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| Veggies for temple lunch |
This temple is really hidden, but not intentionally. Practically, it's remote lying in the northern part of Hiroshima Pref. called Kita Hiroshima. But the temple and local people welcome you warmly. It's remote, relaxed, peaceful, and hard to reach even with GPS or car navigation systems.
You might pick up your cell phone and call them when you are lost, thinking you would be late for your lunch appointment at the temple. You would try to describe where you are only to find it impossible because there are only trees and mountains around you and nothing specific which might be a clue to your location. But don't worry. The temple is used to this situation and they will kindly and patiently help you get to their place.
That's the way my friends and I reached there this spring of 2011. The temple is one of the commonly seen and not the kind of temples you might have visited in Kyoto, like world-famous Kiyomizudera and others. But isn't it something for foreign tourists to experience something daily and ordinary that Japanese people deal with? And if you are invited to the main hall of the temple to hear the priest chant part of the sutras just like Japanese do? And even better, if the temple offers you a very special meal you eat in one of their rooms and a bit of sweets and a cup of thick green tea in their tea ceremony room?
I'd like to go back. I wish I could take you who are reading this article and intrigued. Well someday we might meet then let's go and experience a rich slow life in the north of Hiroshima.
I bet you will feel much closer to this country and people and I'm sure you will have a memory of your life time.
Unfortunately I didn't take any good pictures of the veggie meal because I was busy eating. So I borrowed one of the pics from their blog. More pics in their URL. Enjoy the photos.
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