On the train ride back to Kyoto these two high school girls sat in the seat across from us, and after a while we noticed they were talking about us. Well, OK, maybe not Audrey, since she managed to pass for a Japanese the night before. I can tell because they were practicing the line, �gHow do you do?�h in as low a voice as they could to try and mimic the way they thought I spoke English. Never mind that I�fve never actually used those exact words in my entire life. But alas, they couldn�ft work up the courage to actually try their English out and I didn�ft have the heart to frighten them with my Japanese at the time.

The next day (and this would be Monday), we took a field trip to go see a performance of Takigi Noh at Heian Jingu (the Kyoto shrine with the famous big torii). Noh is a high art in Japan; people go to special schools to study it. It also tends to be in classical Japanese. Chanted. Sloooowly. So the first half I spent fighting the urge to sleep and trying to sneak pictures over the head of the guy in front of me. The next half, though, was far more animated. One play was about these enchanted mushrooms that were taking over the village; each time the monk would come out to I guess exorcise them, more would spring up, until eventually the mushrooms started jumping up and down and mobbed the monk, chasing him away. The last was about this spider demon who could shoot webs from his fingertips, a la Spiderman. There was lots of swordplay and spiderweb silk flying around�c

Last weekend was a field trip to Mt. Hiei, apparently home to the Tendai Buddhist sect and later to the so-called �gwarrior monks�h who regularly swooped down the mountain to burn the temples of their opponents. Don�ft mess with these monks. Now it�fs more famous for the 1000-day �gmarathon monks�h who walk around the mountain (a 30 km trip) or around Kyoto each day for 1000 days, often on very little sleep. They also do a nine-day fast without food, drink, or sleep. Hard core. Don�ft mess with these monks either.