Year 3 in Kyoto – episode 8

Hi all, here I am again in the starting blocks, with many things going through my head – “what shall I talk about?”; “what photos do I have?”; “what have I actually done recently?”; “etc”. Well, there have been some interesting things happen, but they mostly relate to the business and our future here. As most often happens, however, I will begin with the weather – it always seems a good place to start.

We have had some hot weather in the last few weeks, with some records being broken, as seems to be happening in so many parts of the world recently. May was unusually hot, with quite a few days in the low to mid thirties here. Unbelievably, the hottest day of the month, and breaking all records, was in Hokkaido with a temperature in Saroma of 39.5C! This is the hottest temperature ever recorded anywhere in Japan in May, with the previous high being 37.2C. Temperatures have never previously reached 35C in Hokkaido in May or 38C at any time of the year. Despite this, I have been enjoying the hotter weather, as I always do, especially as it hasn’t been accompanied by the stifling humidity that is the case here in summer.

One thing I thought I might mention, which is also about just generally living here, is the earthquakes. I find it interesting that while I was living in the flat, for around 15 months, there was not one tremor, not even a tiny little rattle. Since June last year, when we had the larger earthquake (quite a shock for me 😉) and the series of aftershocks, we have been having some kind of shake fairly regularly; around one per month. It seems to be a fact of life here. Most are little rattlers, but we have also had a few which felt like something very large hit the front of our house and one that felt like small waves under a boat (I was sitting on the floor at the time).

I take comfort in the fact that this area was extensively surveyed before the tunnel for the shinkansen was put through nearby, which apparently found that it was geologically very stable. There is, of course, the fault running through these hills, which does mean we are more likely to feel little temblors than in the city centre. I still don’t feel comfortable when they happen, but I think I am becoming more used to them. There was that one time when I was on the toilet when one struck…

Another hazard which we have recently discovered here, is what is known in Japan as ‘yellow sand’ (kousa). This is also called Asian dust and is carried on high winds from Mongolia, northern China, and Kazakhstan to North and South Korea and on to Japan. High-speed surface winds and intense dust storms pick up the dense clouds of fine, dry soil particles which are then blown further east by winds and jet streams.

There are records of these storms many centuries ago, so it is not a new phenomenon. It has, however, become much more of a problem in the last few decades with the increase in industrial pollution in China and the fact that these dust storms pass over areas where they pick up the pollutants and carry them with the dust. There is also the increasing desertification of China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan, increasing the likelihood of these storms.

Two weeks ago there was a jet stream passing directly over these areas and depositing the dust here, in Kyoto (and other areas). You could see a light dusting of yellow powder on the outside door handles. Unfortunately it seems that I am affected by this dust+ and for the first time since I left the rental house on Portrush Road in Adelaide I experienced asthma. Luckily I still had some Ventolin, so was able to use this help me deal with it, but I felt very drained for a week. It tends to mainly occur in Spring, although the season is apparently lengthening more recently. Anyway, fingers crossed it is over for this year.

Yellow dust – Osaka

In terms of our living here, we are once again in the process of renewing our visas, an expensive and slightly stressful undertaking. It would be wonderful if we could finally get a three year visa, instead of the 12 month renewal, but it is up to the government and there is some resistance to allowing foreigners to live here. We can only hope…

On the business front it has been very quiet, but we have had some positives. The first came via the ‘diethelper’, who contacted us and asked if a friend of hers from Tokyo could stay with us. She has been working with this friend and another person in updating a publication about vegan/vegetarian businesses in the Kansai area (which includes the prefectures of Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, Wakayama and a few others). The publication is targeted at Taiwanese people, which is because around 13% of the population is vegetarian/vegan. They are going to include our humble abode in this latest version, which should be out later this year.

The previous book

A couple of weeks later, we received an email from a very well known and renowned publication, saying they were doing a new vegan travel series and they wanted to include us in this! They were asking for photos of our rooms, building and some shots of the food we serve. So, we bought a wide angle lens and set about trying to get the best shots we could (our previous photos weren’t that great). I have to say, though, that when I first read the email, which arrived late in the day, I thought it might be a hoax or someone playing a joke on us. We did do some checking before responding; it just shows how cynical I have become through observing the activities of those who like to spread sham information.

…and on the topic of ‘out of the blue’ contacts, last week a man who had been involved in the building and landscaping of our home turned up at our front door. He had come to look at how the plants were going out the front and to offer his services to maintain them once a year. Very enterprising! Anyway, while he was here, Craig asked him about our backyard, ie what plants we could use, given it’s aspect and the small size.

Long story short, today he is here starting the process of creating a Japanese style garden in the backyard 😊.Meanwhile, I have been creating a small garden area on the west side of the yard over the last few weeks, which has been fairly hard work, mainly because the ground was under asphalt for some time (the block was a carpark previously) and to compound this the builders had put road fill on the ground (which they called gravel and we thought they meant gravel as we know it – trap for new players) because they were worried the ground would become swamp-like in the rainy season without it.

My garden – a work in progress

A 100 yr old mochi bowl (water feature) and a mysterious rock ring!

The site for the mochi bowl and a before shot (with Zowie)

Today…

Planting a garden here is somewhat different to how it evolves in Adelaide, ie put in a smallish plant, wait up to a year or so for it to establish, hope it survives summer and start growing. Here it is; put in a smallish plant, wait a week or two for it to establish and watch it growing, literally, day by day. It’s really amazing and is a wonderful thing to watch. There are also so many plants that I would like to have, but there just isn’t enough room for them all, so I am having to strictly limit myself. One of the irises flowered for the first time today – wonderful.

We have only had one major sightseeing outing during this period, to Kuramayama. We were told by diethelper that there was a big full moon festival there on a recent Saturday night, and although I would have liked to go to this, it is a long way to get there and back so we decided to go the next day as we hadn’t been there since the typhoon went through. The temple there had been closed for some months after the typhoon because of the significant damage wreaked by the winds. On the news it was reported that over a thousand trees had come down or were severely damaged. It is one of my favourite places to go in Kyoto and I was feeling a little trepidatious about seeing the devastation. It turned out that it wasn’t as bad as I had thought it might be – there were areas where many trees were down, but there were other areas which were fine, and the very old and large trees were ok.

After we did the climb to the temple we had lunch at the vegan restaurant at the base of the temple area, which we always love to do. The food there is different to many places as it includes some mountain plants and the restaurant itself is very atmospheric, old Japan style. They also sell a few locally made items in the restaurant, and I couldn’t resist the little crocheted pig – very cute 😊.