Hello there – tis me again, sitting at the keyboard fully rugged up on a rather dull day. It is very overcast today and quite dark inside. We even had a little rain this morning. This is in complete contrast to many of the recent days which have been glorious, clear and sunny though quite cold, being winter as it is. We haven’t had any more snow as yet but there may be some on the horizon.

I’m finding winter a lot easier to cope with this year, in part because our house is very well set up for winter, with the double glazing making a huge difference. In addition, the underfloor heating which we have on timer to start late in the afternoon and turn off when we go to bed, along with the air conditioner which we have on overnight (set at 17C), means the temperature inside stays fairly constant. The kids have told us they are quite satisfied with their new living conditions.

Now that we have some money I have also made some clothing purchases which are more suitable for this climate than what I had previously. Uniqlo has a range of items called Tech Warm which are extensive and aren’t overly expensive. I am living in the Ultra Warm tops and have one pair of their jeans I wear on really cold days when we go out. I also bought a new puffy jacket the other day just to wear at home. It was ¥2,500 down from ¥9,500!!! (I do love a bargain) On xmas day I also found a pair of locally made pants at the market we went to, composed of Japanese design material and which are fleecy lined. One other good recent purchase is a fleecy cover for the futon, which you sleep directly on – it is very warm and not cold when you first get into bed 😊. Of course, heated toilet seats are indispensable, so much so that it is a real shock when we are out and find one that is not heated (a rarity, thankfully!).

A picture of sartorial elegance I’m not – but warm!

I am now attending gym twice a week – three times a week would be better, but it is a bit of a hike to get there. At the moment I am doing about half an hour of stretching before each class, and do I need it having not done much since I’ve been here. I am going to a Zumba class and a ballet class, both 1 hour. The Zumba class is fantastic fun, with great music and lots of different styles of dancing. I knew it was going to be good when the very first song was September, by Earth, Wind and Fire, one of my favourites. The instructor is full of energy and really enjoys herself, and she changes between routines from the more funky to Latin, to Bollywood style to hip hop,…I love it.

I am going to a different ballet class from the first one I tried. This one is a little less intense and the teacher actually spends time telling people how to do the exercises, which is good for those who are new to ballet. Most of the class is barre work, with around 15 minutes of centre work. Much better for me trying to get back into the swing (as it were). I have bought a pair of shoes and may even go back to the other class down the track, but for now, this is good.

During this period we received an email from a new business which is targeting the growing vegan market by making bulk falafel, pita bread and hummus. Not sure how they got our email address, but I’m glad they did. We ordered a free product test kit, which was good and we are thinking of buying some to make available for our guests to buy as either lunch or dinner. They are also opening a restaurant fairly close to us, which will also give our guests another option for dinner.

There have been a lot of celebrations happening at temples and shrines for the new year in the last two weeks and we decided to go to one of them after Takako told us it would be a good one to go to. It was at the Kyoto Ebisu shrine, which is in the Gion area. We weren’t sure what it was going to involve, but when we got there we found the street outside the shrine lined with stalls of all sorts (more food than anything else).

Inside the shrine people were lined up to pray for good luck for the year and to buy branches of lucky bamboo grass, called Fuku-Zasa, which has been blessed in a special ritual by a shrine ‘maiden’. They then buy more lucky charms and talismans, which they attach to the bamboo branch. These charms come in all kinds of designs, but two of the most common we saw were treasure boats (for wealth) and red sea bream (for future success). We considered buying one, until we found out that the bamboo was ¥3,000 alone. So, we wandered around the stalls, bought a couple of things and then I prayed for good luck for the business at the shrine before we left.

The ‘maiden’ is dancing behind, with musicians at the back

Our purchases – a good luck charm of Ebisu and another shikishi (painted by a Buddhist monk)

Recently, we discovered there are some Costco stores here in Japan, with one in Kyoto prefecture. We decided it would be a good idea to join as a business to buy some of the necessaries in bulk, so went on an excursion to the store last week, with Takako in tow. The store is located about halfway between Kyoto and Osaka and took us about 30 minutes by car to get there. We thought we should go to see what they had the first time, but in future we can order and have items delivered for free.

I had never been to a Costco before and had no idea how huge it would be, luckily I wore my walking shoes because a full tour of the store was like a half marathon, but with a giant trolley. There weren’t as many things available as we had hoped for, nonetheless we managed to spend a large chunk of money and we are now well stocked up with toilet and kitchen paper, along with various other useful items. I also found a huge bag of frozen blueberries and a bag of frozen avocado…had never seen this before but, given how hard it is to get good avocados here, I’m hoping this is a good way to buy them!!

…and, speaking of avocados, we attended another vegan event yesterday, this time a special one-off vegan menu was being served at a mexican style restaurant which specialises in burritos. The place would normally hold up to 14 people, but over 20 people turned up for lunch, so some were standing inside, while others had to wait outside. Luckily it was one of those glorious sunny days, so it wasn’t too uncomfortable outside. We arrived just in time to get the last two seats, thank goodness. Most of the people there were foreigners, and most knew each other. It reinforced for us just how large the foreign vegan/vegetarian contingent is here. The food was good and while we had only met one person who was there before, it is good to get ourselves and our business name out there. We suggested to the people running the restaurant that it might be a good thing to continue with some vegan options on the menu in future. Fingers crossed!

Well, that’s all for now.

Cheers!!!

