Greetings dear readers, tis me here on possibly the coldest day so far this season – expected maximum of 5C – and it has been snowing; not snow-rain, just snow. It is currently (2:30pm) 4C (note: this was written yesterday, but took a while to load up). We actually had to go out today, so experienced it close up, as it were. Despite the cold, the flurries of snow were quite pleasant – it sort of softens the world when it snows. We have had a couple of days here where, if you look out the window you might think it is warm. Clear skies and plenty of sun, so much so that it was a bit warmer than it has been and we didn’t need to wear any gloves when we went outside!!!!

This episode covers the xmas period, which of course is not a public holiday here so everything is pretty much as normal for a Monday. So, what did we do? On xmas eve we went out to do some shopping because we had to collect our xmas cake and have some supplies for the next few days. In the evening we did something very traditional for us at xmas, we watched Love Actually. This movie is our guilty secret and pleasure. We know it isn’t exactly the best movie ever made, but it makes us smile every time.

On xmas day, we decided to go up to look at The House, with the hope that the metal decoration and the timbers had been added to the façade – sort of a xmas present for us. It was a warmer day than we had been having (above 10 rather than below), so was pleasant walking up there. Lo, and behold, as we came around the bend there they were. Although the scaffolding was still up, none-the-less it was wonderful to see and this too made us smile. Inside, when we went upstairs, we discovered the rooms had been wallpapered and the bases had been put in the tokonoma in each room. It looked great, and was an unexpected surprise.

In the evening we had some very delicious mushroom pasta and watched another of our traditional favourites – The Nightmare Before Christmas. Now, for me, this is the best xmas movie ever made, despite it being a cartoon. I am a fan of most of Tim Burton’s work and this, in particular, seems as if it was made with me in mind; a xmas movie with halloween themes and a musical to boot! We also had some of our matcha cake – which was very enjoyable. All in all, a very nice day had by all.

Prior to xmas we contacted a real estate agent to start the process of selling our flat (we really need the money!!). He is one of the real estate agents we had used to help us find a suitable piece of land here to build our minshuku. While it was another agent who ultimately found the right piece of land for us, we actually liked this agent to deal with and were disappointed when we didn’t buy through him, because he put in so much effort for us and we got along so well with him. So when we told him we had found the block we also indicated to him we would contract him to sell our flat. In fact he also helped us find the builder we are using for The House.

After our initial meeting with him, he went away to consider how much we might be able to get for this place (a little less than we had hoped for, but more than enough for our needs) and when he emailed back with this he suggested to meet up at The House, so he could see it. So, today, on this very cold and snowy day, we met him up there to look around and sign a contract with him for the sale of the flat. I think he was very pleased with what he saw and it turns out he knows the site supervisor, who turned up while we were there. He told us that after completing our house, our builders were going to be working on the new office for the company he works for!! We also got to see the façade of The House without the scaff, so that was good too.

The other major outing we had during this period was to sign up for the insurance cover for our car. We had to go to Fushimi-Inari to do this because our builder’s wife is an insurance agent (as it happens) and she arranged for another of the agents who specialises in car insurance to organise this for us. One of the issues we had was that we were going to have real trouble getting insurance unless we could fully understand the insurance policy and they won’t sell you a policy unless you know what it says. Given that my brain wants to shut down reading a policy in English, doing so in Japanese would have been monumentally tedious since we would have had to spend quite some time translating it. Hence, we got assistance from the woman who is acting as translator in our meetings with the builder. Interestingly, when we got there, the agent told us that the monthly premium had been reduced from the original quote, by around $AUS10, and we wouldn’t have to make the first payment until 27 February, even though we will be covered from 6 January!!

