As I mentioned in the post below, I visited Tofuku-ji Temple with my old friends John and Paul yesterday. We go way back. I mean, I've known these guys from college. John, in the middle, now teaches Japanese studies in Oxford. I met him at Vassar College, where he was two years ahead of me. He came to Japan after he graduated from Vassar to study Buddhism. He invited me over to Japan a few years later. Thus, it is to John that I owe being in Japan and my entire present life. He is what the Japanese would call my "senpai" (no good translations are available, but "senior" or "superior" point in the right direction). Next to John, on the right, is Paul, who didn't go to Vassar but was John's friend from elementary school back in New York. Paul used to come up to Vassar to hang out, so I've known him literally since the late 80's. Paul currently lives in Kyoto. We've gone trekking in the Japan Alps, the Himalayas and snorkelling in Thailand together. And, we've all, at one point or other, lived in New York City. So we can sit and talk about Japanese history and Buddhism with New York accents; though John has been in England so long I'm starting to hear a bit of an English accent. Luckily, I was born in England and my dad is English, so I'm bilingual. Talk about a lot of history. Fuggeddaboudit!!!
