…and so, despite the issues still existing re The Virus, with the delta variant being the major infectant being detected everywhere here now, the restrictions are being lifted for most areas (barring Okinawa) by the end of this weekend. The proviso is that although restaurants and bars will be allowed to serve alcohol (and I use the word ‘allowed’ loosely, since they weren’t banned from serving before, just asked not to), the only restriction is that they stop serving alcohol from 7pm and then shut by 8pm – please.

This is happening a month before the games are due to start (so enough time for the numbers to build up again), and just as the indicators are looking suspiciously like they did before the numbers started increasing significantly last time. On top of these indicators, we have the delta variant which spreads much more easily, is affecting younger people more and can come on very fast. Do I sound frustrated?

In terms of the vaccinations, things are moving a little faster now, in part because the government wants it to and in part because a significant number of the over 65s are declining to have the vaccine. Apparently this stems from some bad experiences with vaccines in the past in Japan, where there have been some bad reactions, including deaths, despite the rest of the world not having any problems. So far there have been a significant number of anaphylactic reactions to the Pfizer vaccine and a lot of bad reactions to the Moderna vaccine here.

As a result, they are now opening the mass vaccination centres up to all people from 18 yrs and up, so, theoretically, we could make an appointment and have out first shot. The slight problem, however, is that you have to have received a coupon that has a personal number on it which you have to use when you book, and we have not yet received one of these coupons. The coupons are being posted out to everyone by the respective prefectural governments and it seems the national government may not have informed the prefectures that they were going to open up the vaccinations so soon. As far as we can work out, the Kyoto government has only sent out the coupons to the 65+ year old citizens so far. We wait in hope.

Turning now to the weather; I mentioned the rainy season had started earlier than usual in my last post, and we have had some good rain, with the heaviest rain here in Kyoto being a bit over 120ml in one day, which included 17ml in one hour. Yes, that was pretty heavy, but there were areas which had much heavier rain. Luckily, there doesn’t seem to have been any major flooding anywhere – fingers crossed it stays that way.

We have moved into warmer weather now, with most days 30C and over, and unless it is overcast with rain approaching, it hasn’t been very humid. We have had a few thunderstorms, but nothing to write home about (haha). Yes, I am a little disappointed about that. So it has been good growing weather and our garden is in full swing now. We have had the irises bloom (as you know, my favourite flower) and the hydrangeas are still in flower -we’re talking around three weeks since they first opened.

Above: Taken early June

Below: Taken yesterday

Some of the flower heads are the size of a dinner plate!

Very pink – needs more acid…

One hosta to rule them all

Regarding the insect life of spring/summer, we have seen a few Red Helens, although that was some time ago, and we are seeing other butterflies, moths and bees, but no ‘sound of summer’ cicadas yet. In fact, we recently had a community of Carpenter Bees move into our backyard – I kid you not, a significant Close Encounter of the Animal Kind. They are called Carpenter bees because they burrow into bamboo and dead wood to make their homes and lay their eggs, and so it has been here, with our small bamboo fence now sporting quite a few circular holes of a bit less than 1cm diameter, just big enough for them to go in and out. They are about 2cm in length.

Carpenter Bees do not live in hives, rather they live alone, however, they do sometimes live in little neighbourhoods, which is what happened in our backyard. There were four of them that I saw, all busily going to and fro and making a lot of noise – they are very loud. I checked on them using the electronic oracle, and from what I could tell, the bees we had here (they seem to have gone now) are not the native Japanese Carpenter Bees, but are interlopers from Taiwan. They probably arrived in Japan in a bamboo shipment and have now settled in quite happily. The only thing I couldn’t find out is whether they are affecting the native species in any way. Apparently lay six eggs in their nest.

During this period, yet again, we have not been doing very much. This is mainly due to my reticence to put us in peril of catching the delta variant. We go shopping once a week, and occasionally go for a walk, though with the wet weather we have been having, there haven’t been many suitable walking days. We ventured into town recently to buy a few things, and while we were there had lunch at a Nepalese restaurant we have been to before (we were the only customers). This was our first meal out in over two months, and was most pleasant. On the way home we dropped by Chishakuin temple, to look at the hydrangea garden, which is always nice at this time of year.

Strange hydrangea?

We only had one major outing during this period, which I decided should be to seek out a new place to look at hydrangeas. Consulting the electronic oracle I found a shrine, Umenomiya Taisha, which apparently also had some irises in their garden. Perfect, I thought, and we had never been there before so even better, but I was proved wrong as the bus pulled up at the stop we had to get off at and we both recognised the area. It was very near a property we had looked at five years earlier, when we were trying to find a location for our guest house.

As we considered the property, we had a look around the close neighbourhood and found a shrine, which is known as being associated with sake brewing, thanks to one of the enshrined deities (at the time, I remember thinking this seemed good…). I also remembered thinking that it wasn’t a particularly captivating shrine. We had no idea that there was a huge garden surrounding the shrine on three sides, as it was fenced off and there were no obvious signs re a garden.

