We stayed at the Nan-in, the center temple of all festivities: meetings, eating, sleeping and performing art events.
The Buddhist service started every morning at 6.30am and after that we had breakfast. At 9am we had a staff meeting. Ayako-san and Shinobu-san , the founders of Happymaker, presided over every meeting after which we all went our seperate ways to our exhibitions.
Ayako’s father is the head monk of the Nan-in temple and the whole family including also her mother, two sisters and brother and wife helped with everything. Then there were lots of volunteers who helped either through an organization or just by reading it in the newspaper that they could help.
The exhibitions closed in general at 4pm, but most of the time I made it just back in time for dinner at the Nanin at 6pm. Then there was an event/ performance and at 9pm we had another meeting.

Breakfast in the men’s sleeping hall at 7.30am.

Morning meetings at 9am and evening staff meetings were also held in the men’s sleeping hall.

The women’s sleeping hall in which we slept sometimes with about twenty and surprisingly only two times I heard somebody snoring!

The opening party. The founder Ayako-san in the picture is the 3rd from the right and founder Shinobu-san is all the way to the left. Ayako-san, the collage artist, is introducing herself.

The opening party.

There were quite some events in the evening from which I only can post a few.

Takeshi-san and Veronique give their performance before the star gazing event.

Shomyo concert: a kind of Buddhist ritual chanting music in the Nanin and after that the rice-cake-throwing event.

The Crystal Bowl concert in which people relax their body and soul with the sounds of crystal bowls reverberating through the temple.

Everything was very well organized thanks to Ayako-san, Shinobu-san, Ayako-san’s family, the artists and all the volunteers and performers.