A Natural Person, always Barefooted, from the U.S. Enjoying Kamakura Hiking (Relay Guiding No.2)

[Date & Time]  Tuesday, December 13, 10:15 am–5:00 pm and Wednesday, December 14, 10:15 am–5:00 pm
[Spots] December 13: Japan Open-air Folk House Museum and Tokaido Kawasaki Shuku Koryukan
December 14: Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine, Jufukuji Temple, Zeniaraibenzaiten Shrine, Sasuke Inari Shrine, and Kotokuin Temple
[Visitor] 1 American man
[Attendants] 2 KSGG members each day and 1 assistant
[Language] English

　I guided a man, who had been guided by Mr. S, a KSGG member, a week before, around the Japan Open-air Folk House Museum and the hiking trail in Kamakura.  He was from Leadville, Colorado and this was his first trip to Japan.  When I checked about his hometown, I found that its population is about 2,600 and the town is approximately 3,100 meters above sea level.  I welcomed the visitor who came from the highest city in the U.S.  Listening to how beautiful Leadville is, I enjoyed two days, talking with him a lot and guiding him with explanations. 
  We visited the Japan Open-air Folk House Museum on Dec.13.  I explained that the people had made gunpowder from mugwort and urine at the Yamada House.  Then the visitor said that people could also make soap and fertilizer from urine and ash.  We talked lively and concluded that urine was important.  We sat straight on the hard tatami mat and had lunch at the Yamashita House.  He said that it was very comfortable.  When we hiked around Kamakura on Dec.14, he enjoyed feeling the nature very much. 

While hiking, he told me about Henry David Thoreau: He was a poet and transcendental philosopher of the 19th century (the last days of the Tokugawa Shogunate) who stated “All things return to the nature.”  We said that it was similar to Zen philosophy and the similar conception might come up with unexpectedly and independently, in different places and at any time.
  As I talked with him, I thought he was a practitioner.  For example he goes barefoot at home.  Also when he walks with his dog in the forest, he enjoys the sense of touching the earth in bare feet even if it snows.  Seeing his profile, I found him like a hermit.