 Couldn’t resist this one!

Who knew Tanuki might need glasses? Must check ours!

 Sunbaking in winter…

There are 32 rows holding 1,200 dolls in this temple

 Just an interesting building

It was a coat? Which one? 

Apparently this mascot (supposedly an otter) was sacked for doing inappropriate things…

Happy New Year!!!!! Hello and welcome to 2019, the year of the pig, or inoshishi as it is called here (meaning wild boar). So, yes, I am a wild boar instead of a pig…and I’ll leave that as it is.

In terms of the weather here, well it’s winter and unsurprisingly it has been cold. Most of the days in the past two weeks have been sub 10C, with most nights hovering just above 0C. One unexpected event, this early in the season, was a fall of snow a few days after xmas. It wasn’t much here, just a dusting, but further north in our prefecture and those nearby had some heavy falls.

Last time I wrote, we had two lots of guests staying here – four people – who all left us on 24 December. It was certainly nice to have some guests late in December; a brother and sister meeting here before xmas (one from the UK and the other from Hong Kong) and an older Swiss couple (which, by the way, was a little spooky, initially, after our previous experience) one of whom works for the Swiss consulate in Tokyo. All lovely people.

The day after they all left, being xmas day, we went for our traditional Indian lunch at Ajanta restaurant. Delicious as always, and made even more enjoyable by the ever streaming Bollywood music videos. I am a bit of a sucker for Bollywood music and dance. After lunch, we went to the Kitano Tenmagu market to meet up with Takako, if only briefly, as she was not going to be there until 4:00pm, and we had to get home to feed the kids (it takes a long time to get from there back home). The market was going to continue into the evening, as a special event. This was the first time we had been to this market, having only been to the Toji and craft markets before.

Not tea, spicy carrot and tomato soup. Yum!!!

We had a bit over an hour to kill before she arrived and so we looked around the market. It was a huge market with new and secondhand stalls, along with many food stalls. Being a secondhand items addict, we spent most time at these stalls. I really wanted to find a shikishi, which are small to medium sized pieces of cardboard used for calligraphy, paintings, etc. I had previously bought a circular frame from the craft museum, which is designed to hold shikishi, so was keen to find something there. We looked through many in a number of stalls and in the end found one we both liked and thought appropriate for our minshuku.

Once home, we made toasties and watched Love Actually, another xmas tradition. I can never get enough of watching Bill Nighy playing an inappropriate and ageing rock star. Hugh Grant plays, as always, Hugh Grant 😊. I am also a fan of lobsters at the Nativity!

While we don’t exchange gifts for xmas, surprisingly we did receive a xmas present this year, as the prize for the Nature’s Charm competition arrived shortly after xmas – and what a gift! We didn’t know exactly what we would be getting, so when a largish box arrived we were surprised. Inside were ten items, all different and all vegan. We are still working out how to make best use of all the items, having started simply by eating strawberries dipped in the chocolate sauce.

On the Saturday after xmas, we attended a vegan cooking class we had been invited to by Sakiko to watch the class and eat some of the resultant foods. It was held in a 300 year old Samurai house fairly near Kyoto station, called Kyoto Concierge Salon. BentoYa rents space in this house every Saturday to run the classes. Other classes and experiences are also held in this venue, such as the tea ceremony, ikebana classes, kimono rental, and even a traditional dance class.

We had a fantastic time, meeting the owner of BentoYa, who was there from Tokyo for the year end class and the owner of the venue, Shinzo, and his fiancé Serena, watching the class, meeting a family of four from Sydney who were doing the class and getting to eat some ramen and gyoza produced in the class. Yum!

It seems that the BentoYa people are keen to partner with us and, as it happens, so is the owner of the venue, who invited both himself and his fiancé to our place to see the minshuku and try our breakfast! Highly unusual behaviour for a Japanese person, but we were delighted they did!!! They loved our minshuku and enjoyed the breakfast and made some good suggestions to help us with marketing. They also invited us to try some of their classes and experiences, as well as giving us two gifts (one as we left their venue and one on arrival at our home).

A beautiful handmade tissue box cover

A shamoji from a shrine they visited for new year

In a return to an old segment – the wonderful world of tv in Japan – I just had to mention a programme we saw the other night. I have to say we often see really interesting segments and programmes on tv, many of which lead us to interesting places and sometimes things or people. In this case, the programme was about a female Japanese artist named Toko Shinoda. She was born in 1913 and is currently still alive and fairly well – quite lucid, in fact, and says she still puts brush to paper every day.

  At work years ago

 Shinoda now

She began as a calligrapher and had her first solo exhibition in 1936. By 1945 she was producing more abstract forms, departing significantly from the strictness of calligraphy. In 1956 she moved to New York, after successfully exhibiting there. While living there she was exposed to abstract expressionism, including the work of Jackson Pollock, which had an impact on her work. She has been prolific over the years and her work can be found in galleries and private collections around the world. If I had the money…

…and on that note, here endeth my first blog for the year. I hope you all have a wonderful year, and let’s hope things move in a much more positive way this year.

Cheers!

Gambolling inoshishi

Found while out on a walk 

 Last vestiges of colour

 Then, on the ground

Haven’t had anything kawaii for a while!

Glorious sunny (if cold) days on the Kamogawa

A very small guest under our verandah (hard to get a good photo, was spooked easily)

Thank goodness for the under floor heating!