As it turns out, the Japanese countryside is an uninterrupted progression of giant, forested mountains replete with quaint little villages. Japan is about 80% mountains, so I guess it shouldn't be that surprising. You can imagine how much it warmed my little heart to be wrapped in the warm embrace of a forested mountain. The village where we stayed is so small that when we three Americans went out for an evening stroll, everyone who saw us called the temple where we were staying to find out who these gaijin were and make sure that the bears weren't going to eat us (Seriously, apparently. They have scary bears that come out as soon as night falls).
The entire experience was an unforgettable one. It was much less like staying at a temple and much more like invading a normal family for one evening. The house was of course this beautiful old traditional Japanese one, complete with sliding screens and tatami mats. The advantage to shoji (sliding screens) is that every part of most walls can double as a door, but the disadvantage is that, being made of paper, they block as well as putting a paper bag over your head, without the advantage of being a portable personal fort.
The monk's wife and mother-in-law made us this incredibly elaborate meal with so many courses that I lost count. All of the food was extremely traditional and elaborate, so there's no way that I'd be able to remember the names, let alone how to make it. Suffice to say it was all ridiculously delicious and would have cost upwards of $50 per person at a restaurant. Our professor, whose name means "brown bear," got absolutely plastered and spent most of the evening making fun of Ayed for not being able to eat pork or drink (he's a Muslim). It was hilarious. Incidentally, it is only through a conscious exertion of will that one can avoid getting drunk at a traditional Japanese meal, as they were foisting sake and beer on us left and right. The sake was really good, but I wasn't about to get loaded in front of this random family I'd never met before.
There was no onsen, but I did get to take a Japanese-style bath for the first time; this had the distinct advantage of being a solo operation, as baths should be. Nonetheless, in baths that are basically hot tubs, I can see why the habit of bathing with others has remained - it's so comfortable that you want to soak in it for a long while, but it's too boring to be there by yourself.
I did far too many things to describe in detail - had a tea ceremony of an informal sort (not in the room in the photo, actually), went on a 3 km walk with the whole village ("Health is everyone's treasure," I was informed), saw countless beautiful mountains, got a tour of a sake brewery, etc. etc. etc. There is this road up in the mountains that twists and turns almost as much as the Black Hills in South Dakota, and is even more beautiful. There is this one point where you suddenly come into a little valley completely surrounded by mountains, only mountains as far as the eye can see. Between two giant mountains you can see two rows of mountain ranges right next to each other; encircled with mist and veiled by distance, they looked like a glimpse into infinity. I was prepared for the business, cost and hassle of Japan; I was not prepared for the beauty.
I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep for an hour or two, so I amused myself by running through the scant amount of poetry I have committed to memory. Shamefully, I had forgotten about half of "The Raven" and screwed up a fair amount of the rest. I was struck anew by the beauty of this Dickinson poem:
Exultation is the going
Of the inland soul to sea,
Past the houses, past the headlands,
Into deep eternity.
Bred as we, among the mountains,
Can the sailor understand
The divine intoxication
Of the first league out from land?