After the meeting, we decided to take a walk up to Fushimi Inari Taisha jinja (the one with all the vermillion torii gates). We thought (naively) that there wouldn’t be so many people there at this time of the year and so would be a nice quiet walk. When we were here in 2014, buying the flat, we went up there on xmas day and there were very few people – it seems this is not the case any more. Anyway, while we have taken a number of people there to see the gates this year, we have only taken them to the ‘halfway’ point and we wanted to do the entire 4km climb around the mountain. I say ‘halfway’ because I am not sure it is…

This is what we thought

This is more the reality

I don’t know how many stairs you climb going up and down again, but I do know that it is medium level exercise getting up to the ‘halfway’ point, unless you are quite fit, and consequently many people stop there, not continuing up to the top which is actually harder. So, what happens is that gradually, as you continue up, there are fewer and fewer people, which means it is quite peaceful along the upper parts of the trail. We noted that the number of torii continues to grow, with a number of new gates dated for this year (the gates have the name of the company/people who buy them and the date they are installed written on them).

For your continuing Kyoto education, I can tell you that the Inari shrine at Fushimi is not the only Inari shrine in Japan, but it is the head Inari shrine. It was established here in 711, and in 2011 they celebrated the 1300^th year of it having been there. The torii trail is not just a string of torii around the mountain, there are also many smaller shrines dotted along the way as well as the large shrine at the base. In terms of the torii, there are said to be around 10,000 lining the trail. The vermillion really stands out against the green of the trees along the trail. It is a lovely walk and a good place for some quiet contemplation (once you get past the crowded areas).

After our climb/walk, we went home for lunch and then went to buy a new year’s decoration for the door and I also wanted to get a small pot of the decorative kale that are everywhere at this time of the year, in front of houses and businesses. They are actually ornamental kale plants (Brassica oleracea) and they apparently love the cold weather. In fact, they don’t develop their full colours unless they get a good chill from a frost. I really like the look of the plants as well as the colours– quite cheerful at this time of the year.

Well, that’s all for now. I’ll talk to you all again next year!

Cheers and have a very Happy New Year’s Eve.

Breaking news!!!!! We have had our first booking enquiry from a country other than Australia. Fingers crossed it goes ahead.

As I sit here, rubbing my hands together to warm them up so I can start typing, I am reflecting on what I have to cover in this post. We haven’t been doing overly much recently, in terms of touristy things, because it has been very cold and money is pretty tight at the moment. On that point, if anyone has some influence somewhere in relation to the exchange rate of the $AUD vs ¥JPY, then please activate it now!!!! We don’t have much to bring over but we need as much of it as possible…ok, I know, I know the likelihood of being able to change the minds of hardened gamblers is minimal!

It really has been very cold, so much so that there has been a lot of snow falling over the last week or so, and not just in Hokkaido. All along the coast of the Japan Sea there have been quite heavy falls and they even had some in Fukuoka!!! We have only had one fall of snow-rain, and it was more rain than snow. The TV stations have been talking about why it has been so cold so early in the season, too. Even with my gloves on outside, there have been a few days when my fingers were still cold while walking.

There were two queries following my last post which I thought I would talk about this time; what are crow-nets and do we celebrate xmas here? To the first query, you may or may not have seen my response, so I thought it might make it clearer if I added some photos. In terms of crow vital statistics, I found the following: Total length: 540-600mm Wing length: 316-400mm Tail length: 205-255mm. So, yes, they area big but, as I indicated in my reply to the query, they aren’t overly aggressive (luckily!). The first crow-net photo shows the rubbish outside our building, with net appropriately tucked in. The second shows what can happen if you don’t tuck the net under the rubbish properly. You can imagine what would happen without any net at all…

In terms of xmas, I should point out that I have never been an overly keen xmas celebrator – Craig and I don’t exchange gifts and we rarely have sent out cards, in the past. We have always made a point of catching up with family on, or around xmas day, and I do like tinsel, so I take the opportunity to decorate with lights and tinsel. We also have a black xmas tree, which is currently on it’s way to Japan (black looks good with purple, green and silver tinsel…). I’m not sure what we’ll do this year, we haven’t really made any specific plans, except to order a matcha cake which we will pick up on the 24^th. It looked really nice in the brochure, and I thought that a green cake seemed somehow suitable for xmas. I will, however, be celebrating Winter Solstice and New Year.

