Hello one and all, here I am again and it’s already mid-September! Hard to reconcile just how long this dang pandemic has been going on now, with time being much more fluid than I ever remember it being. Staying at home a lot can do this. Hopefully this will change in the near future, with both Craig and I having had our second jab enabling us to return to ‘outside home’ activities soon, such as going to the gym. Craig will be resuming more ‘normal’ activities before me, as I suspended my gym membership until December a while ago because I thought we weren’t going to get the vaccine as soon as we ended up doing. Sometimes things move faster than you expect!

One thing I will be doing, in regards to out of home activities, is to continue wearing a mask and sanitising, to be extra safe and because I have liked the fact that I have had very little in the way of colds and flu since The Virus became part of our lives. I now have a collection of nice masks and am completely used to wearing them – so much so that sometimes I forget I have one on and try to have a drink/put something in my mouth/smell something without moving it out of the way 😊. Thankfully I haven’t had any bad accidents yet. I also have a special Halloween mask on order which I am really looking forward to getting soon.

Hehehe

Weather-wise, while the rain continues, on and off, there has been a fairly significant change temperature-wise. Previously, most days were 35-36C max when it wasn’t raining, but we are now having days in the high 20s to low 30s. Does this mean autumn has arrived early, as nearly every weather pattern has this year? Who knows, but the rain continues, at the moment thanks to a typhoon which came up the China coast towards us. It had been weakening as it approached, then it fell apart and reformed, changing direction in the process, and headed directly towards Kyushu and Honshu. Currently it is south of us and has brought yet more rain, but not as much as they expected.

The other day I did some quick estimating and realised that we have had somewhere between 1.5 and 2 metres of rain here since the rainy season started (early) in May this year. It also occurred to me that in that one week where we had very heavy rain, we actually had about the same amount as Adelaide has in an average year. Pity we can’t find room to fit a rainwater tank here somewhere. All this rain has come at a cost, though, not just in terms of flooding and loss of life, but also in terms of fruit and vegetable crops (and, no doubt, grain crops). With it being overcast on so many of the days since spring, it has impacted growth of the crops and also caused a lot of water damage. Some of our plants have died, but we’re not sure if it is lack of sun, too much water, nutrients being washed out of the soil, or anything else.

Yet again we haven’t been out much, but we do need to get some exercise and a change of scenery occasionally, so I try to think of places we haven’t been to and which are relatively safe, though most excursions do necessitate some public transport usage, where you have to be much more aware of your surroundings, including the people. Ventilation is key, so I try to find seating near an open window or air vent, and maintain appropriate distancing. I also never touch anything with my hands…shades of Howard Hughes?

Our first excursion during this period took us to a sake brewery, which we discovered was fairly close to us. We had bought a small bottle for a birthday celebration (yes you, Steven!) because it was made in Kyoto and had a special Gion Matsuri label, which looked suitably festive. It actually was very nice, so hence worth a visit to the brewery. Unfortunately, with the ‘state of emergency’ restrictions, which consist almost entirely of restricting public alcohol imbibement, it meant we couldn’t taste anything, which was disappointing (I suppose we should have anticipated this, but a tasting is vastly different to social drinking, or should be). Anyway, we decided to buy another bottle in their range, which also has a very nice label, as it happens.

Boots made of reeds or grass

Sake paraphernalia

How many cedar balls do you need?

After this slight disappointment, we went to Vegan Farm, a green grocer and other vegan foods shop, to buy a bento lunch which we ate next to the nearby canal. While we waited for them to cook our lunch (they had run out of cooked rice), we introduced ourselves to the owner, who was there that day. He was very excited that we had a vegan business and decided to video us talking about our business, to upload to Instagram. We didn’t quite understand exactly what he wanted at first, so it was a little stilted, but Craig ended up getting the gist before I did, so he said a few things.

Once we had eaten our lunch, we decided to walk into town to visit a supermarket there which has a few things that we wanted, and we can’t get elsewhere now (one of our favourite supermarkets recently closed down, so we are having to find these items elsewhere). A reasonable walk in humidity, but good for us none-the-less, particularly in terms of vitamin D, which is much reduced being indoors so much.

