Welcome to a review of my time during Golden Week, or GW as it is often referred to here!!!! What is GW, you ask????? It is a period of a week in late April/early May which includes a number of public holidays. Many people take the other days off during this week and it is often the longest consecutive period people here have as leave during the year. A lot of companies simply close down for the week and give their staff the time off.

The result of all these people having time off together, as you can imagine, is that you need to book a long time ahead to get accommodation in many places (especially here, in Kyoto), also modes of travel, and all the tourist destinations are very crowded. This week I also had a visitor, a long time friend – Steven. Many of you will know him, but for others, we have been friends for around 36 years! Consequently, I tried to find places to go that wouldn’t be too overcrowded. This was also complicated by the fact that he has been here in Kyoto many times and has visited many places.

We also needed to work around the weather – a couple of days were wet. The first day he was here there was a lovely thunderstorm, so we headed to Teramachi, the part which has been made into a covered mall, to do a bit of shopping. Turns out many other people had the same idea – movement was slow.

The next day was sunny and warm, so it was time to show him the carpark. Not that there’s that much to see, bitumen, fence, etc, but it’s more to see the area it is in. After that, I took him to see the three-legged crow shrine, which I have mentioned before, and the lovely 900+ year old tree there. Then we walked back to the Kyoto National Museum. Currently there is a special exhibition of an artist who lived from 1533–1615, Kaiho Yusho. He was among the elite painters of his time. What is most interesting about him is that his fame came when he was in his 60s, during what they call his “early” period. Over the following two decades, he went from painting for priests to creating works for nobility, then for Japan-Korea diplomacy and then the Emperor.

His earlier works were mostly monochromatic, using ink and a simple style. Later works were created with some colours, although generally not too many in each painting – used more as highlights – and they were often quite intense colours. Strangely, while his people, animals and flora were rendered with great skill (particularly the birds), buildings and other created structures looked to me somewhat stilted and with flat perspective. In one work, which was painted across several screens, it almost looked as if someone else completed the fences on the last screen, someone who was rushing to get it done…(no photo of that one)

(one of my favourites)

After viewing the exhibition, we and every other person there went to the museum shop. I was considering some purchases, but the queue was so long I decided against it in the end. While prevaricating, I noticed some movement at the other end of the shop, near the entry. It was one of my favourite museum characters, who I have called grumpy cat because of the look on it’s face. This cat is taken from a painting that is a permanent exhibit at the museum, and is, in fact, meant to be a tiger. As with many animals that were not native to Japan, the renditions of these is somewhat different to the real thing. In this case, the tiger has a look on it’s face which I have likened to “why have you painted me like this??” Hence I named it grumpy cat – nothing to do with the cat on the internet.

Being a big fan of this cat (there’s just something about it), I made a bee-line to where it was and managed to get a couple of photos, which I now treasure! I had to push my way through the crowd, but it was worth it. I only wish I could have had a photo taken with it (and for me to say I want a photo of myself…). Funny the things that make you smile.

On Monday we wandered around the Gion area and up towards Kiyomizu-dera (we didn’t go all the way up there, it was just too crowded). Interesting how you can visit places many times but somehow miss certain things. In this case, because it was so crowded, we walked in closer to one side of the walkway and found a beautiful garden area out the back of the shops. I don’t know how I missed it before – I have even been into the shop next to it a number of times.

On Tuesday, we went to Uji, which is about a half hour train journey from Kyoto. I wanted to see the gardens at a Buddhist temple there, Byodo-in, because the wisteria is out at the moment and it has an area of wisteria on a large trellis. Yes, the continuing hanami saga. I wasn’t disappointed, it was as lovely as I thought it would be. It is a beautiful temple and the main hall is supposed to be equally beautiful inside, but we would have had to wait two hours before we could get in, such was the crowd. The other highlight at the moment is the presence of the large bees. They are called carpenter bees (or kumabachi in Japan, which means bear bee) and are around 2cm in length. They are quite loud but are relatively harmless with the male not having any sting and the female only stinging if severely provoked.

Next day we went to Momoyama-jo (the castle in Kyoto needing TLC that I have mentioned previously) and then to Fushimi Inari-taisha (also previously mentioned, with all the tori). I had been told there was a festival there during GW, and wasn’t disappointed. It was clear that a procession of the priests was going to happen so we stood near the back entrance to one of the big halls, where people were waiting inside for a ceremony. It was a bit of a wait, but we got an up close look at the priests (no photos allowed). Later we went around the front, just before they exited out of the shrine to multitude decorated trucks, cars and vans. We saw them drive off, took photos and waved.

Later that day, after we had returned home, we were sitting inside having tea, when I heard some drums start up. I ran downstairs and discovered some of the trucks and vans were heading down our street! So I stayed outside to watch (even though I was in my house clothes). As I stood there, I could see more and more of the trucks coming down the street. After the next wave went through I ran upstairs to grab my camera and tell Steven that it appeared the entire procession was coming down our street. This involved some large limousine cars, a dozen or so vans and at least 30 trucks. It was wonderful to have them all come past my home and be so close to the procession. In addition to the trucks we had seen earlier, some trucks had joined the procession which were carrying the special floats housing the kami from a number of shrines. Five in all.

In the evening we went out to dinner at my favourite Indian restaurant. On the way home, as we crossed the bridge over the Kamogawa, Steven noticed something in the water and pointed it out to me. It was an animal of some sort, so I just had to find out what it was, of course. We ran down the stairs and under the bridge and there it was, sitting on a bank out in the water. It then swam over towards us and actually came out on the side of the river! It was a large rodent looking creature, about 40 cms long. It wasn’t at all afraid of us and just went about it’s foraging. Meanwhile, an American woman had noticed us and what we were doing, and she joined us to watch this creature. She thought it looked a bit like a beaver, but with a narrow tail. Turns out it was a Nutria and is similar to a beaver, native to South America.

We did other bits and pieces during the week he was here, spent money, drank a fair bit of nihonshu and generally enjoyed ourselves. Steven had decided to collect nihonshu labels and had brought a blank book with him to do so. So we did spend time searching out, buying and then drinking said nihonshu. We also found a street in the Gion area where there were many antique shops – a very dangerous thing for me. I managed to buy only one item! Another lucky find, at the Heian Shrine, was an Indian man who runs a company supplying various spices and foods, including vegan items!!!!!!! So we now have at least one supplier lined up.

(a wedding party)

One thing to note in the photos of the amazing garden at the Heian Shrine is the resemblance of one part of the garden to a Monet painting, at this time of year. Monet is a very popular artist here, with many of his works housed in galleries around Japan, so it is entirely possible that he was inspirational for this garden.

On a slightly political note (which I am generally avoiding for this blog), I was very pleased this week that some common sense finally prevailed in the world of politics. Vive la France. Perhaps the tide of “populism” is turning…a little.

More photos of Kiya-machi Dori

A couple of gratuitous photos…