January 16
Hi. My name is Dominik Rabiej and I was born on October 20, 1983. This is my story -- or at least part of my story. The rest has yet to be written. So it is with most stories: they neither have beginnings nor ends. Metaphysical musings aside, the story of my travels in Japan continued with a quick breakfast at the New Sanno followed by lugging my overstuffed backpack (and attempting to lug Debra's too, but she wouldn't let me showcase my manly prowess). Soon enough we boarded the van to go to the Shinkasen station. The Shinkasen is Japan's bullet train -- a super fast, environmentally efficient mechanism of transport. After checking through the Shinkasen station -- which took much less time than an airport because everything was so efficiently designed, we waited in a little glass box between the train stations. Temperature moderation was rather difficult, as the little glass room was quite hot, with its collection of space heaters mounted on the walls and on the ceilings. Outside was not much better, as it was quite brisk -- and when the wind gusted between the rails and blew a chill breeze, it became absolutely frigid for a moment. Still, by splitting time between the two extremes, I was able to stay at a decent temperature. Indeed, I was reminded of the showers at the New Sanno, which even with their supposed temperature controls, seemed not to have a setting between hot and cold. And yet, sometimes I would be able to set things just right, so that everything was balanced perfectly and it was not too hot or too cold. Sometimes it is like that with life, I guess -- we must seek that elusive balance point, and when we find it, hold onto it carefully, for even the slightest bump off of it can send us careening off the narrow path we have chosen.
As I toggled between icy winds and toasty warmth, our Shinkasen train arrived and we boarded quickly. Inside there was much more room than on a plane -- or at least so it seemed. Even though the Shinkasen was narrower in actuality than the giant 747 jet that we had flown to Japan in, it seemed as if it were more spacious, probably because of the wider aisles with more legroom. This resulted from the Shinkasen being able to be a good bit longer in length than a jumbo jet. Indeed, they can carry almost three times as many passengers. We were soon seated, and even as were stowing our backpacks into the overhead compartments (with no message about items shifting and moving coming over the intercom – at least not one in English I could understand), we barely felt the train moving. Compared to an airplane lifting off, it was amazingly gentle. As Debra napped a while after a bit of conversation, I pulled out my Palm keyboard and began to type out a journal entry. Unfortunately, I ran out of trial uses of my favorite typing software, WordSmith, but I didn't notice, so I lost about 1,000 words when I finally closed the document. I stared at the screen a bit, pondered and then began typing again, this time using the memo feature. However, WordSmith neglected to tell me when I reached the end of the memo and thus, my second draft was also truncated. Finally, I typed my journal entry in Palm's memo. So by the time the Shinkasen finally pulled into Kyoto Station, I had typed and retyped my journal three times and was quite tired of typing. Debra, wiser, had had a restful sleep.
Our arrival at Kyoto was greeted by falling rain, the first remotely unpleasant weather we had seen in all our time in Japan thus far, the fog at Yokohama excepted. We rushed to a taxi and guided by Mrs. Mizoguchi, soon arrived at our hotel. Lugging in our overstuffed backpacks and avoiding the rain, we panted up to the front desk of the elegant Iroha Ryokan Inn, wanting to do nothing more than to check in and plop down for a moment on a soft bed to take rest before embarking on our afternoon tour. The front desk, however, dashed these hopes by informing us that check in would not occur until later in that day, but that we could leave our luggage. Mrs. Medlin and Mrs. Mizoguchi both left some of their heavier items at the hotel, but as Debra and I had stuffed everything into our backpacks, and as we did not want to unpack everything and only carry the cameras and other electronics we wanted, we buckled down and shouldered our overstuffed luggage. Perhaps had we known the length of our upcoming trek through the rain we would have reconsidered, but for now we were as yet in the bliss of ignorance. The Iroha Inn graciously allowed us to borrow three of its umbrellas, as none of us save Mrs. Mizoguchi had thought to bring one. I was surprised to see that it was common practice in Japan to have an umbrella rack near the front of a hotel or shop, where customers could leave their umbrellas to dry while they were inside. The lack of locks or security features on this rack was even more surprising than the presence of the rack itself, but as Mrs. Mizoguchi let us know with a smile, the Japanese did not steal. Embedded in their culture is a deep sense of respect for others and for the past, a quality from which America could learn by example -- though, in the face of September 11th, our culture has been forced to learn of the brutality of life and the need for respect by the harsher teacher of experience. In any case, we soon began our long trudge through the rain to the tour station, from whence our afternoon bus tour of Kyoto would depart. Stalking through the rain, umbrella in hand and pack on back, we made good time, though many times I had interesting encounters with the locals as our umbrellas passed by, for, illogically, they would rise up and I would duck down, only to have our umbrellas lock and send down rain upon all parties involved. Both of us took it with a smile and a laugh, and in good time we arrived under the welcome eaves of the tour center. The tour center was seven stories high, full of tourist and souvenir shops, as well as an eatery. We quickly purchased our tickets, and as we had some time before the tour departed, explored the shop. Debra, being the caring sister that she is, bought her elder brother a beautiful Samurai sword, while I strolled and looked at the items, mentally storing away what was available and attempting to think of people to match the wonderful items.
