2020 January Japan. 1/4/2020

I ate breakfast at the hotel's japanese michelin 1 star restaurant.

(did not take a picture of the tofu appetizer nor the soup/rice). It's nice to know that people care about food enough to make this. It was the best hotel breakfast I have ever had. The range of flavors, textures, interactions, and more was excellent. I may go again tomorrow.

I walked by Kamo River. A real riverbank - I was ecstatic. It reminded me of "Arakawa under the bridge" and "Danshii koukousei no nichijou". I want to live somewhere with a riverbank. It's all sorts of romantic. I almost sat there to continue reading my Nishida philosophy book.

As I walked down the riverbank - I thought - everything is so Japanese. As in, the way the birds are, the roads are, the structures are... are all "japanese". There is this spirit, movement, atmosphere of Japanese-ness - to me a feeling of "compactness" and "compartmentalized" yet "shared" and "communal". The presence of these opposites is intriguing, though it feels somewhat stalled in further development. I think it is partially because while "religion" and "spirituality" is visible every couple of minutes, especially in Kyoto, similarly in USA (or at least my opinion) this externalization of religious-ity becomes an icon that excuses one from the internalization aspects.

Maybe.

The sense of "compartmentalized yet communal" I also saw the Kyoto University campus, which had plenty of bicycles... but I only saw two people outside... and the roads/sidewalks.

The size and reach of natural and human-made objects, the space in between, and the SPACE in between all give this sense of Japanese-ness.

 (The "vibe" here almost felt "shrine" like)

 It simply amused me to see these amazon boxes.

I stopped by a Shinto shrine on the walk - Yoshida Shrine.
With the torii (gate), water basin (temizuwa), paper streamers (shide) and worshippers offering their prayer.

 What is/are "kami?"... is another whole discussion.

I walked down Philosopher's Path (the path supposedly walked by Nishida Kitarou on the way home from Kyoto University... hence why I planned this this way). What grabbed my attention the most was the proximity of everything (which was also remarked by a Kyoto guide book I got later. Perhaps it is the size/reach and "compartmentalized" yet "communal" idea I said earlier, but it is remarkable how homes, dispersed stores, a mini-market, religious buildings, nature are all intertwined and yet not, next to each other yet intertwined. (the matcha latte I got from a food stall thing was pretty good... pricy though)

I saw three cats along the way, all white with ?tan areas. Intense yet calm creatures. This was one was either moody or forlorn as it stared at the view.

I stopped by various temples and shrines including the popular Heian Jingu Shrine. What really piques my interest is these sites primarily function as tourist attractions for their artistic/cultural aspects, but I ask myself and ponder to what extent are people actually interested. Or is it another check on the list of things to do. Also interesting is how certain sites have way, way more people than others. I honestly would like to read about all of them... but that could be a PhD or two.

In the afternoon I went to Masayama Kisei's Acupuncture/Osteopathy clinic. I paid 9000 yen for the two hour session. His acupuncture approach was a classical chinese Zang-Fu approach utilizing pulse diagnosis and relevant ah-shi points related to the symptom related. His "osteopathy" was essential myofascial technique to the relevant areas followed by HVLA. I felt my autonomic nervous system balancing halfway through the acupuncture, but parts of the manipulation annoyed me. I guess I'll see how I feel over the next 36-60 hours. He charged by the time of service, which was interesting - a price for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 120 minutes. He also did a good relevant neurological exam. I thought we would talk more about osteopathy and become friends or something... but that didn't happen. He spoke English quite well.

Dinner, again, was at Mizuki at the hotel. I had the higher end Kiseki deal. It was my first time having blowfish. It was a lot of food. I didn't really like the snow crab that much - I am just not a big fan. 

Thoughts: From a Jungian (expanded) perspective (really some thoughts of mine), people visiting religious sites is similar to when people go to watch hero movies. The individuation process of each self is being projected to an external party such that the person "develops vicariously" when of course it is not really development at all rather a way to feel good about development happening by seeing someone else do it without having to go through the effort and suffering oneself. People are indeed compelled to visit these sites, a significant unconscious attraction but the chance to truly experience anything numinous and/or a sense of significance of (true) self is lost because the objective of "going there and taking some pictures" has been met and somehow supplants the truer goal of "going inwards and taking some spiritual measurements."

Or perhaps pitting GI Gurdjeoff and Nishida Kitarou together - can a person not self-aware of their "pure experiencing" be considered a "true" subject in the pure-experience event?