resting and typing away

Since a bit after noon today, I've been at the home of Paul C., an air traffic controller and SGI practitioner (like the Wood family in Arlington). Paul knows a lot about local history (who knew Seattle had such seedy beginnings?), and has been a wealth of information not only on Soka Gakkai, but on other religions as well. His place is downtown in Pioneer Square, almost right by the water, a little over two miles away from Choboji, where I was last night and this morning. I was happy that most of the walk to Paul's place was downhill, but now that I'm close to the water's edge, I fear what sort of walk awaits me tomorrow. At least I have more time to rest my feet today.

Paul took me out to the airport to pick up his girlfriend Ginger, who is Korean (for clarity's sake: she's an American citizen) and a Mormon (or is that lapsed Mormon?). Because we had some time before her flight touched down, we did lunch alng with Paul's golden retriever Indiana, put Indy back into the apartment, then visited the local SGI kaikan (Kor. hwae-gwan, which translates various ways into English; "[convention] center" or "meeting hall" come to mind as possibilities), where Paul explained a goodly bit of SGI's early history. While in the kaikan, he shared an interesting insight with me: "Religion provides a framework for our spiritual knowledge." (I hope I'm quoting that right; this was another of those moments where I should have been recording.)

Paul owns (yes, owns) a nice apartment right next to Qwest Field, the stadium where the Seattle Mariners play their games. He's given me the run of a spare laptop, so I'll be catching up on typing all this evening, uploading more photos from my digicam and Blackberry, and finalizing where I'll be staying tomorrow night. If I can, I'll also try transcribing the recorded dialogue I had with Genjo last night (patience, Charles... uploading will happen, but I'm hoping for files of sufficient sound quality to be worth the listeners' while), as well as blogging about some of the other fascinating conversations I've had (including one this morning with Genjo's Zen group).

Stay tuned!


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