Visiting the temple caretaker.

In order to truly learn, every opportunity that presents itself must be taken without fear or hesitation...
This morning I went for a walk to the nearby hill shrine and ventured down the road on the other side into a little community. On my way back up the hill to go home, some dogs came out from a house to greet me. As a car came up the road, a lady came out to call the dogs back. She asked me where I was from and we got chatting in Japanese (with me only getting the gist of what she way saying, heh heh).
She made a comment that it was hot and next thing you know she was inviting my into the house, which had large Buddhist statues in the garden and a small temple inside, turns out she is the 80-year-old priest of the little temple!
She asked me to sit at the table and offered me a banana, then busied herself making tea. She talked a lot and I really wish I could have understood more because she was talking about Japanese people and culture and language and foreigners. Her daughter lives in New York working at a cultural center there teaching Japanese traditions. She kept pulling goodies and things out of her fridge and insisting on giving them to me as gifts, including a box of tea and some vegetables (even a whole cabbage!).
I wish I could have expressed myself better, I feel like I didn't have the language or the cultural experience to accept the gifts gratefully and really show my appreciation. She explained something about it being a temple so she welcomes people in and give gifts because she knows that life can be expensive in Japan sometimes.
She said to come back any time and visit, that she would show me how to put on a kimono. Also she has a little house out back where I could come with my friends to relax share food together. I plan to go back someday and help her in the gardens and around the shrine and cook Canadian-style food together!
She also gave me some pretty little saucers and then insisted on driving me over the hill because the stuff she had given me was heavy.
What an indescribably wonderful random happening!