iScape Nippon: Noh on the Radio at Bon (Audio)

Every week or so a share of original sounds recorded in Japan this past October. Listen, glisten to sounds of gardens, crowd, radio, and western worship.

Track 6: Roaming through the waves of the FM band at the Bon guesthouse in Kyoto.

In my two weeks of traveling in Japan, my warmest memories are of the time spent with Kazuo and Tomoko at the Bon guesthouse, and everywhere around Kyoto. Kazuo, the owner of the place, is just the most amazing person, and Tomoko the kindest. You really have to meet them to get the whole sense of their kindness and hospitality. If you stay a few nights talking in the small courtyard of the house you will hear stories of the sushi master, the world traveler in the Americas, Europe, and Africa, the patchinko life, and of all the various people and guests that came to meet Kazuo.

In the early morning, he will take you just minutes away to a very intimate temple of the Daitokuji complex to experience zazen meditation. In the afternoon, he can rent you a bike, which is really the best way to get around Kyoto, or take you to the outskirts of Kyoto (Kurama, Arashiyama...) to visit temples that hardly see western tourists. And at night, you will chill out, talk about life in Kyoto's sentos (Japanese public baths, they have all sorts of baths - I dare you to try to electric one...) surrounded by scary looking tatooed yakuzas.

Kazuo and Tomoko are dear friends to me as I am sure to anybody who spends one night at the guesthouse Bon.

further proof: http://savedscribbles.blogspot.com/2005/11/few-days-in-kyoto.html