one of the best things we did in chiba was to have sounded the bell in a temple. we had to get up at five in the morning to do that, but it was well worth it, for our proximity to the ancient bell was thrilling, and each time we struck it its reverberations made the whole air tingle. and below the bell tower there was a pond full of beautiful water lotus - according to the monk, they were over a thousand years old. i wonder if that means the lotus is continually regenerated from its own seeds, or that the present plants have lived for a thousand years. i think the former, but who knows, it well may be the other.

and then there was the day we drove two hours out to a riding school and on the way stopped for lunch in what appeared to be the middle of practically nowhere, at a small, obscure and beautiful restaurant which served only soba. we looked out of the glass-fronted dining room over wide moats of water lotus. beyond, three horses grazed in a field. and there was a huge water wheel just beside the restaurant, steadily, steadily turning.