I leave the flat this morning with every intention of going towards a public market and then on to an old (really old) part of Gion.

I get out to the main road and suddenly I think, instead of turning right, let me just see what happens if I turn left and walk to the very end of this road.

It’s fairly early and the streets are quiet and peaceful.

So I walk. And in about seven minutes I’m at Kennin-ji, the oldest Zen temple in Kyoto.

I get there at 9:45. Few visitors. It feels like I have the place almost to myself. Spending three hours there was no hardship.

Beautiful and well care for, grounds is the burial place for the monk (Eisai) who brought Buddhism to Japan.

The temple also housed a number of artworks.

Seven Wise Men in a Bamboo Grove

And my favourite :

Since the day started off on a whim, I decide to visit the Kahitsukan Kyoto Museum of Contemporary Art on the spur of the moment.

Apple Maps tells me the museum was 4 minutes walk from the Airbnb. Great!
I set off.

I cut through an alley that runs just alongside my favorite udon shop and I’m at the main road in less than a minute.

When Maps tells me I’ve arrived I’m standing in front of a skincare shop. I walk back and forth.
No museum.
I cross the street.
No museum.
I ask a traffic warden.
He sends me off back down the street telling me it’s ‘not obvious”.
No museum.
I ask a municipal worker.
He sends be back up the road. “Go up. Go left. Go right,” he says.
I am back in front of my udon place.
I spot a postman. He would know where it is.

And he does. Tucked away two doors down from the skincare shop where Apple Maps originally sent me is the museum.

It’s hosting a collection on pottery.

While I’m visiting the tree, three older women are seated on the viewing couch also observing the tree.

I sit beside them. Using Google Translate and hoping it would translate my meaning well enough, I type, I feel sad that this tree is alone. It will never know what it’s like to be around other trees.

“Suimasen,” I say.

They turn and I hand my phone to the one closest to me. She reads it. She passes my phone to the others. They read it. They nod, point to the tree. Suddenly a flurry of conversation takes place.

Excited, they start talking – all at once – to me in Japanese.

I switch the Google Translate to Japanese and I show them how to press the mic and speak into it.

My neighbor hands it to her neighbour. She says something into Google. They hand it back.
I read, “I don’t think this thing will understand me.” 🙂

They are still talking – one on top of the other – pointing to the tree.

I try again. This time my neighbor uses Google Translate. She says:

And she’s right. The tree isn’t alone. It sees visitors all day. But, yes, perhaps it is lonely for one of its kind.

They lean over each other peppering me with questions.

“Where are you from?” (When I tell them, they nod and one says Guyana.)
“You here alone?”
“You visiting all Japan or just Kyoto?”
“You very like Kyoto?”
“How long here stay?”
“Where next you go?”

I learn they’re three best friends, spending four days in Kyoto. Two of them live in Kanagawa and the other lives in Yamanashi.

And I think how unlike the tree they are – not there alone and with such a strong network to each other.

We sit in silence for a while then I bid them farewell.

They wave and say goodbye to me until the elevator carries me away.

Good night, from Gion.

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