Hello and welcome to week 37 and my new reality – having the family back together! (2 x 2-legged & 3 x 4-legged). Yes, we can finally settle into life in Kyoto together and start the serious planning for our new venture. One of our first priorities is to develop a website so that we can commence marketing and ultimately start taking bookings.

So, what have I been doing this week???? It is divided into two parts; pre and post Craig’s arrival. Pre-arrival, I spent a lot of time trying to work out how we would fit additional clothes and other paraphernalia into this small space. I moved things around and generally worked at making more space. Unfortunately, unlike the tardis, the flat stayed the same size no matter what I did.

Post-arrival, we have been doing things together! The flat is still the same size, but now has more in it. Also, there are now two human voices having discussions…So life is moving along now, not stuck in neutral as it seemed to be for such a long time. It is also really good having Craig here in time for the construction phase of the activities towards fulfillment of our dream.

Speaking of which, we visited the ‘once was carpark’ on Monday to see how things were going and, as you can see below, found that preparations have been made for the foundation pour. I’m not sure when this is going to happen but I assume it will be some time this week. We’ll have to take another walk up there later this week to have a look.

When we arrived up there, there was a man and a woman tending a vegetable garden which has been planted around a disused pottery factory across the road from our block. When the woman saw us, she rushed off and I suspected she was going to tell other neighbours we were there. The man, on the other hand, just looked at us without engaging at all, then walked off. As we got our cameras out, the woman returned with two other women, who you could see were keen to check us out.

We greeted them and at once they started talking/asking questions. Unfortunately, we couldn’t understand everything they were saying, however, one asked if we were from Australia and the other if this was our block. We then tried to explain that we would be living there once it was built, but I’m not sure how well they picked that up though, as one of the women asked us if we were moving in. They also asked if it was going to be a minpaku, which is essentially a private residence where you rent out individual rooms, unlike what we are going to be doing, which will be a licenced accommodation. I said it was going to be a minshuku and hoped that would allay their fears a bit.

They also talked about the area being a small area and the need for quiet. I tried to convey that we would be talking to our guests about being considerate of our neighbours and keeping noise levels down, however, I’m not sure how allayed their fears were because they did repeat the quiet part a few times. At this point I decided to divert the conversation to the vegetable garden that they were growing and this seemed to go well. I told the lady who was most conversational that we didn’t eat meat and fish, but only ate vegetables, so we were impressed with what they were growing. After talking about that for a while, we said our thankyous and left, hoping we had made a reasonably good impression.

In the area around our block, there are many temples and shrines, many of which I have now visited, however, there are three largish temples in very close proximity that I had never visited, which I thought we should drop into on our way back from the block. None of these is in any list of top places to visit in Kyoto, but I thought we should know our own area as thoroughly as we could. The closest of these temples is the Chisakuin Temple which was established in 1598. The main hall is relatively modern (1975) replacing older halls which was burnt down at least two times, the most recent fire destroying some priceless sliding screens.

Some of the screens which were part of the temple precinct still remain there and are now housed in a small, purpose built museum. These are considered national treasures and really are very beautiful, depicting natural landscapes. The other feature of this temple precinct is, as is so often the case in Buddhist temples, a garden. There is a small tatami hall facing onto the main part of this garden and is a lovely place to sit, relax and contemplate.

The next temple is Myohoinmonzeki, which had many structures, some older others modern, however, there didn’t appear to be anything open there. The website indicates that one of the buildings was ordered built by Toyotomi Hideyoshi and has some amazing paintings inside, but this too was closed.

The last temple we went to is the Otani Mausoleum, which has a lovely entrance across a bridge over a pool with many lotus flowers. At the front there is a very traditional building which is the Buddhist temple, but behind is an amazing modernist style building, which was built in 1966, called the Muryoju-do. This building is covered in what appears to be large pebbles. We went inside briefly to see what the inside structure was – it is actually a concrete building, without any lining on the walls. It really is spectacular and the kind of architecture I like most. This building is where ash remains are kept.

(Light fitting inside)

On the Saturday night after Craig arrived, we went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant, which serves pizza and pasta. The man who makes the pizzas is, in fact, an Italian who I think actually owns the restaurant. This restaurant is one of the many that line Kiyamachi dori and during the warm months they have a balcony built overlooking the Kamogawa. In anticipation of Craig’s arrival I had booked a table on the balcony for this night, three weeks ahead of time to make sure I got one.

It was lovely out there in the early evening, in time for sunset. I think it was a bit of a surprise we were there, because you do have to book ahead and so not many tourists get the opportunity to have dinner outside. One of the highlights for me were the bats! As sunset approached, they gradually started appearing in the sky around us, flipping around trying to catch insects. It really was delightful and a most pleasant way to spend an evening.

After we left the restaurant, we walked down Kiyamachi dori for a while then went across to a hip bar called Len and had a couple of drinks before returning home for the night.

Tonight, we are going to watch a fire festival here called Gozan no Okuribi, or more commonly known as Daimonji – more about that next time!!!!!

Cheers for now