Well, it seems that as much as I haven’t really planned this, I have now fallen into a bi-weekly posting routine. I suspect that, in the long term, this will continue unless there is something really newsworthy that I just have to report, like say we finally get our hotel licence, or we have our first full house (once we actually have our licence, of course).

So, what has happened in the last two weeks??? We continue to make progress in other areas, which is still important to reflect on. Firstly, though, what’s with the weather? Heatwaves in Adelaide in April and here, in Kyoto, the weather is bouncing around – warm, sunny and lovely one day, cool and cloudy the next, then windy with reasonably heavy rain. No thunderstorms yet, but I wait patiently (although, if it’s going to rain, why can’t we have some thunder and lightning, just to ramp things up a bit?).

The blossom is well and truly over. Lyndie and Tim were lucky to be here just as it came, and went. While the bloom seemed very quick this year, it was apparently much more intense, ie there were more blossoms on the trees than the average. It may well be the combination of the early warmth, then the wind and rain that brought this about. So, we are now into the azalea bloom, with the many hundreds of plants gradually coming into flower. There are also many grape hyacinth, tulips and daffodils around the streets, mainly in pots.

Our friends left Kyoto for other cities and then home last week, giving us time to reflect on how well we can cope with timing arrivals and departures, cleaning between stays, and, of course, how the breakfasts went, both in timing and in quality. We have realised that we will have to have a dryer in our laundry once business picks up (and when we can afford it…), however, other than that the actual cleaning wasn’t overly onerous.

In terms of food, we were reasonably happy with what we served up, but there is always room for improvement and we will also need to change our offerings as we move through the seasons and the available produce changes. We are going to make time to sit down with Takako in the near future and ‘workshop’ what we can cook and design some different daily menus. Any foods that we can prepare, or at least partially prepare the afternoon or night before certainly make life easier.

We have decided that, unless it is absolutely essential to serve earlier (such as for early train journeys), breakfast will be served between 8:00 and 9:00am. Craig also put together some ‘takeout’ breakfasts to take on those early train rides, which was appreciated. In the next two weeks we have some friends arriving from the Fukui taiko workshops to stay with us, which we are looking forward to. This will give us more pre-official opening practice time.

Progress has definitely been made on the unpacking/arranging/re-arranging front, with all boxes now unpacked!!! Yes, even the guilty secret storage room is now just storage room number 2. The cardboard room (aka guest room 2), is still the cardboard room, but we hope to have the empties collected in the next week. Our spare room is now more like a large walk in wardrobe, but at least there everything is out and I now have more choice in what to wear 😊.

On Friday, as we were returning from an outing, we noticed some men putting some banners along the roads in our area, which had ‘kiln matsuri’ written on them (in Japanese, of course). Yesterday, when we went out to do some shopping we noticed people wandering around the streets and so decided to wander around ourselves. I think I have mentioned before our neighbourhood is home to some Kiyomizu-yaki kilns. All pottery made in Kyoto is referred to as Kyo-yaki or Kiyomizu-yaki, more commonly the latter.

It turns out that we have 14 potteries located within 5 minutes walk of our home and yesterday we visited seven of them. One is located nearly directly across the road from us, and another sits atop the wall that lines our backyard. In fact, the two kilns (one electric and one gas) of the latter pottery are located right above our yard. Each of the potteries produces different works in terms of patterns and colours, although there are some dominant themes, such as the indigo designs. We actually saw some items decorated in the willow pattern yesterday.

It was fantastic going into each of the workshops and seeing the greenware, as well as the finished product. I must say, though, that these places are fairly rudimentary in terms of comfort for those working there. Many had bare floors and didn’t seem to have much in the way of heating or cooling. I have also noticed that there are lots of broken pottery pieces lying around these premises, including the pottery across the road from us. The other day when I was doing some weeding in the backyard it was like an archaeological dig and I now have a ‘finds’ area.

At two of the potteries there was someone who could speak some English, and combined with our small Japanese vocabulary, we were able to learn some more about their wares. At the first of these two I had looked at the final product and was then looking at the greenware and, noticing my interest, they got one of the partially finished bowls and a fully fired version and put them together for us to look at. They said that these bowls were fired twice, and they used iron oxides to make some of the colour.

After this they sat us down and served us tea and mochi, which was very nice!! A lot of the product that they produced appeared much more hand made than some of the other potteries. It was very nice work and I really did like it. We told the owners who we were (ie the new people in the area who have built the minshuku, which they knew about) and they were very welcoming and very nice.

After this I wanted to find the pottery that backs onto us and ended up not only finding them, but spending over an hour there. They were lovely people and it just happened that a near neighbour was nearby who spoke very good English and was interested in talking to us, so we were able to have quite a lengthy conversation with them all. At one point I asked where the actual kiln was and the next thing we were taken on a full tour of the pottery. It is a very large complex, and they make both moulded and hand thrown products. We also found out that the male owner sometimes plays in a Beatles cover band (as John Lennon) and he has said we have to see them play next time they perform.

They also said they would like to eat at our restaurant (a misunderstanding about the restaurant licence and what we are going to be serving) – so, we have sort of promised to cook for them one day! Perhaps we will make a  brunch or lunch for them. The English speaking neighbour was also keen to try out our food. All in all, it was an excellent way to meet some of our neighbours and learn more about our area. We are considering going to visit the other seven potteries today.

It seems there is always something new and interesting to discover here!!!

Cheers for now

Just a building near our backyard

A plant that is in our back yard – not sure what it is

…and what is this???

I’m trying to sleep!!!