Sustainable Japan?

We are off to the airport in the morning, having come to the end of our trip, which has passed incredibly quickly - a good sign that we have all been enjoying ourselves. Here in Yokohama (today) we have been dazzled by the modern architecture of Minato Mirai, where I've been talking sustainability with RCE colleagues, Zinaida Fadeeva and Aurea Tanaka at the UN University Institute of Advanced Studies. Their team is funded by the Japanese Dept. of the Environment, for ten years - a sign of at least a degree of commitment to the subject.

Bicycles abound in the cities - more than at home - and public transport, particularly the train service, is excellent. Seeing the huddling of houses together, as the Shinkansen passes at vast speed through the suburbs, makes you think our town sprawl energy wasteful. But even up on the Buddhist monastic stronghold of Kôyasan - we spent the night before last in temple dwellings there (delicious vegetarian food, and a wonderful chanting ceremony at 6 a.m.) - to find a heated loo seat is a matter of course. And the shopping malls in the centre of Osaka and here seem endless.

Nara

Todai-ji in Nara contains this, the largest wooden structure in the world, and it houses the Great Buddha, which is one of the largest bronze figures in the world - originally cast nearly 1,300 years ago when Nara was Japan's capital city. Round the back of the statue is a column with a hole in its base the size of one of the Buddha's nostrils: to squeeze through it is a sign that you are ensured of enlightenment. I declined to try this afternoon. (Mini however made it without any trouble.)

We were commenting on the absence of beggars in the streets anywhere we had been so far. Today, we came across a Buddhist monk with his bowl outstretched: apparently he prays whilst begging; responding to which is I suppose no worse than paying for a mass for the dead.

The other beggars we saw in droves (or rather herds) were the sacred deer of Nara-koen, messengers of the Gods: never can there have been such tame animals! Charming at first, they become something of a trial at lunchtime. But Ida loved their attention of course!

Now, we are all exhausted.

Kyoto 2

We have had our first rain today, though not enough to dampen us or our spirits. After a short bus ride, we walked up a delightful pedestrian street, Sannen-Zaka to meet a former sudent of Caroline, her daughter and grand-daughter at the Morioka pottery: Caroline, Mini, Fujo and her daughter had lessons there. I talked to the charming and elegant widow of Kasho Morioka III (who doubled as a child-minder) and met her potter son. Fine teaware seems to be their speciality: it looks beautiful to my inexpert eye.

After lunch we jostled with all the other tourists, including hordes of neatly-uniformed schoolchildren, and walked up to Kiyomizu-dera, the most striking religious complex we've yet visited. There, we took off our shoes and walked down into the completely dark passage leading to an eerily lit carved stone wheel: we were "figuratively entering the womb of a female Bodhisattva, who has the power to grant any human wish," so the guidebook said. It was certainly the nearest I've come yet to getting the point of Buddhism - more potent than the rows of white prayer messages pegged to wire lines that you see in each of the sites.