Two o'clock, the time for our tour to depart, soon rolled around and we all, laden with our bulky luggage, piled into the bus that rolled up to the curb. I made myself comfortable for a ride and a view out of a rain speckled window and took off my sweater and coat, thinking that we would be looking at attractions from our bus. But soon enough we came to a stop outside of a Shinto Shrine and we all piled out again, me without my jacket or sweater, thinking the weather to be as warm as it had been before and seeing that the rain had apparently stopped. As soon as I had disembarked and the bus driven away to a distant parking spot, the heavens let loose and rain fell, though thankfully it was fairly light. Still, I huddled under the sparse roofs of the various constructions outside the shrine and hearkened to the words of our tour guide. The shrine was very nicely built, in a beautiful Japanese style with heavy Chinese influences in architecture and color. I noticed that many of the trees had white slips of paper tied to their branches. Our tour guide soon pointed this out, after showing us a Shinto prayer ceremony. Visitors to the temple would deposit coins and then choose a lot with a number on it. Every lot had a different number. They would then go with this number and take it to a booth, where for another donation to the temple, they would receive a white slip of paper with their fortune written on it. If they liked their fortune, then they could take it home. But if they did not like it, then it ward off its coming true, they would tie it a tree branch and leave it at the temple. Thus, the many tree branches with white pieces of paper tied to them. We soon returned to the bus, where I put on and wore my sweater and jacket for the remainder of the tour, which was comprised of more temples, each uniquely beautiful in its architecture and surroundings.
One that stood out distinctly was a Buddhist temple with 1,000 statues of Buddha inside of it. We walked along the cold floors in socks, smelling the strong incense at looking that sculptures in the dim light of candles. Hanging over our heads were plaques in Japanese, proclaiming not religious laws but rather remembering the winners of an annual archery contest held at the temple for centuries. Outside the temple, along the 120-meter veranda, the best archers in Japan and the Orient would come to test their prowess. Seating themselves at one end, they would then proceed to shoot arrows for 24 hours, attempting to hit a target at the other end of the veranda. The score was simple, merely the sum of the total number of arrows shot and the number of arrows actually hitting the target. The all time winner had shot some 13,000 arrows with about 7,000 hitting the target. In the junior division, our tour guide continued to inform us, the target was half the distance away and the all time winner was an 11 year old boy who had shot over 11,000 arrows and missed less than 1,000 of them. I was amazed by the precision, accuracy and endurance -- to shoot arrows is no easy task, and to do it for 24 hours without sleep is incredibly difficult.
The rest of the day faded back into a memory, but the bus tour was kind enough to return us to the bridge across Kyoto's river, which was near our hotel. However, ere returning to our hotel and finally checking in, we walked the other way across our bridge to a traditional Japanese restaurant, where we would eat dinner. We took off our shoes, which was becoming almost second nature as we had been doing so all day. There were little lockers for shoes -- but they were so small in comparison to my size 13 shoes that I had to use two lockers to store my immense boots. Then, in socks, we walked to one of the low tables where we would eat our meal. But first, we lugged our hefty backpacks -- which thankfully had been kept on the bus for most of our tour -- and plopped them in a corner near our table.
The restaurant specialized in seafood, and thus only had a few entries without seafood -- as Mrs. Mizoguchi knew seafood did not particularly appeal to me, she recommend a dish with raw beef that I would boil myself at the table. I decided to give it a try and shortly everyone else had ordered. The meal arrived, red meat and a portable electric stove with a pot of boiling water. While Debra, Mrs. Mizoguchi and Mrs. Medlin all consumed some variant of sushi, I watched as a server made magic and inserted various plants and herbs into the boiling broth. And then, deftly manipulating a pair of chopsticks, he placed a thin piece of red beef into the boiling pot, within which it rapidly turned grey white, cooking very quickly for it was indeed very thin. Then, satisfied by my nods of assent that I had seen what he had done, he took my pair of eating chopsticks (one for raw meat, one for cooked) and placed it in my bowl of rice. I smiled, said thank you in Japanese and then began to cook my meal. It was quite good, for the meat barely tasted like meat at all -- it was more like whatever sauce I chose to dip it in, for it was so thin and soft. The meal went quickly with light and glad conversation. Finally, when we had finished, and Mrs. Mizoguchi revealed that she had treated us (her kindness is really rather amazing!), we headed back to the small collection of shoe shelves. There, as I removed a lone boot from one of the locked shelves, a man standing nearby laughed as I opened another one -- I smiled and shrugged, for there was not really much to be said, nor could I say it with my tiny Japanese vocabulary. We then gathered up our things once we had our shoes and set out for a quick march back to the hotel. Once we arrived, we checked in, each getting his or her own room. We were shown to our rooms, which were very traditional Japanese style with tatami floor coverings and with a futon in the closet and a low table in the middle of the room. Off to the side there was a more western style small table and closet, but the bathroom was Japanese with its half-height (for someone of traditional Japanese stature) bath and shower. We then parted with Mrs. Mizoguchi and Mrs. Medlin, though Debra and I talked long into the night before finally parting to go to sleep.
Given our time difference, it was now after 9 am on the 16th in the US, which meant that the Intel Science Talent Search semifinalists had been posted online. Desiring to confirm my belief that Debra had made it, I wandered down to the hotel lobby, which was strangely dark -- no one was on duty except a guardsman. There was no Internet access available so I called home and talked to Mom. Working together, we surfed over to sciserv.org, with our lovely dial-up connection conveniently breaking every 5 minutes, making progress slow. Intel's servers were also overrun, compounding the fun of checking the site. Finally, Mom got through online and loaded up the page for Texas. And lo, unsurprisingly but pleasantly, Debra's name and project was present on the list, as they should be. Thanking Mom, I wandered back up and knocked on Debra's door and told her the good news, bringing a smile to her face. With that, I then returned to my room and fell into a restful slumber, looking forward to the tour of Kyoto and Nara the following day.