松陰庵尼寺

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I am going out on a warm spring Sunday in search of... I'm interested in cracks and crevasses--backwaters that the thrust of time hasn't molded in the same way as the great in tune mass of Ferris wheel turnings. 

On a bridge over Yada river I stopped to watch some large carp(?) swimming gently to stay stationary and had a conversation with a cute older Japanese woman who also liked the river. She too was surprised by the size of the fish.

松院庵 Plum blossoms

Over the river I sniffed around the area that Yumiko grew up--trying to sense shadows across 25 years of change. The new buildings and Plexiglas car ports didn't see her playing here. Around the back side of the block an abandoned building, gate falling in, the yard a wild tropic chaos, an old sleeping Japanese wooden house, might have heard her voice...

Up the hill, nose pointing north with the Shonai river in my imaginative periphery, I circumnavigated a large wall for a whole block that looked like it had been left to go it's own way. When I found the fourth side and the gates I started taking some shots of the grounds of the somewhat mysterious grounds and a lady who live acroos the street told me that if I wanted to I could go in a take pictures. Here are some:

This is still in the city

Stone in the empty temple

Notice the curvy wooden beam

A quite old building with thatched roof

Not a person moved as I poked around wondering. Everyone had moved on past. The lady from across the street told me, "Yes, the main building is very old but that pine tree is very old." She told me that it was a nuns' temple and that she had allowed me in because she had been there but in the future I should not believe I could enter freely. I understood and appreciated her kindness and my adventurer's luck.

I wouldn't think that 松院庵 will remain this way for long but you never know what will happen in Japan. Things seem to move in illogical ways.

PS  We've been cleaning out our home for almost two months and one of the bottlenecks is that (because of the recycling regulations) trash it is very hard to get rid of. (This has the effect of causing people to accumulate all sorts of garbage.) That being said it is very easy for the culture to let go of old Japanese ways--beautiful wooden houses not repaired but torn down and little shops are replaced by bigger shopping centers. There are same economic engines and pressures everywhere, I guess. ではまたね。