Hello and welcome to the Autumn episode of this year’s bloggings (a new word for this episode!).Before I start on the full spectrum of this season, I thought I should note that today is the second anniversary of my residence here in Kyoto. Does it feel like two years? Not sure how to answer that – time is a relative thing and certainly the more you experience of it the faster it seems to pass. I know a lot has happened since I moved here, although I had thought it would all happen faster than it has (in the real-time sense). All I can say is that it definitely has been worth it, because we are meeting such lovely people (well, 99% of them) and we get to go to and see such beautiful places and things. We are also living in a really nice home in a good area.

The other thing about time is that it is very easy to fill up when there are guests here and so a period of, say, three weeks may pass before there is time to sit down at the keyboard and write one’s episodic postings. What it does mean is that I have many (many) photos to upload (mostly of trees and gardens, as is my wont in Autumn), so I will be splitting this episode into two parts.

First, to the weather, which is being brought to us all by the letters W T & F (ok, I borrowed that from a meme, but it seems very relevant for us all). Here, we are getting some very cold weather, with overnight lows under 10C at the moment. Last night the minimum was 5C. The days are cool with some overcast and grey, and then, like today, lovely and sunny. When the sun goes behind the clouds however, you can really feel the temperature drop. The only thing we are not getting is rain, which is unusual.

We did have a short spurt of low 20s for a few days a couple of weeks ago but as I said last time, since the heat of summer has passed it has cooled down quite suddenly. For the people of Australia, well, who knows what’s going on. Prepare for anything and you most probably will be right.

This month we have had a reasonable number of guests come through, including a very good friend from Australia. Knowing that she was going to be coming here at this time of year, I developed an itinerary that included many locations which would afford plenty of Autumnal colour, as well as the usual temples, shrines and other historic places. I had pre-warned her to make sure she was ready for quite a bit of walking, because I would be dragging her (and her friend) to all parts of Kyoto. And, so it was…

On the first day they arrived, we took them to see Tofukuji, which is close to home and has some wonderful garden areas, including the gully, which has many deciduous trees. The colour at this stage had begun, but was still building. This meant that there weren’t as many people there as there can be in Autumn, which was a blessing.

Someone has created terrariums of some of the gardens at Tofukuji!

The next day we went on a long hike down past the Kiyomizudera area (thereby avoiding the madding crush) to the Yasaka Pagoda, that iconic view that is quintessentially Kyoto. Continuing on we went into the Maruyama Park to see more trees and then down through Yasaka-jinja to the Gion area. My friend’s friend (names are not used, to protect the innocent!!!) was collecting the stamps and calligraphy at temples and shrines along the way. Unfortunately, because Autumn can be so busy, some of these places were not doing them on the spot, but rather selling pre-written pieces of paper, which is just not the same.

 Cafe Muck???

After the Gion we walked down my favourite street, Kiyamachi dori, which had much less colour than I expected. The colour here this year has been quite patchy, with some trees having changed colour then losing their leaves quickly, while other trees are only really getting to full colour now. We have also seen a few, random cherry trees in blossom. This has likely been caused by the cyclones/typhoon and the hot summer. Apparently there are hormones in the leaves which stop the buds from flowering until the usual time, so, if the leaves are damaged, the hormones are gone and the flowers open. This also means that these trees will not flower next spring.

 Side by side

On our next outing we went to the Arashiyama area, to visit Daikakuji, walk the bamboo path and go into the Tenryuji garden. Again, we saw some colour, but still not how it was last year. None-the-less these are beautiful places and worth the journey to see. We also went into the Randen line railway station, to look at the kimono material poles, which are always fabulous to look at. Having done all of this before lunch, we decided to go to the Iwatayama monkey park after our repast. A nice way to walk off our lunch and we got to see the babies now running around on their own 😊.

The final outing I will cover in this post was a visit back to Tanukidani-fudoin, up the 250 stairs. This also gave Craig and I the opportunity to visit the house, Shisendo, that we missed last time we went up that way. What a lovely home and glorious garden, which was created by Jozan Ishikawa in 1641. He was a samurai before he retired and moved to Kyoto, a scholar of Chinese classics, a master calligrapher and a landscape architect. Following his death, the ownership of his home was passed to Buddhists, as it remains.

Following our sojourn there, we continued up via the Hachidai-jinja and then climbed to the temple area. I was again able to go into the nave to see the statue of Fudo-myo., with those glowing gold eyes that follow you in the dark. This really is a once in a lifetime opportunity that I felt very privileged to see twice.

To be continued…

Cheers!

Last Halloween photo for this year – I promise!

 Is she cold? I am just looking at her!

It’s not a Tonka toy…

No comment 

Hi all, here I am again, in front of the keyboard and thinking about the last couple of weeks. My first thought is that it has been quite cool. I mentioned last time that it had suddenly become cooler and this has not changed since. Some days have had a maximum below 20C and we have had a few sub 10C nights. This has come with consequences; the Autumn colour has started early – very early. For those amongst you who are planning to visit Japan in the next few weeks (and I know at least one member of the reading audience is 😊), DON’T PANIC! It should be at peak colour in about two weeks.

This is nearly one month earlier than last year, which is strange, considering summer was long and HOT. Perhaps there is a set amount of heat available here and we used up most of it for summer, so we have gone straight to cooler weather…OK, just kidding, but it certainly feels like that.

