Adventures in Japan

Ten Lords A Leaping

Our hostel has very hard beds. There are no fitted sheets for the beds, nor are there pillow cases. Just loose sheets to wrap around whatever needs wrapping. And the showers. You have to push a button to make the water flow. The water flows for less than 20 seconds. It takes longer than 20 seconds for the water to warm up.

We might be too old for hostels.

The area of town we are staying in is famous for its hot springs. There is one bath house in particular that is famous all across Japan. It has been around for over 3000 years. We didn't go in. But it looked nice. Smaller than I thought it would be.


There are also foot baths all over the neighbourhood. If your feet feel sore or tired, just sit down and give them a soak.

That all was prequel, I guess.

From our hostel at the top of the hill we walked through a shrine. It looked like a shrine. There were some architectural thingees that make it special, but I am an ignorant foreigner and did not notice them. The shrine was for two gods: the god of war and the god of mathematics. Yeah.

After the shrine, we went to a temple. A very smoky temple. This temple also had caves. Not really caves, I guess, more like a couple of tunnels. Poorly lit, incense filled tunnels. With sporadic strobing lights. Yeah, that was fun. And a little freaky. But that was not the freakiest thing about that temple-y area. No sir, the freakiest thing that happened today was probably one of the freakiest things that I've ever been a part of.


Carla and I stumbled out of the dark smoky tunnel and onto a side street. A little bit further up the street was a park type thing. There were some Buddhist type statues in it, so I thought it might have been another part of the temple. Once we entered the park, I knew I was mistaken. The main temple, even though it is a popular and well known temple, is kind of run down. This 'park' we found ourselves in was neglected.


The statues were rusted and crumbling. The flowers were fighting a losing battle with the weeds. And there were cats everywhere. Carla and I were the only two people in the place.


I was busy taking pictures of rust when I heard Carla say, "There's something wrong with that cat."


Intrigued, I came to see what she was talking about. She had stopped on a flight of stairs. At the top was a sickly looking kitten. One of its eyes was all goopy. But that's not the first thing you would notice about this cat. No. This cat couldn't meow. All that came out of its shaking frame was a horrible wheeze of a sound.


That's about when Carla decided to turn around.

She's always been the brains of this operation.

I stayed and poked around some more. I found this statue.


It could be of Jesus after he spent those days and nights in the desert with Satan. Or it could be just freaking scary.

This statue was next to a structure built in the shape of a peach. The door to this peach building was open.

You know how I said this 'park' was just up the road from a busy temple? I couldn't hear the bells of the temple, the murmur of the crowd, the sound of traffic. Nothing. I couldn't even hear any birds.

I walked towards the open door. The only light inside was what fell through the door. Outside of that patch of brightness there was nothing save for a couple of glints from the statues inside.


Have you ever felt wrong? Like...

Wrong. Just wrong. I felt so wrong. That place was wrong. I was seriously freaking out, standing in that doorway. And, of course, part of me wanted to go in. But I didn't. Instead I turned around.

There was a line of cats staring at me from the top of the stairs.

So wrong.

I got the hell out of there. I don't think I made much sense for the next hour or so. Everything and everyone looked sinister.

Horrible.

Then I got a few drinks in me and the day got better.

We found a new, better place to spend our last night. We had a glorious dinner.


But still, man... Those cats were just staring at me.