March | 2021 | Addams in Kyoto

So, Spring is springing into life here – hurrah! Welcome all to the increasingly warm weather and ‘the blooming’. Wonderful, and with the warmer weather the Covid numbers are gradually falling, thanks to a combined effort by the government and The Virus (and viruses in general) not being particularly fond of warmer weather. Earlier in this past month we were still having wild swings in temperature, with a temperature of 21C followed a few days later by a maximum of 4 in the week following my last post. We seem to have settled into a mid to high teens pattern now, though still cold overnight when it is clear.

As a result of the warmer days here and there previously, the cherry blossom is starting to open now, very early indeed. Prior to the cherry blossom, the plum blossom makes an appearance, and though we went on a few outings to view the plum blossom, we weren’t overly successful in finding the right place at the right time – but more about that in a while.

Firstly, I thought I would tell you a wee tale of surprise and mystery, our surprise that is. A few weeks ago we received a parcel from Amazon, but not the one I was expecting. It was, in fact, a Thai vegan cookbook which we had not ordered, as far as we remembered. We became worried that we had somehow accidentally ordered it, Craig does like to look at what cookbooks are available from time to time. So, we scoured through our Amazon orders, both the business and my personal account, but to no avail. Our brains were well and truly racked!!!

Craig had opened the package, so I checked the inside of the envelope to see if there was anything at all inside it which would give us a clue, and there it was, a note saying it was a gift from a couple we had met through the vegan meetup group and who had subsequently paid for a brunch here. Following the brunch, they had added an entry to their vegan restaurant blog, which was very complementary. So when we thanked them for this we said they should come here to have dinner with us when they were back in Kyoto. This did go ahead and they tried to give us money to pay for it when they left, which we refused having invited them on the basis of it being a shared meal.

Anyway, they decided to buy the cookbook for us which is authored by the owners of their favourite veg Thai restaurant in New York (where they live). So, mystery solved, but it did have us going for quite a while – “we can’t have accidentally bought a book, can we???” 😊

Now, onto the blossom. We undertook three blossom seeking outings during the past month, travelling to Zuishin-in, a temple in Yamashina (over the mountain from our home), the Imperial Palace park and Heian-jingu shrine, none of which were overly successful, unfortunately. Nonetheless, the days we went out were clear and sunny, so most pleasant anyway.

We decided to go to Zuishin-in because we thought it would be quiet (it was), it was in Yamashina (ie close) and we had never been there before. As it happened, while most of the blossom trees were just starting to come into flower, the actual blossom garden was not yet open, so we decided to have a look around the temple itself. The history of the temple begins in 991, when permission was given by Emperor Ichijō to construct a temple, named Gyuhizan Mandara-ji, in southeastern Kyoto. Some time later, the fifth Chief Abbot of the temple founded Zuishin-in as a sub-temple of Mandara-ji, but it was reduced to ashes during a rebellion (shogun v emperor) in 1221.

In 1599, the main hall was restored and subsequently some sizable donations contributed to the reconstruction of the full complex, with most of the temple buildings being dated to the 17^th century. Though the temple is renowned for its connection to Ono no Komachi (825 – 900), a famous Heian period beauty and poet, Zuishin-in did not exist during her lifetime, despite the many references to this found on the internet. Her family, however, did have an estate in the Ono area (yes, named after them) where Zuishin-in was built. There are a number of artefacts and paintings related to her at the temple and there is a well on the grounds, excavated fairly recently, which is said to be where she drew water to prepare her makeup each day (according to a plaque at the site).

An ukiyo-e of Ono no Komachi

(PS this is not in the collection at the temple, just for reference)

Stone inlay with one of her poems and close-up

The temple buildings do look a little run down (due, no doubt to the fact that there are fewer paying customers visiting the temple) the art works contained with the main complex are very beautiful and well worth a visit to see them. Unfortunately, as with so many temples, you cannot take photos of many of the old fusuma-e (paintings on the sliding doors in tatami rooms – the doors are called fusuma, and the ‘e’ refers to the painting). I did accidentally take a photo of one of the rooms, and Craig then not so accidentally took a straight photo of that room.

My accident

Not so accidental

Modern fusuma-e

(photos allowed)

The best tree there, but not within the temple

Our next outing was to the park, which surrounds the Imperial Palace. We hadn’t been there for many years, so thought it might be nice to have another look at the park, and there happen to be about 200 plum blossom trees there. It is an extensive park, as you would imagine it would be, with the majority of the trees being of the pine family. The grove is near one of the entrances to the park, and quite a few of the trees are fairly small, they appeared to have been planted in the last decade although the grove began as a collection of cuttings from shrines around Kyoto in 1945. After that walk we went to have lunch at a local restaurant, which was most pleasant.

The roads in the park are wider than most outside!

A fallen tree that refused to die…

Craig’s lunch!!!

The last outing during this period was to the Heian-jingu garden, my favourite garden in Kyoto. I really love this place, finding it to be a very beautiful and peaceful place to be. There are only a few plum blossom trees, but it is always worth visiting and this time the Japanese Andromeda or Dwarf Lily of the Valley (Pieris japonica) was in full bloom around the grounds.

There’s the blossom tree, to the left…

Before I leave you, I thought I would mention that on 11 March it was the 10 year anniversary of the giant earthquake and tsunami in the Sendai and Fukushima area (north east from here). I remember this event very clearly, especially as it occurred a month before we were due to travel to Japan including travelling along the east coast up to Hokkaido, with a four night stay in Sendai booked. Watching the footage of the tsunami was devastating then, and still is. A lot of video was shown on the 11^th that we had never seen before, with some from cameras in cars as they were swept up and also from roofs where some had found refuge, which showed their reactions and them yelling at people to run.

Many of the areas affected still have not been fully rebuilt, particularly since in some areas so many people lost their lives and with most of the buildings destroyed many of those who survived just have not returned, even though local councils have offered incentives and the national government provided huge amounts of money to the councils to assist with rebuilding. A lot of this money is still unspent.

That’s all for now – *spoiler alert* next post will definitely have lots of sakura 😊.

Cheers