Evening and welcome to Week 47 – a week of rain…for the most part. The grey skies did not clear up for the whole week. This was largely due to a very large typhoon (number 21, if you are interested), which started to our south and slowly moved north over the week. On the day it actually landed, we received around 120ml. Again the typhoon landed in the Osaka/Wakayama area and the rain was heaviest there. We got some wind here as well, but nothing like they experienced.

The day after we had to go out to do some shopping, despite the ongoing but somewhat lighter rain. I thought it would be interesting to go and have a look at the Kamogawa, so that we could see how high the river level was, and I also wanted to check the progress of the autumnal colour change. The Kamo was as high as I have ever seen it, so much so that the concrete x-shaped forms which are generally used for breakwater construction at the beach but which are in the Kamo just south of the Gojo street bridge and which are normally mostly exposed, were completely underwater.

These were fully submerged after the rain

Strewn around the roadsides and next to the river were quite a few ‘dead’ umbrellas. A sad sight, the poor broken and abandoned plastic umbrellas, dumped after the wind has caught them and tragically inverted them. Umbrellas are very cheap here and therefore are completely disposable. This is also exacerbated by the fact that there are no rubbish bins on streets and households do not have a rubbish bin in which to put their refuse – rubbish is disposed of by using pre-paid garbage bags (bought in convenience stores and supermarkets) and these aren’t overly large, so it is hard to get rid of larger items like umbrellas.

In relation to the aforementioned autumnal colour, it is just beginning to happen, but very slowly. We are on constant alert to spy the odd tree that has begun the process so we can capture the colour for posterity and for this blog (and Facebook and Instagram – it’s all about the marketing). Anticipation.

The lone tree

Now, turning to The Very Nearly House (yes, another name change) all windows and doors are now installed, except the front door, so until that happens it is not fully a house in my terms. The outside is now fully clad and awaiting the final coating and it appears that all the electrical wiring and plumbing is installed. The next steps will involve installing ceilings and flooring, I presume, me being a novice at house building and the order in which things are done.

One other outing we had was to look for suitable things to photograph in black and white – Craig had been given a seven day challenge by a friend to post one black and white photo each day, that didn’t include any people – difficult in Japan! We started on Kiyamachi street and then walked back and across to the railway station, with stops at the Honganji temple and ending up at One of my favourite stores – Yodobashi.

Along the way we took the backstreets as much as possible, because you never know what you may find, and discovered a HUGE bottle shop (!!!!!!!) and a temple which was originally built in the 1100s by Emperor Go-Shirakawa. This temple has had a history of destruction by fire, as so many have, and has been moved once by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Unfortunately it is only open one day per year, on 13 April.

After finding these two gems, we went on to Honganji, a huge temple near the Kyoto station, which we have visited a few times since we started visiting Japan in 2007. For the first time since 2007 there is no renovation happening at the temple, so all buildings and gates are uncovered and fully visible. It really is very impressive and is one of the first places of historical interest that you see when you leave the station.

Well, that’s all we managed in this very wet week – we couldn’t even dry our washing, there was so much moisture in the air!

 !!!!!!

Cheers and here’s to sunny days.

My how the weather can change! Suddenly we’re wearing long sleeves and jackets and enclosed shoes – and we have had to resort to using quilts at night!! How long before the aircons are on to heat our little abode?

Hello, and welcome to week 46, which I am writing while clad in a fluffy hoodie and fleecy lined track pants – the height of elegance it is not, but it is assuredly warm and comfortable. It has been a bit of a shock going from short sleeves and sandals to rugging up in such a short space of time. I have even turned the toilet seat heating on, though only to 1. There have also been quite a few wet days, which makes you feel less inclined to go out lest you get wet and cold. You certainly experience the seasons here, and there are definitely more than four. We await the autumn colour with anticipation!

So, to the week’s activities. We went up to visit The Nearly House on Saturday this week, as we had an engagement on Sunday (more about that later). I suspected we’d find tradies busy at work on our future home, and so it was. The main focus of the work was the outside cladding of the building, which looked like they had just commenced it that day. Given the rate they are getting through the work, I imagine the house will be fully clad when we go up there next weekend. This will indeed make it The House in my mind!! Inside it appeared much of the plumbing was in place along with the electrical wiring.

This week we also received a selection of designs for a circular metal decoration to be attached to the front of our house from our architect. There was one that when we saw it we both just had to have it – again he has understood what we are looking for. I specifically asked for a round element on the front of the building because it is quite angular with square windows, etc. Also, I had noticed that quite a few traditional Japanese houses had a round window or metal decoration on the front. I actually asked for a round window, but the architect said it would be costly to add that into a two storey façade, in terms of engineering and the strength of the wall.

