...and suddenly it was quiet

i am sitting in a small, beautiful room, everything made of wood an white coulours, very natural, nothing unnecessary - except my luggage. lesson number one learned on this trip: think better before you pack.
i guess i will have to pack another parcel, after all. i am carrying really too much stuff around.
shinmeizan seems to be a really good place. it's quite remote up in the mountains, just some small buildings (two little dorms, a chapel, a meeting room), a handful of nuns and priests living here permanently (four at the moment, two of which are italian, one mexican and one japanese), and a lot of nature around. already on the drive up here i felt my breath was going slower, as if i was relaxing. it feels good to be outside cities again. i missed that...
so, in a way i feel i can settle down here for a bit.
on the other hand, isn't that weird? i have just unsettled everything, by leaving kyoto and the hdb, the place that became a kind of home for me, and i prepared myself for the long travel - and then the first step of my travel is something so quiet.
anyway. the farewell from kyoto was not easy - first i had finished packing long before i had to go and sat there, partly awaiting the time to leave, partly dreading it. luckily, keinee and moeko and tama took care of me... then, the farewell, with so many people seeing me off, even accompanying me to the bus stop - i had never expected so much.
and then, after keinee safely escorted me to the highway bus station, the long travel in the night bus. actually, it was much better than i had feared and i could sleep most of the time. in kumamoto, it was somewhat stressing to find the right bus, with some walking from some place to another, which wasn't pleasant at all due to all my luggage. but finally we found the right bus, drove anotehr hour, and then padre franco picked us up, taking us into the mountain in his car, the road winding higher and higher through trees, bamboo thickets, small rice terrace fields, the groudn became steeper and steeper, sometimes the trees opened and you could see far into the mountains, could see mount aso, and then we were there, welcomed, had lunch, and now i am here, in this nice room, feeling civilized again after a shower and a change of clothes, and kind of disappointed that such a quiet, concentrated place has internet in every room. i think i won't use it after this - it would spoil the whole thing somehow.
it's interesting - this place is a catholic monastery, but it feels quite japanese. the design of the buildings and interior is in japanese style (my room has paper windows in front of the glass windows, for example), and there are flower arrangements - and on the way to the chapel, there is a small corner with a nice rock and a buddha statue sitting on top of it.
i think it will be a good week.
greetings to you all!