Hi all and welcome to this special anniversary edition!!! Yes, as of yesterday, I have been here in Kyoto for one year. It’s funny that it feels perfectly natural being here, despite the weather being very different to what I’m used to and living day to day in a very small space. Not that our house in Adelaide was that big, but it was a lot bigger than this two bedroom flat where our bedroom doubles as our lounge area and the second bedroom as our official office! I am covering two weeks in this post, having got slightly behind due to certain circumstances (being a little unwell for a while and having some visitors stay with us)

I am definitely looking forward to having more space, even though most of our new home will be for the use of guests. Turning to The Very Nearly House – or as I am calling it now, The House. Yes, it has been upgraded because it now has a front door. The scaffolding is still up (or was a few days ago), but there is a door there, covered as it is for protection. The main focus of the work at the moment still seems to be ‘upladder’ and the outside, eg there are now dividers and a handrail on the balcony.

 (prep’d for shoji)  (covered door)

On Friday we had a meeting with our builder and architect, to make some final selections re colours and finishes. The architect brought with him a little model of our new abode, which was very cute and included the carport with a car in it! He took pleasure in showing the inside levels – the roof came off and the second floor lifted out. The roof even had the large pendant light fittings that are going to be in the atrium area attached to the underneath 😊.

While there, I mentioned that we had seen a light fitting we liked which we would love to have over the breakfast counter. They had planned two downlights there as it turned out, but I really don’t like downlights (the glare), so I was glad I mentioned it. It turned out our builder knew the manager (or owner?) of the shop we saw the light fitting in, so he called him and said we would be there the next day to buy it. He also said his friend would give us a discount and that he (the builder) would pick it up for us! (service never ends here). So yesterday we went to the shop and bought the light fitting – it was already on special when we went in and then he reduced the price even further. Lucky, really, as our budget is getting very tight at the moment.

(similar to this)

Moving backwards in time, two weeks ago we went to visit Arashiyama, where the bamboo grove is, to see how the autumn colour was going there (no, we’re not obsessed – well, maybe a little bit). It was a lovely sunny day, so the blue of the sky offset the oranges, reds and yellows beautifully. We did our best with photographs, along with the hundreds of others doing the same…

   (artist at work)

In the second week we went to a market outside Heian shrine, tasted a lot of nihonshu, then continued up to the Philosopher’s Path (feeling a little warmer inside!). More autumn colour, although this day was less sunny and very, very cold – the wind-chill made it feel even colder. There were even more people there that day and it was very hard trying to get your own shots while trying to avoid photobombing others. Still it was a very nice and very long walk (also very few toilets, with very many people queueing ☹).

Following this excursion, we had a friend of Craig’s and a friend of hers come to stay with us for a night. This took up some time, both in preparing for their stay, including rearranging our official office to make room for two beds, then taking them to a few places and clearing up after. It was very nice to have someone here again. When they arrived they indicated a few places they wanted to go, and we were able to work out two itineraries to encompass their wishes.

Two of the places they wanted to see were Fushimi-Inari and Kiyomizu-dera. So, we took them to Tofukuji which is on the way to Fushimi-Inari, to see the autumn colours, then Fushimi-Inari and after we went to Kiyomizu-dera then out to dinner. They had travelled from Tokyo to Kyoto on the shinkansen in the morning, so we didn’t have much time to do all of this! At Tofukuji, there were hundreds of people there taking in the colour spectacle, so it was hard moving around, let alone take photos. Interestingly, most of them were Japanese, not foreign tourists. On the other hand, Fushimi-Inari was much quieter than normal, so they were able to get some shots with no people in them!!!

We returned home for a brief pit-stop, then went up to Kiyomizu-dera. By this time it was fairly dark so the lights were on around the area, which made for a very ethereal experience. Of course, there were many people there but not as many as during the day, so it made it easier to get around. As we hadn’t been there at night before it was a new experience for us too. After that we had an enjoyable, warming Indian dinner. Yum.

