October 2005, began with a trip to Japan to research Reiki sites and visit areas where Dr. Usui taught and meditated. Tokyo is an amazing city with many wonderful people and places to visit. A visit to Reiki Founder Mikao Usui's Memorial and family gravesite involved visiting the wrong temple and gravesite first, but no visit to Japan (or anywhere) would be complete without finding yourself lost on more than one occasion :) Once found, careful notes of the directions were written down. However as informative as any of us have tried to be...I suspect you will also find yourself lost the first time around, enjoy!...it's all part of the journey!

Maps in hand, take the Tokyo Subway's Marunouchi Line (shown as red on the Tokyo Subway Route Maps) to the Shin-Koenji Station. As you go upstairs and come out of the station Exit 1, go to your right and look for the flower shop on your right. It is right next to a very nice produce store and a "7-11" store. The neighborhood is quite charming, busy and friendly. There is a wonderful coffee shop operated by a blues enthusiast that welcomes visitors stopping in for a sip of tea or coffee. Following Arjava Petter's suggestion, flowers were picked up at a local neighborhood florist to bring to the gravesite memorial. (Arjava mentions bringing flowers without thorns). Also brought along was incense to light. Next walk down the street to your right to the traffic light after you leave the flower shop and then cross the street to the Sun-R-Us store. If you walk just a few steps to the right, there is a small peaceful and residential lane on your left just to the right of a styling salon called Milly Molly Mandy's." The window of the salon tells the story of how Milly Molly Mandy's came to be.

When you walk to the end of the lane (it's not very far) and go through the gate, you will go past a small school and onto the peaceful grounds of the Saihoji Pure Land Buddhist Temple. If you look to your right you will see a bell and then a statue of Quan Yin. There is a dipper lying across some water at Quan Yin's statue. In keeping with tradition the dipper is for cleansing. Fill from the water holding it in your left hand rinsing your right hand first, move the dipper to your right hand and then rinsing your left. You then wipe your mouth, but do not drink the water.

Continue on.. You're almost there! Take a right down the first walkway after the stature of Quan Yin. Take the second left from the far end, and then your second left again. You will see the Memorial to Reiki Founder Usui on your right. The grave sites of Mikao Usui and his family are to the left of the memorial. You will see the vases for the flowers, and you will also see Usui's family crest in front of, and on the marker.

You will each have your own unique experiance when visiting Dr. Usui's peaceful and well tended gravesite memorial. It is the perfect place to spend some time in quiet meditation thanking Mikao Uusi for bringing Reiki to the modern world and to you!