Tag: Bessho Onsen

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.