So, my first year here ends with lots of colour and very cold weather, along with some good company. I managed to catch a cold during this period, which was the first time I have actually caught anything viral here. I wasn’t too bad, but it did stop me visiting The House this week. The most difficult thing here has been finding our way through the bureaucratic maze in a foreign language. It still amazes me that in such an advanced country, as Japan is, that so little is accessible on-line, eg there is no company register on-line. It really is a paper-based society still, along with the fact it is also very much a cash-based economy. Many places still do not accept payment by credit card and there is definitely no mention of paywave here. I find it absolutely incredible that you have to buy certificates of company registration every six months to provide proof of the status of the company for many transactions and, on top of that, to pay for the certificate you have to go to a separate part of the Legal Affairs office to first purchase some stamps, which you then have to take to the counter to collect your certificate, where you have to lick the stamps and apply them to another form for payment!!

Anyway, it has certainly been a learning experience, with each day a new adventure. The surroundings are beautiful, on the whole, and it is rare not to find yet another hidden secret or amazing place as you wander around here. We often take slightly different routes to places we know, choosing the small back streets because you never know what you will find next.

One other thing I forgot to mention – yesterday, on the day of my anniversary here, Hakuho won the last sumo basho of the year, a day early! A very nice way to celebrate my year here (apart from the 2004 Bottle of Rockford Basket Press…)

Cheers for now

  (another artist at work…) (???)

Cold, cold, cold…It feels like winter is here, early, with the daytime temperatures now in the mid to low teens and the overnight temperatures under 10C. It is certainly colder now than it was when I arrived last year and when we were here the year before at this time. I am now wearing my puffy vest more often than not during the day, and my big puffy jacket if we go out after dark – which, by the way, is from about 5:30.

Luckily, we are getting the odd sunny days, which are much more pleasant and make for better photographs to highlight the colours. I am certainly looking forward to moving into our new house with the under floor heating in our living area! At least I have my room shoes here, which are warm and comfortable 😊.

Talking about The Very Nearly House, the outside cladding has now had the coating applied and so is looking even more like a home. When we went to look at it, it was just finished, with the tradie cleaning his tools and equipment. There were also some men there painting the barge-boards. Inside it seems the focus is mainly upladder, with some of the wooden flooring having been laid in the entrances to each of the rooms, and the door frames now in place. Door frames have also been installed on the bottom floor.

This week, in our pursuit of autumnal colour, we visited Tofukuji. Unfortunately the gorgeous rock garden that I had enjoyed so much last time I visited was closed, however, this time with Craig here, we visited the other gardens in the complex that I didn’t go into previously, many of which were rock gardens.

The main area was absolutely spectacular, despite it being partly overcast. As suspected, there were many people there, but it was still lovely and nowhere near as crowded as the other ‘main’ attractions around Kyoto. For my money (and it did cost to enter each of the three garden areas so was a bit pricey, but I imagine the upkeep there must be significant) Tofukuji is a better place to visit than some of the other, more popular sites.

The other two garden areas in Tofukuji included both rock gardens and ‘green’ gardens, a few of which had the checkerboard theme that was in the rock garden in the first main area. A feast for the eyes, on top of which the added colours of autumn was the proverbial icing on the cake. Definitely worth the money and a place I would visit any time of the year.

The other ‘big’ outing we had this week was to the Toyota dealer that we had been to a couple of months ago. They had told us it would take at least a month to deliver a car, once it was ordered, and we thought it would probably take a couple of weeks before a decision was made about us getting a loan, so if we wanted a car in early January we had to carpe diem and give it a go.

We were concerned that we wouldn’t get a loan for the company, given we haven’t started trading and, as of now, have no assets in the company name. As a result, and given how bureaucratic transactions of this nature can be here, we took everything we could think of they might want for both the company and ourselves, as individuals, so that if the loan was denied for the company, as a fall-back position, we could apply in our own names. We figured we could complete applications for both, with our preference being the company first.

Our appointment was at 3:00pm on Sunday and we spent the first part looking through another Sienta and getting a feel for it, sitting in it, etc. They seemed to be very concerned that we really did want to have the Sienta and wouldn’t regret the purchase. Then we went inside and went through all the options and costs, etc again, to make sure we were happy with that too – we did change the colour we had chosen, having looked at numerous Sientas during the interim and deciding we preferred the silver. Important decisions!

