A Spiritual Journey Through Kyoto

I called my spiritual advisor while I was in Japan and told him my itinerary for the next week. He chuckled in amazement and said, “What If I told you when I first met you that if you just stay sober, in 5 years you will be taking a trip to Japan with your girlfriend, just for vacation? You would have probably told me I was a crazy person.” He’s right. The day we met I was still locked up in Theo Lacy county jail.

The gifts I have received from a sober life have been unbelievable to say the least, and they continue to come to fruition when I keep putting in the work, whatever that may look like. Like all experiences, this trip was an opportunity  to practice the spiritual principles that I have learned on my journey of recovery.

The flight was 18 hours , so I wanted to make sure I had things that would keep me entertained. I brought my laptop, and a dusty book from home that I hadn’t read in a couple years- Zen and the art of happiness by Chris Prentiss.

At LaX our terminal number was 130, and also the time we were flying out was 1:30 am. When we saw the same number a third time, we decided to look it up:

“Angel Number 130 is a message from your angels that some upheavals may take place and/or obstacles may appear in your life. This is happening for karmic reasons that will become obvious in short time. It will break new ground for you and will bring about new opportunities for you to grow and expand your personal spirituality. Your angels ask that you adapt to changes gracefully.”

My only thought at the time was, “OK that’s weird, usually repeating numbers are always good omens.” Like, it doesn’t get any more foreshadow-y than that though, right?

The flight was long and arduous! But we were cracking jokes and reading the old dusty book I had brought with me, which had a lot of gems in it:

“Even though what happens will sometimes appear unfortunate or hurtful, in the end of your life you will be wonderfully blessed and hugely benefited by whatever happens”, pg. 7 (Zen and the Art of Happiness)

Its funny how spiritual teachings always sound good to my ears. I think, “Oh yeah I practice that, I definitely believe that.” But when the rubber hits the road, how do I actually act?

We had a 2 hour layover in Chengdu, China. I had never been to China before, so I thought that this would be a new and exciting experience for us.

To our dismay, all American travelers were hung up in customs because they said we did not have the correct paperwork to enter the country. On top of that, apparently all international flights were departing 45 minutes ahead of schedule.

My first reaction to this was immediate frustration. As I heard the news, I turned to Megan, and she was laughing. She reminded me of all the omens and what we had read in the book, and she simply said, “Looks like the universe wants us to spend the night in China.”

I remembered the teachings from the book, and I remembered their call for acceptance and to have faith in the inner workings of the universe. I looked over at Megan’s smiling face and realized that we would be okay. This was not the end of the world, there is meaning in this event.

We ended up making the best of it , and actually ended up having a mini-adventure in a super fancy hotel near the airport.

If anything, this hardship put a new pair of lenses on our trip. It reminded me to be in gratitude and acceptance – to have willingness to allow the universe to do as it pleases and go with the flow. When we finally arrived in Japan and checked into our Airbnb, I was thirsty for adventure.

Japan has the most amazing culture! Our stay was in the city of Kyoto, where the vibe is very different from the hustle and bustle of Tokyo. Kyoto is known as “the ancient city”, with the highest number of famous temples and shrines since it was untouched by World War II .

Our first day we kind of just wandered around where we were staying, and we found a giant temple nearby. It was really an awesome experience! The temples were breathtaking, and there was a palpable atmosphere of silence and peace. This particular temple, I believe, was approximately 10000000000000 years old.

Our next day , we braved the public transit system in Kyoto, which was actually very easy to navigate, since pretty much everything had English translations. Sometimes it was difficult to figure out how to get around, but the local people seemed to pick up on our confusion really easily and were eager to help us out.

Pretty much all over the subway stations there were snack shops and 7-11’s. There was so much awesome yummy food- just a bunch of random stuff that we couldn’t buy enough of. We wanted to try it all!

It’s amazing how huge and refined the consumer culture in Japan really is; the amount and variety of stuff that was available for purchase was overwhelming. This was made apparent by the 7 story department stores and also at Nishiki market, which is a couple of city blocks dedicated to goods and services.

Since Megan is vegan, I wanted to try and hunt down places where she could enjoy options from the entire menu, instead of just salads and rice. We used an app called HappyCow to find the hippest and yummiest vegan places in town.

Megan was super excited to check out the famous ‘monkey park’! When we got there a sign indicated that there was a 20 min hike up a mountain before we could visit the monkeys. The hike was steep, but totally worth it! The monkeys were super friendly, as long as you didn’t smile at them or look them in the eye.

These monkeys were totally used to human visitors and didn’t seem to mind our presence, especially since we were feeding them snacks. This was an experience we definitely would not have had back in Orange County. There were no guard rails, or extra careful zoo keepers- just a few volunteers helping out and guiding us, respectfully reminding us of the rules.

We also found a place where we could hold hedgehogs and put them in cute baskets and take pictures. It was only about 7 dollars for 20 minutes, so we thought, why not?

One of our favorite stops was the prefecture of Nara. We had heard from friends that this city was home to thousands of deer that were allowed to roam the city, and lived in the large park at the heart of it.

It was an amazing experience walking side by side with the deer, getting to know so many of these lovely creatures. It didn’t have a zoo vibe, it was a very peaceful and non -touristy experience. For the local people it is totally normal to have deer all over the place. When we crossed the street, sometimes deer would come with us, they would look both ways, and make sure that a human was crossing the street with them.

It was quite difficult to water down a full week of happenings into just a couple of pages, but for me these were the highlights of our trip.

Along with the overwhelming sense of accomplishment from traveling halfway across the globe and making it home safely, I have a most profound sense of wonder and awe. A lot of people I have spoken to have never even considered traveling to Japan as a real option. Perhaps a pipe dream, but not something real.

I am excited, because not only did we make this into a reality, but for me it opens the door of possibility for more experiences like this one. It feels like the adventure of living life sober is just beginning.