Staying in a 400 year old, old, Japanese temple and living with amenities from the 18th century. The grass is unkempt outside and the cicadas are loud with their pronouncement of summer. The bath is to pour your own water over your head. I keep wondering if I’ll run into a samurai ghost. It’s been really bizarre to merge all the elements of life anywhere. So far, I’ve been in places as disparate as a 5th century AD mud hovel in Yunnan, live and work tea production house on top of the mountain in Phoenix Mtn, lived with ducks under my feet at Anxi, on the 16th floor in Hong Kong Island, in a farm ‘hotel’ underneathe beetlenut trees in Nantou, and today, in a time capsule back to a tatami room in the Kannonji Temple, Kyoto. Been speaking China Mandarin, Cantonese, Hong Kong Canto slang, Taiwanese Mandarin, and today, Japanese, barely. And then writing it all down in English.
