Ooops, it seems I’m running a little behind. I don’t know how time got away from me so much – we haven’t really been doing that much. Perhaps it has been the focus on what’s happening here, virus-wise, and us looking for something to do that might generate some income. Anyway, I apologise for the delay and hope you find something to smile about in this post. Certainly, if you like flowers, you’re going to LOVE it!

Spring! Blossom!! Glorious. Wonderful. Beautiful. Stunning. Otherworldly. How many superlatives can I put in one paragraph? Yes, the blossom has been and gone, but just reflecting on it brings a smile to my face. I mentioned last time that the blossom was going to be early this year, thanks to some occasional warm days in February and early March. Well, it turns out that this year’s blossom peaked so early that it was the earliest it has been since 812CE. How do we know exactly which year? The Buddhists – yes, it seems one of the roles they play here is recording the blossom season each year and, as a result, they can tell us exactly how it compares to other years.

I have to assume that in 812CE it also warmed up earlier than usual. Since my last post, most days have been above 20C (just the odd one here and there in the teens). Currently we are having a run of mid 20 degree days, and yesterday, on my way home from gym, I had only a t-shirt on top, no coat or long sleeves! What a pleasure it is on that first t-shirt day of the year.

As to our outings, we undertook two blossom viewing excursions on two lovely, sunny days. We walked for both outings, the weather was just too good not to! For our first journey, we walked along some of the back roads near Kiyomizu-dera (avoiding the crowds as much as possible) to Maruyama park. After that we walked down into the Gion area and finally into town, taking the road along the canal near the Pontochou area.

It was mid-week, but despite this there were many newly weds having photos taken around these areas. Apparently many couples actually have their official wedding photos taken in either spring or autumn for the scenery, no matter when they actually have the ceremony. Not to miss out, I took a few unobtrusive photos of some of them because they did look beautiful.

Our next walk took us further out, along some of the other back streets and canals up to Heian jinja. There were many family groups picnicking in Okazaki park (which is in front of Heian jinja), so we went a bit further to the next canals and ate a fabulous vegan bento lunch from Vegan Farm, which is a fruit and veg shop that also sells takeaway foods. Most of the benches were taken along the canal just past the park and jinja, but we found one unoccupied – the only one that was not under trees. Still, it was nice and warm and we had a good view of the canal, and the boats traversing it for hanami. We had no idea that this actually happened in blossom time!

Just walking along those canals I had a smile on my face the whole time. Absolutely the best tonic for forgetting what was happening nearly everywhere else in the world, and particularly here, in Japan. Yes, I am referring to The Virus. I know I said in my last post that things seemed to be going in the right direction in terms of the numbers here, but I definitely spoke too soon.

It seems a combination of a certain amount of Covid weariness, hanami travelling and the fact that at least three of the variants have been able to make their way into the population here, has meant the numbers have sky-rocketed. The UK, Sth African and Brazilian variants are here, and to top this off we now have our very own Japanese variant, which came from the Brazilian variant. It seems these have taken hold, so much so that nearly all new cases now are the variants. This is resulting in a flood of new serious cases requiring hospitalisation and oxygen (which is in relatively limited supply compared to the need) and many of these serious cases are younger than previously.

In this period, then, we have come out of a ‘national emergency situation’ and we are about to enter another one, as of Monday. This time, given the dire seriousness of the situation, it is going to be a lot stricter, and the Osaka Governor is saying that he intends to stay in ‘lockdown’ until at least the end of May, mainly because the numbers in Osaka are horrendous, with over 1,000 new cases per day for the last three days – much higher than the numbers in the last peak (or third wave). I think Kyoto will follow the lead of Osaka and Hyogo (collectively, the three prefectures are known as Kansai and do work together a lot) – the Governor here has asked people to stay away from Kyoto and as many tourist destination places as possible are being asked to close.

In terms of travelling, Kyoto was literally flooded with visitors for the one week period at the blossom peak. The reason for the numbers visiting here is that Kyoto has literally thousands of cherry blossom trees in and around the city. Along the river and the canals, in parks and temples, and basically anywhere trees can be planted, there are blossom trees. Everywhere you go you will see some trees – just driving to the hardware store is picturesque. They are very important to the psyche here and the trees are generally very carefully tended and preserved.

Even the end of the blossom period is spectacular, as the petals rain down on you and there are huge drifts on the ground below the trees. I have coined a new word for this time – hanayuki time – hana being the Japanese word for flowers and yuki the word for snow 😊.

We actually had a visitor stay here with us in March too, although he didn’t actually come here for the blossom, just to have a brief holiday from work. He stayed with us for two nights, and was a real pleasure to have here. It really reminded us of how much we missed having guests, and we may have perhaps taken a little too much of his time here just talking to him. He left us a very generous gift when he departed, so I have to assume he didn’t mind too much or he just felt sorry for us🤔?

On the 27^th of March, it was 14 years to the day that we first came to Japan, arriving very early on the 28^th, sleep deprived strangers in a strange and wonderful new land. While it was very much a learning experience in terms of us finding vegetarian (at the time) food here, we loved it so much we kept coming back. It was during that first trip when we were walking down one of the main roads in Kyoto that we remarked how much like home it felt to us. Little did we know at the time that years later we would be ensconced here, although the idea started forming at that time.

That’s it for now, and I’ll try not to get so side-tracked next time. Let’s hope there is some good news re The Virus…

Cheers

Vale Villi

Artists at work😆

A non-blossom tree!

???!!!

There are sooo many ornaments for flower pots here…

Is that Mary Poppins going to my gym?

Wall art at Starbucks – looks familiar

Yes, birthday crowns for that special 4-legged someone!

Our first azalea flower opens!

Now look at them – planted late last year

This what a dogwood should look like – ours is a third of the size and had one flower…