During this period we had another couple staying with us, a young couple from the UK, who were really lovely. After they had left we found two origami butterflies (one large and one small) in their room with a wonderful thankyou note. It’s people like these that really do make it worthwhile. Somewhat different to the previous guests, who we haven’t heard from since (thankfully – although, as I said last time, the woman was a very nice person).

Early last week we met up with the buyer of our flat, again, and received the second instalment of the purchase price. We were also told that she had now sold her flat in Tokyo and so would be able to pay us the final instalment early December. As a result, we are today awaiting the delivery of a washing machine for our minshuku laundry (which we will now be able to call a laundry, not just “this will be a laundry room one day”) and two more light fittings, which will complete all the rooms, in terms of lighting. We still have to get the rest of the bedding and other items needed to complete the final two rooms.

Before I get onto the main outing we have had this fortnight, one thing I didn’t mention in my last post was a visit to the Kyoto local crafts museum, which was well worth the visit and very difficult to come out of empty handed. This building is around the corner from the MOMAK and for some reason we had never been inside. So, we took the opportunity to visit when we went to the MOMAK to buy two Higashiyama Kaii prints, which are now hanging proudly in our upstairs hallway.

The building itself is also interesting

As it happened, on the day we went there, there was a world gem stone fair happening in a huge auditorium on the ground floor, as well as an exhibition put on by the Kyoto City Dohda Senior High School of Art. I managed to get out of the fair with just a small purchase, but was sorely tempted by some of the beautiful amethysts…

The art exhibition was absolutely stunning and appeared to be an annual display of the students’ major works. Some of the exhibits, which included the eight majors of art and design studied at the school, had awards on them, so we assumed there was some judging of the pieces within the eight areas at some point. The school is a specialist art high school which was founded in 1880 in the Kyoto Imperial Palace. Over the years the name has changed slightly and the venue, but it has existed since that time. What a fantastic way to nurture future artists!

Last week, on Halloween, we decided to visit the shrine which is dedicated to Oda Nobunaga (his body was never found), a daimyo who was responsible for the start of the process of unifying Japan. The daimyo were powerful Japanese feudal lords who basically disappeared in the early Meiji period (the late 1800s). Nobunaga is also known for his brutal suppression of determined opponents, including the thousands of monks and civilians living on Mt Hiei, so it seemed somehow appropriate to visit this shrine for Halloween.

(Before I go on, I would like to point out that the photos I took on this day were taken with a new phone I bought (due to my other phone gradually becoming unusable) and it was the first time I had used to phone for this purpose. As a result, the quality of some of the photos is a little less than desirable. Another learning experience.)

The shrine is located on top of a hill known as Mt Funaoka, although it isn’t overly high. It was a pleasant walk up to the shrine, as it is still wooded and there were very few people around. The hill itself is long and fairly narrow and is oriented in an east/west direction. It is said it was used as a reference point when Kyoto was laid out as the new capital in 794.

It has also been strategically important over the years, being used as the site for the military base of the west army during the Onin Wars and another important battle was fought there decades later. Years later the land was donated to Daitoku-ji temple and in 1931 was opened as Funaokayama Park, used for recreational purposes.

Following our exploration of Funaokayama, we went to visit nearby Imamiya shrine and Daitokui-ji temple. Imamiya shrine was originally established in 994 for people to pray for safety from an epidemic of the times and has subsequently evolved into a shrine where people can pray for general good health. It too is located within a forest and is a really picturesque shrine – a nice place to stay away from epidemics…

Craig and I had been to Daitoku-ji before, but the day we visited was quite wet, so we thought it would be nice to see it sans umbrellas. We also had by-passed one of the garden areas, so we took this opportunity to look inside. Daitoku-ji is a very large Zen Budhhist complex, covering 23 hectares, and is laid out with many wooded areas. It is a very peaceful place to be, despite being in the middle of an urban area. The inner garden we went into was worth the price to get in but, unfortunately, you are not allowed to take photos inside, which we were reminded of many times (despite having put away our photographic devices)!

Before I sign-off, I thought I might mention the amount of damage that we, and our guests, are seeing at various sights across Kyoto, inflicted by Typhoon 21. We have seen many roofs with damage, especially roofs of temples and shrines which are missing tiles, and we are seeing very significant damage to trees, the majority of which are large trees. Some are completely blown over, others missing limbs and yet others literally snapped in half. Work is ongoing to remove the damage, but there is so much it is taking a long time to cut down and store the remains these trees. Everywhere we are seeing huge piles of wood.

A roof without a base – not sure what happened to it

The other night we saw a program on tv which showed the damage wreaked at Kurama-dera, on Mt Kurama. This is one of my favourite temples and one of my favourite walks climbing up to the temple, near the top of the mountain. They said that around 500 trees had been significantly damaged or brought down. We only knew it had been closed to the public when a guest (who I had directed there) returned and said the train didn’t go all the way to the Kurama station, stopping at the station before and the temple was closed. The show said that the cable car at the temple had that day been re-opened to take people up to the main part of the complex, but they didn’t expect to re-open the walk-way until early next year.

On that sad note, I bid you adieu.

Cheers

Halloween costumes for your pets

and that’s it for Halloween – this year

Close up details

A stray cat at Funaokayama that looked a lot like Zowie

H&C immortalised on Google Street View!!! (with blurry faces)