It was Sunday morning so I took myself to church. I met the priests, monks and fellow laypeople, apparently all Japanese, on the Zenkōji (Buddhist) temple grounds at 7am. Thank god and Buddha for vending machines that vend hot items which kept my hands from freezing off on the walk over. I was freezing my ass off, and loving it!

From the meeting point, the priests led us in a drumbeat procession through the central gate and into the temple itself. The laypeople, including myself, sat in rows on the tatami mat floor in front of the inner sanctum, the exclusive domain of priests and monks. I don’t have any photos from inside the temple because photography is forbidden. The holy men led us in some songs. They were a bit different than what I’m used to, tonality wise, but I still felt called back to being in Christian church somehow. At a certain point, a veil at the front was lifted, revealing… some stuff, I can’t honestly remember. There was a lot to visually parse. But the woman I talked to at the information booth after the service said that somewhere back there, there’s an extremely sacred solid gold sculpture depicting Buddha flanked by Bodhisattva. It’s so sacred that even its replica is too sacred to be seen by lay eyes except for a once a year matsuri, which was not today.

Back to the service, at a certain point, we laypeople were led to an underground passage. The man who led us to the entrance said to keep our right hands on the wall as we walked single file so that we might rub the belly of the Buddha. Then we walked into utter darkness. I was blind as I walked with my other hand in front of me so I wouldn’t bump into the person in front of me. Eventually, somewhere between 5 minutes and eternity, we emerged on the other side of the temple and walked back to our places on the tatami. The woman at the information booth explained that in feudal times, the less fortunate came from around Japan to Zenkoji to ask the gods to allow them, after death, to escape their caste assignment and be taken to the pure land. It was said that in the underground passage there was a key, and whoever found it would be able to escape then and there. At the very least, taking part in a ritual symbolizing death and rebirth would be spiritually cleansing.

For my first meal after being reborn, I had some oyaki dumplings on the commercial corridor in front of the temple.

I also had coffee with a samurai. I walked into a little French cafe and ordered a cappuccino. A man sitting at the other table pointed at the handle of my umbrella sticking out of my bag. The waiter asked me about it and I pulled it out. Its handle was styled to look like a katana. They both laughed when they saw what it was. The waiter said the man is a 93 year-old samurai master. He was showing another customer how to break a hand hold. Just then, I threw myself on the ground in front of the nonagenarian samurai and implored him to allow me to become his student. Or maybe I should have, for the plot. I forgot to take a photo having my first sip, that’s why the art is a bit wonky.

The Nagano Art Museum had a Moomin and Tove Jansson exhibit visiting from Helsinki, and it was just around the corner, so I had to go see that.

And that was my Sunday morning in Nagano!