(A model version – ours has black trim, not blue)

After that I then had to fill out many, many forms, in Japanese. By the end my hand was nearly cramping – I’m not very good at writing at the best of times but the added complication of writing kanji and making it legible is very hard for me. After numerous applications of our company hanko (stamp), they went off to talk to the finance company to make sure they had everything they needed. It turns out the finance company is a Toyota subsidiary, so around 40 minutes later, they came back and said it had been approved!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just like that! All that worry…

This, of course, then meant I had to fill out even more forms to officially order our new car. None-the-less, I survived the whole form ordeal and in the first week of January we will pick up our new car. It certainly has been a period of firsts for us, this last nearly twelve months. First time to live overseas, first time to sell a house (not without issues, of course), first time to build a house (well, not ourselves) and now first time buying a brand new car.

One other thing they offered us, while we were there and had been approved for a loan, was a credit card for our company. This, too, we had thought we wouldn’t be able to get. It is very hard to get either a loan or a credit card in Japan, as a foreigner, and we managed it all in one afternoon. So, we walked out of the Toyota dealer at 7:30pm having bought a car and been approved for a credit card. Along with that, as we were leaving, the salesman asked us to wait while he went to get us a souvenir. After a while, he came back with two 12-packs of toilet paper and two 5-packs of tissues!!!! Apparently they had run out of the usual souvenirs they give customers. Eminently practical, as far as gift giving goes!

So, more milestones ticked off, with more to go – next on the list are Japanese driver’s licences and finding someone to employ as our Food Hygiene Sanitation Manager, because the person in charge of our area in the relevant department said she would only deal with a person fluent in Japanese…

On a final note, we had a lovely dinner out last night with a daughter of a friend and her partner. Always nice to catch up with people we know.

Cheers for now

Hi all and welcome to my week in Kyoto, it being number 49 and fast heading towards the twelve month mark! It seems amazing to me that I have been here so long. This time last year I was making all the final preparations before leaving, such as notifying the relevant organisations that I would be departing in the near future, trying to determine what to bring with me, particularly clothing, and how to fit everything into the cases. I was also trying to catch up with as many people as possible before D day.

So, what has happened here this week? Firstly, the weather has been much better, although remaining cool. Secondly, the much anticipated autumnal colour change is moving on and looking good. The Ginko trees have only just started turning yellow, which with the reds and oranges is what makes the autumn here so wonderful.

Turning to The Very Nearly House, visible progress is much less obvious now, although there have been a few changes which do make a difference. The bathrooms have all been installed upstairs (no stairs yet…should it be upladder??) and they look bigger than I thought they would. The good news is that we have been able to have Toto washlets (toilets) installed, which is a bonus for our future guests. The other very obvious change is the opening up of the atrium to reveal the full height of the entrance area. I only hope the light bulbs never need changing…

 The atrium

 ‘upladder’

Now that the colour has started, it was time to take Craig to a couple of places he hadn’t been to – Kodaiji and Tofukuji. This week I decided that we should visit Kodaiji, in part because I suspected that Tofukuji will be even more spectacular the more colour that is out. So, we picked the day we thought would be best in terms of sunlight and set off to one of the areas in Kyoto that is nearly always wall to wall people.

…and so it was, however, Kodaiji itself wasn’t very crowded at all, which was a huge relief. The interesting thing about the visit this time is that there were some rooms/parts of buildings that were open that weren’t when I went there earlier this year, which was fantastic. The other thing, of course, was the added beauty of the autumn colours, along with the fact that it wasn’t very hot and humid.

After we left there we went on to visit Maruyama Park, since it is fairly close to Kodaiji and also a lovely place to visit. We actually climbed further up the hill than we had been before, which was very nice and, surprisingly, found another temple! Following this, we went back down through the park and into Yasaka jinja. When we got there, there was a large crowd gathering, police directing where people could stand and tv cameras – so I just had to find out who or what was about to happen. We found a spot where we could see through the crowd and then a man came along and encouraged the crowd to make a lot of noise and take photos!!!! Most strange – it is usually the opposite when something happens at a temple or shrine. It turned out that some very famous Kabuki actors were visiting the shrine, although I’m not sure exactly what they were doing there.

Last post I mentioned I thought that with the end Halloween all the xmas decorations would go up – I was wrong. The end of that week , as it turned out, was Culture Day (a public holiday) and the decorations in place for that were mostly Japanese flags. As it happened, this caused us some issues because we had gone up to the Legal Affairs Bureau to get an updated copy of our company registration certificate (over 3kms from our flat) and it was closed. We must remember to check the calendar more often!!!! It’s the second time we have been caught out.

