July 22th, 2018 

Seventeenth Day of the KCP International Program

So after my movie [my wife pretends to be dead when I come home], I went and ate out at Mc Donald’s, and the lady sitting next to me started a conversation with me. She wanted to like, teach me about how to pray to some Buddhist god who resides inside of Mt. Fuji. According to my google search, it’s probably, “Nichidatsu Fujii” because the kanji [日達] is defiantly in the Gods name.

Since it was relatively early, and she said it was only like 4 dollars (for the train tickets, of which were 170 yen each, so 340 yen for round trip, which is closer to 3 dollars). I decided, well, that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and a good way to practice my bad Japanese.

(and she was small, so if she was trying to mug me, I felt like I could take her)

.So we, along with her child and her friends, all went to someplace... somewhere...and she filed in a piece of paper with my name and address (address was fake, and my name was spelled wrong) and then she gave me some prayer beads and a small paper bible that has the verses for the chanting.

The bible looked Chinese to me, but since it was basically all furigana, I was able to read along with the other people there as I prayed. It was fun in a “once in a lifetime way” and I enjoyed it more in the Tea ceremony; both of which you sit on a tatami mat in Seiza and stare at a pretty cove with some kanji written on it.

Doing religious chanting in another language was more like singing than reading. Since I have never been to church in America, I can’t really compare the situations, but there was never a point where someone stood up and lectured us so I assume that this is more my style.So for less than 4 dollars, I got to experience something that I will never do again, practice my Japanese conversation skills and got an interesting souvenir for myself.