There’s the entrance to the garden, over in the corner…

So it was when we arrived there that day, however, knowing that it did indeed have a garden, we looked a little more closely and found a small, entirely unremarkable entrance (with a gate that looked somewhat like one you would see on a farm, made of old bits of metal and a long spring), with a very faded sign next to it. We also knew you had to pay to get in, so we looked for somewhere to do so, and found a small window on the other side of the central shrine grounds.

Having paid our fee, we returned to the little gate, through which you could see a large pond/small lake, a bridge across the lake and a small tea house to the left. Again, unremarkable and no sign of hydrangeas, although we could see a few irises. After passing through the gate, there was a small bridge across a ditch, which was a bit over a metre wide. In this ditch were literally hundreds of irises, although not many of them were in flower, but it looked nice.

After we crossed the bridge, we could see that the garden was larger than we thought, and there were large Koi (carp) in the lake, which was edged with some more irises. As we moved further around the lake, you could see there was a lot more to this garden and the further we went, the more irises we could see. At a certain point, about a third of the way along the edge of the lake, there was a “Wow” moment, as you could see that there were many hundreds of iris plants along the edge of the lake and on the ‘island’ in the middle of the lake, where the tea house was.

We kept going, drinking in the stunning beauty of the irises, until at a certain point, we could see that beyond the zigzag bridge, the lake was completely covered with lotus leaves and some flowers. “Wow”. I was completely mesmerised by all this, strolling, looking and taking many, many photos, when I noticed a noise, a loudish screeching noise (a bit like a loud cockatoo). So, anyway, we kept strolling, enjoying, soaking it all in when, again, we hear the noise – “what is that noise?”. Hhhmmm. So, we strolled (loud screeching noise), strolled (loud screeching noise, getting sort of used to it); strolled (loud zombie like noise) “what the hell was that?”; crossed a small bridge onto the ‘island’ (loud noise that sounded like a large animal being drowned) “what the f*#@ was that?”.

At this point, despite what was around us, the noises had really started to pique our curiosity. After the second time we heard the drowning sound, we decided we had to find out what it was. As we were near the end of the path around the lake and on the ‘island’ we continued on wondering where the hydrangeas were and what those noises were (you couldn’t see much outside of the path) – curiouser and curiouser. At the end of the path it opened up into a large space edged by hydrangeas (there they are!), with a large square pavilion in the centre and a stand of very large trees to the left – and it was the stand of trees from whence the noise was emanating.

Looking up into the trees we could see huge nests of sticks, in which Great Egrets were nesting – both white and grey varieties it seemed. They were making those three quite distinct noises, the screech, the zombie noise and the drowning noise. We could only guess at what the latter was, but we decided it was likely a parent feeding a chick. Having solved that (sort of), we tried to get photos of the birds, but our phone cameras just weren’t up to it. So, we continued on into the hydrangea area of the garden.

There’s one…

The number and variety of hydrangeas there was amazing, and they were truly beautiful. The design of the garden was such that it was a strolling garden and also that you couldn’t see overly much beyond where you were, unless you were next to a lake or pond, and in the case of this garden there was one small lake and a pond, both with irises and lotus plants, although the pond had only a small area of lotus surrounded by iris. Next to the pond there was also a wisteria walkway. Past the main hydrangea area, there was a stand of plum trees, and a small bamboo grove.

What a truly amazing garden – wonderful design, beautiful plantings and quite large, although not in the league of Heian Jingu. The birds added an extra air of drama, and it turns out that there are cats which live at the shrine and are cared for by the shrine employees and volunteers. Information about the garden indicates that there are also cherry trees and many azaleas, so the blooming starts in February and keeps on until around mid-summer. A place that is definitely worth re-visiting and is not likely to be overwhelmed with tourists.

Yes, it was quite warm!

Before I sign off, I thought I might mention an interesting coincidence that was recently highlighted to me by a friend who spotted an article in The Guardian about a new book which has been published containing photographs of lost and lonely gloves taken by Nick Cave! It seems Nick and I saw the same thing in these gloves, and at around the same time, with both of us taking our first photos of gloves in January 2018. Interesting.

L: Together but homeless, R: Wait!!!!

L: Lost for weeks, R: Hitchhiking home

Trying to crawl home

Cheers for now!

We’ve seen many types of vending machines, but these are the first vegetable (above) and rice (below) vending machines.

The view across to Arashiyama, while walking from the shrine

There were also quite a few crows at the shrine

There are also a lot of egrets nesting along the Kamogawa

Hallelujah for drink, or Craig? Both!

America’s new secret weapon in the space race – The Emperor Shuttle!

Looking out the back window

Homegrown flowers

How much do I love flowers???