March | 2020 | Addams in Kyoto

…and we’re live back here on Earth, as panic deepens over the new paper virus – known as sinechartus-20 – which continues to spread worldwide. The virus has proved to be particularly devastating for both toilet and tissue paper, with both vanishing from shelves around the globe. Scientists continue to study the spread of the disease, but are at a loss trying to understand the mechanisms behind the outbreak. It also seems that it may be crossing over to other cell types, with many humans starting to show violent symptoms. One wonders where, and when, it will end.

Hi all, I have been reflecting on the action of people over the last month or two, and find that many of those sci-fi shows, especially those about viral outbreaks or zombie apocalypses, are tragically very accurate. How quickly people resorted to violence and vitriol after the corona virus was first reported is very sad indeed. Now, masks I understand because many here in Japan see them as a panacea, although it took a while for the alcohol pump packs to disappear (which are much more effective in preventing viral infection, overall).

The virus was first reported on 31 December and the first know armed robbery of toilet paper happened on 16 February, in Hong Kong, at which point you just knew this was going to be serious. It was the same day that our first cancellation took effect – a family of four who were booked for four nights were due to arrive. They gave us around a week’s notice, which was fine. Since then, we have had more cancellations, but some brave souls are still coming here.

Kyoto is very quiet indeed; never has there been a better time to visit many of the very popular sites. Relatively, from what we know, the outbreak here is on the lower end of the scale, with most of the reported cases having been on the cruise ship which the government allowed to dock in Yokohama, along with some of the people the government brought back from Hubei early-on. Of course, the great unknown is how many people are out there with mild to very minimal symptoms – and this is the case around the world.

What I can say is that we were lucky to have gone to Costco earlier this year and stock up on toilet paper and tissues, in anticipation of a few (subsequently unrealised) busy months ahead. Phew!

Now, onto lighter matters – the weather, and, as so often happens, I say something in my blog and it’s like a dare to the weather. One day after I posted my last episode, it snowed over night…yes, and it continued to snow a little, on and off, during the day. There was even some thunder!! Nine days later, it snowed again, although again it was quite light. In between these days, about half way actually, we had a day of 21C. In fact, the weather has been all over the place recently. Yesterday it was mid teens and rainy, today sunny and 20C, and tomorrow we are expecting cool and rain all day. What do I know?

During February we celebrated two years since taking possession of our home here. Hard to believe it has been that long. We still get many people saying what a nice place it is, and they particularly like how it is a blend of Japanese and western style. I think, as Australians, we are used to blends of different styles and foods, so it doesn’t really feel overly surprising to us. Japanese people are very surprised we serve Japanese style breakfasts – they often ask us what type of food Australians eat, and we always say it is a fusion of many different cuisines.

We only had one major outing during February and that was to see the plum blossom. In the past we have visited Kitano Tenmangu and other well known temples and shrines to see the blossom, but this time we went south of the city to a shrine called Jonangu jinja. We happened to see a segment on tv that mentioned this shrine and thought it looked nice. We also thought it would be less crowded – wrong!

When we arrived there literally hundreds of Japanese queued to see the gardens around the shrine. Clearly none of these people were really concerned about the virus. It took at least 30 minutes before we reached the entry to the gardens. It was, however, definitely worth it because it really was a beautiful place.

The shrine was built south of Kyoto at the time when the capital had just been established here and was known as Heian-kyo, in 794. It was built as protection for the capital and to ensure the nation’s peace. It enshrines the deity of the nation’s territory, the deity of bravery, and the deity of safe childbirth and child rearing. The area surrounding the shrine became popular as a retreat in the early days, so the imperial family and many aristocrats built villas there.

In fact, we were unaware of the information above but luckily decided to walk in the back streets to get to the shrine from the railway station, because you can often find some lovely places this way. One road back from the main road there were some amazing and quite large old houses in there, which I wondered if they were samurai houses. Most were beautifully maintained and it was a pleasure walking in amongst them.

The actual gardens around the shrine comprise around 30,000m² of land, with a huge area mostly planted out with plum blossom trees and camelias. There were also some small lakes and artificial creeks, populated with the ubiquitous carp, and some very interesting trees and other plantings in what I call the Dr Seuss style. These gardens would be a wonderful place to have wedding photos taken, especially at plum blossom time. Despite the multitude people there, we were able to get many shots with few or no people in the background, thanks to the way it was laid out and some patience. Gorgeous.

? Not sure

A close by temple

From late February through to early March we had a friend staying here with us prior to her leaving Japan to live in Thailand. We had met her and her partner after they found our place and contacted us to see if we would make a breakfast for them. They lived nearby, so had almost literally accidentally run across our place – and one of them happened to be vegan.

Anyway, Milena likes to walk most mornings and has a very good knowledge of the local area, so she took us on a couple of walks in our neighbourhood. The first one was during the day and took us along a trail we had walked before, but she took us on a few detours which we had not done before. At one point we ended up in a small temple which had an amazing panoramic view of Kyoto, and no-one was there.

The other walk was at twilight and took us through the very large cemetery which is nearby, behind Chishakuin temple, and in through the temple grounds. It was a clear, cool night, perfect for walking and was also a very pleasant experience.

Before I sign off, I thought I’d mention that Craig had his 50^th birthday the other day. Incredible to think he was 19 when we first met! Again, I say, time flies 😊.