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…

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