Buddhas and Wedding Bells and Barbershops

Sunday we went on a trip around Akita. We went to a few temples including one with the "living buddhas" that is to say, buddhist holy men who, after several years of preperation mummify themselves from the inside out. Basically they under go a regiment that is drawn out at about 7 years starting with riggorous exercise everyday for three years accompanied by extreme dietary restrictions. the next couple years they consume less food and poisonous plant substances like excretions from lacquer trees as well as drinking arsenic laden water. basically this combination of chemicals would preserve the person from the inside. The intense exercise was to decrease the amount of fat as fat is highly subject to decay after death. When the Man was finally ready to become a "living buddha" he was placed in a hole and cut off from all food or water and given a bell to ring a few times a day to let the ppl know above that he was still alive. when the Bell stopped ringing they would estimate the time of death (albeit inaccurate). They would leave the man down there for about one thousand days to let the chemical reaction take its corse. If after one thousand days, the body is recogniably intact meaning not decomposed, then the attempt was succesful. Attempts aren't always succesful and there are hundreds of cases of self mummification attempts. As of now there are only 16 "living Buddhas" in Japan althought that is the largest concentration of selfmade mummies anywhere in the world. There are some in China too.

I didn't take any photographs of the living Buddhas in the temple because I thought it would be disrespectful but I took photos of things outside the temple and in the other room where you buy souvinirs and fortunes.

There was another place we briefly stopped before that that was on the ocean. The giant rocks were actually carved into Buddhist statues of saints. It had a beautiful view. It would have been nicer if the sun had been out.

After that we went for lunch. I went to this place where you take off your shoes and sit at a table with a grill and mix different ingrediants together that you pick. It was really rainy. It still is. It's just been raining almost everyday for few weeks now. Later we went to a sake museum where we got to try some sake for free....Sake is gross. Tastes like sugar and hatred. I didn't have enough to get drunk. It tasted too awful. Almost all the other girls drank on the bus which is why they all simulatanrously had to get out of the bus and pee on the side of the highway in the dark. Also, the all you can drink at the restaurant they went to had a hand in that.

we briefly stopped at a lake where there were TONS of water fowl. There were more ducks than swans. yet the lake was called swan lake.

Also...Ko finally got around to doing my hair. I think it came out pretty well for his first time twisting hair.

And..last but not Least, my collegue Jillian is going to Marry her Boyfriend this winter. He's in the military and lives on a base in Japan not to far from Akita. She says it will be great financially since married soldiers get extra pay. Then once she's back in the states they're gonna have a big traditional wedding. They've been together for like 5 years so..I'm all for it. It's not like she's rushing into it or anything.