle of the street.  I managed to correct the turn just before getting to the curb.  What have I gotten myself into?  A whole afternoon of this?  Of course, the sidewalk was steep in the beginning and didn’t level off for about 15 minutes.  By the time it leveled off, I was a little more use to riding.  Starting remained a challenge most of the afternoon, though.  We got to ride through a more residential area of town which was wonderful.  I love to see neighborhoods and see how people live.   It’s fun to see what’s different and what’s the same.  It’s fun to try to imagine what it would be like to live there, where you would shop, where you would exercise, who you might know.  We went up into the hills and saw some temples.  The bikes were so helpful for climbing the small hills that would have been a huge challenge on a normal bike.  Now I want an electric bike.

Secret Balcony

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Colorado, Beautiful ThingsLeave a comment

Near the end of ski season there was a big party at the base of the ski resort.  There was a live band a people were dancing.  I met a couple new friends there for a drink.  The day was warm and the atmosphere was celebratory.   After a drink and some snacks, the people I was with were ready to go, but I wasn’t.   I was enjoying the nice afternoon and the sun.  I had run into some other friends as they came in from skiing, but I didn’t see where they went.  So, I texted one to find out if they were still hanging out around the festivities.  His response was “yea.  We are on the secret balcony, hanging out with the cops”.  Huh? I waited a few minutes expecting more information to come in, but none did.  So I asked him if was going to tell me how to get to this secret balcony.  He told me to go to the elevators past ski school and go up to 3r.  I had a heck of a time finding the elevators by ski school.  In fact, I didn’t really ever see anything that said ski school, but I hunted around the building for an elevator.  I found an elevator down a hallway that didn’t quite look like I should be in the hallway.  But, of course, if it’s a secret balcony, I guess it shouldn’t be easy to find and I shouldn’t feel quite like I’m supposed to be there.  The elevator had a 3r so I pushed it and ended up in another hallway.  At the end of the hallway looked like what might be a balcony, but no one was there.  Finally my friend poked his head out a different door.  I followed him through a room that looked like where kids might eat lunch – lots of low tables with small seats. On the other side of the room was the secret balcony.  It sat just above where the live band was.  We could look down on the crowd below.  But we had to sit on small children sized chairs.  It’s nice to know people with access to secret places.

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Spa Light

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Things, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I use to do ear candling more often, but over the years of living alone, have done it less often as it’s not a safe (or possible?) thing to do by yourself.  I found a place that will do it for you.  I felt like I was getting a sinus or ear infection so I decided to pay someone else to do ear candling for me.

I went into the massage office and was shown to a room.  The room was dimly lit, cozy and warm.  The soft light made you want to nap.  I laid down to wait.  The whole ceiling broke out into fluffy clouds of soft light.  Upon closer inspection, it looked like the whole ceiling was covered in lace.   When I looked around the dimly lit room, I realized the entire room was also fluffy clouds of light.  There was a large metal light in the middle of the ceiling.  It had tons of tiny holes as well as flowers cut out of the metal.  The light fell out of it in soft shapes all over the ceiling and walls.  I’m not sure if the lamp or it’s effect on the ceiling and walls was more pretty.

Tubing

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Colorado, Beautiful Things, Uncategorized1 Comment

The winter season is winding down.  The ski resort is still open, but it’s mostly slush, not snow.  It’s less crowded.  One of my friends got $5 tickets for the tubing hill at the ski resort.  And it was the last week the tubing hill would be open.  So at lunch time, three of us went tubing for an hour.

On our way to our first run we heard a little kid screaming very loudly in giant protest when his parents made him leave.  We all thought we might feel like that when it was our turn to leave, when our hour was up.

There were four tracks.  We went down a couple, taking turns before we found out we could go down all at the same time holding onto each other’s tubes.  That was a game changer.  We tried all four until we found our favorite one.  We hooked our tubes together and went down screaming and laughing like teenagers.  It was amazing how little control you had, just hold on and giggle.

This is where I live.  These are my friends.  This was my lunch break.  How wonderful.  I was sad to go, but was able to keep from screaming and crying in protest.

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Snowmobile Training

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Colorado, Beautiful Things, UncategorizedLeave a comment

There’s a guy in Search and Rescue that has caught my attention.  I know he has a snowmobile so I asked him if he wanted to go snowmobiling sometime.  He said yes.  And then asked if anyone else wanted to go.  Huh?   Oh, he didn’t get it.  I do know that my friend wants to go badly.  We are both new to Search and Rescue and in need of some snowmobiling practice/lessons.  So I mentioned her.  Next thing I know, it’s 4 of us going and it’s now a training.  I played that wrong.

I know very little about snowmobiles.  I think I was on one 17 +/- years ago and then again 25 years ago.  Plus, who gets to go snowmobiling for “training”?  So, even if it is training and not a date, it’s going to be fun.

The two guys decide that we should take 2 snowmobiles out instead of 4.  Good plan.  Richard comes up to me after the two snowmobiles are ready to go and asks who is riding with who.  Really?  He doesn’t get it.  We all ride out to a big field where the two guys get off and let us newbies practice riding.  Riding out to the field I kept imagining what it would feel like to drive a snowmobile, and even though I’ve done it before, I couldn’t even guess what it would feel like.  That in itself is such a very weird feeling to be setting out to do something you can’t even imagine feeling.  We around the field for a bit.  It took me a while to get comfortable with the speed and turning, but I got more comfortable.  I thought it might feel like floating, but it wasn’t quite like that.  It was quite a bit more effort than I expected to turn them.  Even though it didn’t feel like floating, it was fun.  We spent the rest of the afternoon trail riding.  There are so many snowmobile trails.  I think you could ride for days.

A few days later we decided to go again, but this time start at dusk.  It was three of us since the guy I like decided not to go.  He definitely doesn’t get it.  Still, it was so much fun. I got to drive the whole time.  It was super creepy which added to the fun.  The headlamps would only illuminate a small section of the trail ahead of you and the area to the sides and behind you was dark.  The headlamps would throw weird shadows which looked like animals or other things moving just off the trail.  We went up to a point where you could look out over the valley and see all the lights of Granby.  Granby isn’t that large so “all” the lights isn’t like looking at a city, but it still was fun to see and it was more lights than I would have expected.

Post blog note: It has been confirmed that at the time of snowmobiling, he did not get it.  It took until August, but now Richard is my boyfriend.  He gets it now.