On Sunday, we went to see the Autumn tour sumo event in Kyoto. I was really looking forward to this and was hoping all of the yokozuna would be there, because during the last sumo basho three of the four yokozuna had not been able to participate due to injury, including Hakuho.

It took a train and a bus to get us to the Kyoto Prefectural Gymnasium where it was being held, and it was a rainy day, but we got there relatively dry and looking forward to the day’s programme. We had booked a box which was for two people and I thought it was going to be an actual box, except we would be sitting on the cushions on the floor. I took a cushion, just in case the seating wasn’t overly comfortable. We also took our own food because I was pretty sure there wouldn’t be any vegetarian food available at the venue.

Turns out the “boxes” were rectangles marked out with tape on the floor of the gymnasium, and there were no cushions (thank goodness I took my own – poor Craig had to sit on the floor for the whole programme). While the ring is raised above ground level, it was at times hard to see thanks to some people who sat up on their feet – we were four or five rows back. Also, as so often happens, there were some people who kept getting up and down during the day (doing who knows what???).

Despite all the above, it was a good day overall and all the yokozuna were there, which was fantastic. Harumafuji didn’t fight (although he did come out during the warm up), but then he won the last basho, so perhaps they were giving him some rest time!!! The day started with over an hour of warm up time, during which we got to see the sorts of training they would normally do. Hakuho did some practice with another rikishi in the ring, which was great to watch, especially as it was half serious, half fun. He was having a good time. After this, they had some children go up against some of the rikishi, which was very funny, then a bout which was entirely put on and was hilarious. Following this two rikishi had their hair done in the ring to show how it is done.

 (photo bombing geiko)

Once all that was over, all of the rikishi came out in three separate groups, based on their ranking with the last group being the four yokozuna, all in their kesho mawashi (see photo – they look somewhat like a very elaborate apron) to do the ring entry ceremony. A number of the rikishi were carrying babies (not sure whose…) and included them in the ceremony. The final part of the programme involved the rikishi in matched bouts. Very enjoyable and I got to yell out best wishes to Hakuho before his bout. Interestingly, there was a small group of Hakuho fans around me – so we really put some effort into it!!

The other activity of note this week was our second visit to the taiko group practice. We weren’t sure what was going to happen, whether we would be thrown in the deep end, or just spend time watching another practice given they have two more performances this month. The person we had talked to last time wasn’t there when we got there and the other people didn’t seem to know what we were going to be doing, so they just said we should watch.

About an hour and a half into the practice, she turned up and shortly thereafter we were suddenly asked to follow her and one of the men in the group to another room. She said we were going to have a lesson with this man! So he started playing a rhythm and got us to follow him, then he indicated he wanted us to do some improvised playing…Having not played for  months, I was somewhat rusty and after playing the rhythm for a while, which was quite fast, my arms were feeling rather shaky. Still, we both managed to play some bars. Then he started teaching us two sections of one of the songs they perform. It was very enjoyable and certainly tested my recently unused skill of learning a new taiko piece…We were told they perform around 20 times per year. Food for thought, as it is unlikely we will be able to be involved in many performances once our business starts.

On the way home, when we came up out of the subway station on the main road near our flat, we noticed a pink beam of light coming from Kiyomizudera. Was it them sending messages to the kami or bodhisattva?

Well, that’s is for now from autumnal Kyoto – hopefully I’ll be able to bring you some lovely photos of autumn colour soon. In the meantime, here’s some more Halloween photos. Cheers!

PS – Craig has had a hair cut!!

Hello and welcome to October! Ok, I know it has been October now for nearly two weeks, but it is my first October posting since I haven’t posted for two weeks. Why? (warning, excuse follows) I decided to wait till I had some rather more interesting things to talk about, along with some photos.

We didn’t do anything overly out of the normal in the first week, apart from visiting a couple of vegan restaurants and handing out some of our cards. It was nice to meet some of the people in our fellow vegan businesses and they were quite excited at the prospect of a vegan minshuku opening in Kyoto, especially at Veg Out, which is very close to where our business is going to be. A number of the staff there had visited Australia and seemed pleased we were from Australia.

