Buddha Tom

We're now back from our trip to Eiheiji, and very enjoyable it was too. Not many people about, so everything was quite serene and, erm, Zen-like. It's a lovely spot up in the mountains, with loads of snow still on the ground; it's been a cold winter here apparently. We did a fairly quick tour of the main buildings of the monastery, some of which were covered with plastic wrappings to protect them from the snow, which can be up to 5 metres deep at times. We had one fascinating episode where we "ran the gauntlet" of at least 50 monks chanting sutras at us; presumably some sort of blessing. It was an amazing noise and rendered a hitherto very shouty Tom completely silent.

I did make a bit of a fool of myself, as I managed to lock our umbrella in a combination lock without remembering the combination. I mentioned this to the slipper-wallah at the exit, who said she'd get someone to sort out the problem. I imagined she'd ask a janitor or someone, but no, it was a Zen monk in all his finery who demonstrated that Buddhists are nothing if not resourceful by (eventually) picking the lock with a match. I was apologizing for rousing him from his sutras, and he was apologizing back for not being able to pick the lock quickly enough. All very surreal and I'm not sure who had the redder face when we finally parted.

We then trundled our way very slowly back to Fukui, stopping at a couple of shops to get stuff for dinner tonight. We're all hoping to hit the onsen again after Tom's dinner and before ours.

By the way, Tom hopes you all like his impression of the Buddha he did at Eiheiji earlier.