Last week we met up with Takako again, to help her complete the application form for her to attend the food sanitation course and we then took her to see The House. I thought it would be a good thing to show her how far along we are with preparations, so she would feel reassured that we are getting close to realisation of the minshuku. We also assumed she’d be interested to see where she would be working in the future. The staircase was fully completed, so we were able to take her upstairs to see all the rooms, which was nice.

  upstairs hallway

Other progress at The House includes the building of the front and side porches and the ramp to the front porch – not quite complete yet but it is now easier to get into the house, and our area is being lined. Out the back there was a bit of a drainage problem – we’re not sure if the water coming from the base of the stone wall is from a spring or a leak from somewhere – so they are putting a drain around the edge of the yard to re-route the water.

We also had a visit from the Toyota car salesman to get some more information from us and copies of some documents for an application to be submitted to the Kyoto Police to prove we have a carparking space for our car when we collect it. You are not allowed to buy a car in Japan unless you have a permanent parking space within 2kms of your residence. Luckily The House is 1.7kms from our flat, and the plans include a carport, so the salesman didn’t think we would have any problems. He had actually been to the site and taken some photos to attach to the application, along with a copy of the drawing of our house showing the carport which we gave him. Apparently the police will actually go to the site and check for themselves, anyway!!

We also tried to get our Japanese licences last week – I say tried, because we went all the way to the licence centre, which took around 1 ¼ hours by train and on foot, the latter being a ½ hour walk from the station. When we got there, we found out that we would have to ring to make an appointment, but you can only ring between 4 – 5pm. So, we had to turn around and retrace our steps back home.

It also turned out that no-one spoke English and the person on the phone wouldn’t just make an appointment for us, she insisted on going through the whole process and all the things we would have to bring with us. As you may be able to imagine this was a long call, with me trying to understand what she was saying and me trying to say we already had all the things prepared. In the end, she said we could have an appointment at 10am on 16 January!!! I have no idea why we have to wait so long, but it means that it is a good thing Craig got an international licence before he left Adelaide…

On a bright note, it was our wedding anniversary on the 15^th – 26 years since we exchanged vows and this year Craig was here with me, unlike last year on our 25^th anniversary. We are now very happy that in Australia, all people of legal age have finally been given the opportunity to do the same; the right to marry in Australia is no longer determined by sex or gender.

Hallelujah

Some very interesting gates we saw out walking

A tree with a long nose?

The colour lingers…

 “You know I’m gorgeous”

New year, new name!

Welcome to Year 2 – to open the minshuku and beyond…Ok, so that doesn’t work that well but it is a very new adventure for us, opening a business in which we have invested so much (and I don’t just mean money). We did have a small catering service business for a short while many years ago and I had a maths tutoring business for a few years while I was at uni. This, however, is on a very different scale. We have both been very service oriented all our working lives, so it was fairly natural for us to chose to have a business in the service industry. We also both love cooking for others and Kyoto – et voila!

 (Vegan Japanese curry with udon)

So, to The House. On our way up to see where things were up to, we were wondering how soon the scaffolding and curtain would be coming down, Craig even suggested we should contact our builder so we could be there for the unveiling (as it were). When we rounded the curve of our road, there it was, The House in all its unveiled glory!! While we had missed the moment, we were still very excited to see it fully for the first time. It really did reveal just how big it is, and even though it is still a worksite, we could start to get a real feel for how it will look when it is finished.

Inside the staircase was underway, which was also very exciting, especially as it will enable me to actually go upstairs (not upladder) to see how it looks without relying on photos that Craig has taken. Why haven’t I made the journey upladder more than once???? Two reasons; one is that the ladder was somewhat bouncy when climbing up that high, and secondly, I thought that two of us up there would be one too many in the way of the workers. They have been very accommodating of our visits but I felt that Craig could get the necessary photos and then we could get out of their hair.