The other main outing we had was to meet with our builder and architect, to start the selections process. This was slightly difficult since we didn’t have overly much in the way of samples – it is hard to chose colours from photos on a device or in a book. The architect did have large samples of the exterior cladding, which enabled us to see the colour we previously thought was ok was, in fact, slightly pink. So we changed that! Other than that, we chose the tiles for our area, the wallpaper, the door styles and wood, the bathrooms styles, etc. At the end, we arranged to go to a Panasonic showroom to chose our kitchen colours and layout. (Yes, Panasonic)

During the meeting, our builder received a phone call from his friend who runs the taiko group I previously referred to. He had apparently contacted his friend to arrange for us to visit them and his friend was ringing to confirm the time and place. We found out that they generally practice twice a week, Tuesday and Friday nights from 7-9pm. We organised to go on the Friday night. As it turns out, it was a very wet day, so it was somewhat harder to find where they were once we reached the shrine, thanks to the rain and the mud!!! Luckily someone arrived as we were wandering around, lost, and let us in. The friend we were supposed to meet didn’t arrive until after 8:00pm.

Slight hiccup aside, we went in to find a very large carpeted space, on which they had put down a large tarp and were then placing plywood sheets, which had markings on them. These turned out to be place markers for their drums and positions they would take on stage. There were four people there when we arrived and by the end there were around 20. The drums varied from shime, through to one huge ohira daiko (large with a short body). This can be put upright on a stand, or on a flat stand. When on the flat stand it can be played with the normal, but very large, drum sticks (bachi) or a single stick which looks rather like a baseball bat in shape.

We watched the whole practice, which was entirely taken up going through around five pieces and making sure that each part was as best they could make it – it turns out they have three concert performances happening during October, so are preparing for them. They were very good and the pieces were great. At least one of them we recognised as one of the pieces Kodo plays. I was trying to work out where we could fit in, if in fact they did consider us, because it really was quite slick.

At the end, two of the members talked to us to see what we thought. Our builder had told his friend we were looking for a group to join and they asked us if we were still interested, particularly in light of the fact that we have relatively limited Japanese and they spend time at the end of each class discussing how it went and any problem areas. One of the women said she was worried it would be a problem and we indicated we thought it might be difficult us joining given they have a set of pieces they play regularly and have all the parts worked out, etc. We gave them our card and they said they would contact us via email.

On Sunday, we received an email asking us if we would like to join them! We assume they had discussed this amongst themselves and decided in the end to invite us. We, of course, are very happy with this, if a little apprehensive. We will have to pick up the pieces they play very fast…

On Monday we went to the Panasonic showroom to do our selection. It is interesting the differences between what we are used to in Australia in terms of a standard home kitchen and what they have. First big difference is the sink – when I say sink, I mean they have a single, very large sink as standard (no draining board), where in Australia, we generally have a double sink, which is much smaller, and a draining board on one or both sides. Another very obvious difference is the lack of an oven. They have a cook top, which mostly has three hobs and a griller underneath, but rarely an oven. They showed us an oven when we asked, but it was quite small. It also was a microwave!!! It was also quite expensive. So, we are going to stick with the micro/oven combo we have currently – much cheaper.

Yesterday, we went on an outing to the next prefecture to Kyoto prefecture, Hyougo. Our destination there was a walking trail along a disused railway track, the Fukuchiyama line, which passes through the Mukogawa gorge. Known as the Takedao Hike, it is around 5-6kms long and has six old railway tunnels along its length. We had seen it on tv a while ago, during a segment we regularly watch where two men walk between onsens within a prefecture and show various sights along the way. I particularly wanted to go on this walk as they had seen some bats in one of the tunnels.

We had to catch three trains to get there, which took just under an hour and a half, then walk around 1km from Namaze station to the beginning of the trail, but it was worth it. The weather was a balmy 29C and sunny, so perfect for a hike/walk. At the beginning of the trail there was a laminated sign which warned of a bear sighting on the tail in June this year, but we figured it was now October, so it probably had moved on (maybe). Anyway, there were other walkers, so it was more likely that it would be scared off. It was a lovely walk, very scenic and not too hard – the rails had been removed just leaving the sleepers and stone base.

We took torches with us for the tunnels, which was absolutely necessary in all the tunnels, even the shorter ones through which you could see the other end. The longest tunnel is apparently around 450 metres, and it curves, so you cannot see the other end. It is pitch black inside. Unfortunately, the hoped for multitude of bats didn’t materialise, although we did find one sleeping in one of the refuge holes (I think that’s what they are…). Overall, it was definitely worth the effort and I would recommend it as a relatively easy and very pleasant hike/walk (having said that, we were somewhat tired at the end, which we put down to the uneven surface of the sleepers and stones).

Forgot to mention The Nearly House (an upgrade…) before. The windows are now all in and the electricals are close to being fully installed. Upstairs (up the ladder…), most of the walls are now in place. We asked the expected completion timetable at our meeting with the builder and were told they are about a month ahead of schedule!!!! We should be able to move in during January :-).

Before I sign off, just had to buy the packet of “Herbs for Halloween” pictured below. What were they you ask???? Salad leaves…

Cheers for now.