On the way back home, we noticed there were some xmas decorations in shops, but not out in the streets. So, we have for your enjoyment a photo of xmas Snoopy, as a foretaste for more to come 😊.

Well, that’s it for this week – hopefully the weather will continue to be kind so we can get out and find more of that glorious autumn colour (am I being repetitive???). More to come…

Cheers

Another week, another typhoon… Yes, we had number 22 pass through this week, with the associated greyness and rain. On the up side, we actually had some sunshine this week too!!! It was very, very nice to be able to go outside without an umbrella, and in some lighter clothes. So, welcome to week 48, sometimes sunny, sometimes rainy.

I have to say that typhoon 22 wasn’t as full-on as number 21, but then it didn’t actually make full landfall but rather passed to the southeast, giving us mainly the rain shadow. The question is:– was it the last for the season??? Only time will tell, of course, but it is nice having the current respite and consequential sunny days.

The sunny weather has also made it easier to visit The Very Nearly House to see what they are up to. Last time I said it appeared the electrical wiring and plumbing was fully installed. I think I also said I was a novice at building, and so it was no surprise to arrive and find eight vehicles at the site, with nearly all occupants beavering away at electrical and plumbing stuff (stuff – technical jargon). Some were installing the bathrooms upstairs, others downstairs installing the electrical distribution board and associated peripheries and some outside installing a satellite dish (!!!!), which we didn’t know we were getting.

There was also a couple of tradies (not sure what they would actually be called here – I’m not even sure exactly what their training system is here) finishing the woodwork under the eaves (the soffit?). The external cladding is still naked; I presume there are still things that have to be done outside before the final surfacing is done – but don’t quote me on this…

With the improving weather, we decided to try to find some of that elusive autumnal colour. Our thinking was that the mountain areas were likely to be further down the track in terms of autumn colour because it is cooler in the mountain areas than down here in the city, generally. So, we decided to head up to Kuramadera since it is reasonably easily accessible and it is a pleasant place to visit. Craig was keen to try the climb from the Kibune side again, to see if our fitness and strength had improved, however, one of my knees has been playing up a bit recently (so many stairs…), so I suggested we climb up from the Kurama side and, if my knee is ok, go over the top of the mountain and down to Kibune.

It was a glorious autumn day, sunny and low 20s, so perfect climbing weather. When we arrived at the entrance to Kuramadera, down the bottom of the walk/climb, we found a notice in English explaining that it was not possible to climb the trail over to Kibune as some trees had fallen across the path! Thank goodness for my knee being difficult, otherwise we would have got off the train at the Kibune station and walked the approximately 2kms to the start of the trail up to Kuramadera, only to find it was closed.

So we didn’t get a chance to try the climb again and, as it turned out, my knee behaved itself during the climb up to the temple and back. Unfortunately, the elusive autumnal colour remained somewhat elusive, as it really hadn’t begun in earnest up at Kuramayama. Anyway, it was a nice walk/climb and I did notice that it was much easier than last time, so my fitness is definitely improving.

After the foreshortened expedition we decided to walk up the main road of the township there, as we had never done so, to see where the famed Kurama onsen was. It is a lovely town surrounded as it is by the mountains, with most of the houses lining the road being old and very traditional. A scenic place to live, but I imagine it gets very cold in winter and Craig said he would be concerned about the possibility to landslides there. The risk of landslide here has really been highlighted to us during the last two typhoons when many landslides occurred, burying roads and houses and leaving some houses hanging over the edge of a newly created cliff.

One other outing we had was to the office of the Japan Automobile Federation to have our licences translated so that we can apply for Japanese licences. They said it would take around a week to do and they would post the finished product to us, which they did (in less than a week). We also need to prove that we had our licences for at least three months while we were in Australia, but unfortunately our licences don’t have the issue date on them, nor how long we have had them, so we have sent an email to the SA transport department asking for a statement of how long we have had them – no response yet…

So, time and the weather move on. Halloween has now passed and, though we haven’t looked yet, I would bet that the xmas decorations are already up in the shops – more on that next time (will there be upside-down trees this time??).

In parting, here’s a photo of the witch watching tv on Halloween and a photo of someone who looks like a Japanese Chopper Reid…well, we think he does anyway! Cheers.