VII - Jōmō-Kōgen

Growing up in an apartment in a big city, one is immediately taught to never leave windows open and always lock doors.

You might therefore expect that sleeping in a house which doesn't have a single door (yet alone a lock!) might feel weird, but it somehow doesn't. In fact, shōji (障子 - paper sliding panels) are almost poetical. At night-time, every whisper, every fluttering of tiny wings, every creak of the floorboards can be heard; during the summer, the crickets are so loud it almost feels like you're sleeping in the fields, under the sky.