Back to the staircase – it is being built out of beautiful timber and will definitely enhance the atrium area. Underneath we are going to have a small garden; there is a small window on the bottom righthand side of the frontage of the building to let in light for the garden. The other end of the atrium has the reception and office area, with its little pitched roof. Totemo kawaii (very cute)!

Craig tells me that the upstairs area is nearly completely lined, ceilings and walls. So the rooms are starting to look like, well, rooms. Knowing the colours and textures that are going to go in there, I am very excited to see them finished. I think they will look very simple and elegant. I hope the guests will think that too!!!!

In terms of gaining the requisite approvals and, in particular, the licence to be able to cook and serve meals to our guests, as you may recall we were having some issues around having to find someone to fill the Food Hygiene Sanitation Manager role – someone who is fluent in Japanese and can speak some English and who is happy to work part-time. Tough call, but we think we found just the right person!!! She is an outgoing Japanese woman who has lived in New Zealand in the past, and she has an interest in cooking, nutrition and tourism. The perfect fit. The relief is palpable…

The weather here remains very cold, with night time temperatures being in the mid to low single digit range, but still above zero – not for long. As I suspected, it appears that we may get some early snow, as early as next week. The forecast is for snow-rain (my name for it) next Tuesday. Going out in the cold, even in snow-rain, isn’t too bad as long as you are fully puffed up 😊 and as long as it isn’t windy. The wind can cut right through you…brrrrrrrr.

On the manshon front, this month we are the official crownet monitors, which involves us bringing in the net once the garbos have been and collected our rubbish. Not a very prestigious appointment but they obviously consider it a very important duty, so much so that a roster has been created – one month for each flat, on a rotating basis – and a special sign made which is now hanging on our front door so everyone knows who to blame if it is not done.

The kids are definitely enjoying the cooler weather, with the two boys playing chasey either with each other or with one of the small toys we have bought for them. Zowie has also discovered the magnets on the fridge, which provide a lot of amusement for him, sliding them around on the fridge. Serena, meanwhile, just looks on with disdain at all their antics.

The autumnal colour continues to hold, but not for much longer, and unfortunately I have been unwell for the last few days (yes, a second viral infection in quick succession – hopefully, this is it for the year…) and so haven’t been able to get out and find more places to photograph in their technicolour overlay. The first photo here is the hillside just behind where The House is. The last photo shows a view north up the Kamogawa to the hills, with the sun highlighting a beautifully coloured strip of the hills. The photo unfortunately doesn’t quite capture fully the splendour of the scene.

On a final note, in the theme of interesting facts about Japan and Kyoto, specifically, apparently there is a ‘cursing industry’ in Kyoto. It seems the people in Kyoto have always regarded unfortunate events like natural disasters or epidemics or defeat in political power games as something of a curse and hence the need for practitioners who are able to remove said curses, or place them elsewhere, as necessary.

I think I mentioned that the Kitano Tenmangu shrine was founded to assuage the curse of Sugawara no Michizane (845-903), the scholar-politician who fell out of favour with the emperor and died in exile. The nobles back then treasured yin-yang practitioners who used ‘jujutsu’, or the art of cursing, and obviously made use of their services.

There are many advertisements online here offering to put a curse on someone, including the Nippon Jujutsu (Japan Cursing Association), which has its headquarters in Kyoto. A local paper has written an article on the practice and noted that one of the practitioners of this organisation said that the nature of requested curses was changing. “Around 20 years ago, most of the requests came from women who wanted to get back at their husbands’ lovers. But now, they’re more and more becoming men who hate their boss.”!!!!! (Wouldn’t you want a curse on the recalcitrant husband???). Times change…

Well, that’s it for now.

Cheers

 (Ginko leaves line a path)

(xmas rabbits, squirrels and…ferrets …??)