For our other excursion, I decided to take the plunge and visit Osaka. This came about for two reasons, Craig needed some baking equipment as he is currently doing a vegan patisserie course (an online course) which necessitates these items, and we had two tickets to an art gallery in the Umeda Sky Building in Osaka, which had to be used within 6 months, and they were due to expire mid-October. These tickets were given to us by the lovely couple I have previously mentioned who sent us a Thai cookbook as a gift.

The building is known as the Sky Bridge due to it’s unusual design. It is the 19^th tallest building in Osaka (there are many tall buildings there), and has a circular platform on top, giving 365 degree views of the city. It consists of two 40-storey towers that connect at their two uppermost stories, with bridges and two escalators crossing the wide space in the centre. To get to the top you have to take an escalator to the 3^rd floor, then a lift up to the 35^th floor. Most of the ride up in the glass lift (which is a very fast, ear-popping experience), is via a glass encased open metal structure, so you can watch the ground fall away 😊. Once on the 35^th floor you exit the lift and walk around to an escalator which takes you up to the 39^th floor, also quite a quick journey and inside a glass encased open metal structure.

The close-up shows the outside lift shaft and the two escalators across the gap

No light at the end of this tunnel!

To get to the roof observatory area it costs ¥1,000 per person, which we decided was a little too much for our budget for the day. So we went into the gift shop, looked around and then made the fast return journey down. There were only three other people that we encountered who were going up, so it was very quiet. After that, we went into the other tower and up to the 27^th floor to visit the Koji Kinutani Gallery, Koji Kinutani (1943-) being the artist whose work is exhibited there.

How does this artist have a gallery all of his own? Well, he has won many prizes for his works and he was designated a ‘Person of Cultural Merit’ by the Japanese government in 2014, and Sekisui House is the gallery sponsor. According to his bio, “He mastered fresco technique at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice. In 1974, Kinutani became the youngest winner of the Yasui Prize, a touchstone for young Japanese painters. Since then, his works have been awarded other important prizes, such as the Nihon Geijutsu Taishō (Grand Prize for Japanese Fine Arts), Mainichi Art Award, and an award from the Japan Art Academy. He also designed the official poster of the Nagano Winter Olympics in 1998 and installed public art on the walls of Shibuya Station in 2008.”

We had no idea what to expect, but I am incredibly glad we were given these tickets. His works are very big and bright and really amazing. I have to say I kept wondering if he had been taking psychedelic drugs at some point, because his works really do look a bit like that. Before we went in to view his paintings and sculptures, we were given 3-D glasses and told to wait in a smallish curved wall room until the attendant let us into the small theatrette, which was the other half of the full spherical space. Inside there was a huge curved screen, measuring 3m x 14m wide. Standing waiting for our cue, I was trying to work out what we were going to see…

  This sculpture was about 2m in height

The bottom two photos are the only ones we could take in the gallery, all the others are lifted from the internet

Well, I can honestly say it was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had – I just wanted to stay in there after it finished and watch it again (and again,…). Basically it was an animation of a number of his paintings, which you literally flew into and around in. Phenomenal. It felt like you were immersed in the painting, moving in all directions, and there were things coming towards you, including some interesting flying things and at least twice a huge Japanese-style dragon came directly at you, mouth open! I can’t understate how much I loved it. If we get a chance, I really want to go back again just to sit through it (Float through it? Fly through it?). The best thing was that we were the only people there, so we were able to wander around at our own pace, uninterrupted.

How it looks without the glasses

Again lifted from the internet, and the bottom shows on of the dragons, which felt like it was coming towards us

After all that, I was definitely ready for some lunch, so we went to a vegan restaurant in the direction of the Dotonbori. The food was good, and certainly filling. I had a vegan version of an Hawaiian Loco Moco (seemed fitting), which I had never heard of before but was really tasty, and Craig had a burger, which he said was very good too.

Filled to the brim, we set off for the Dotonbori and, in particular, the Sennichimae Doguyasuji Shopping Street which is lined with shops selling all sorts of kitchen, dining and drinking items, mainly targeted at restaurants, cafes and bars. If you love kitchenalia, you will love this place. We spent quite a while wandering the shops and found everything we wanted, so went away carrying our desired goodies (ok, soup bowls, pastry baking rounds and a silicon baking sheet), contented. Truth is, there was so much more I would have liked, if money wasn’t a consideration. Fabulous day, if a little tiring – we did quite a bit of walking.

The last two also from the internet

That’s all for now

Cheers!

Fly in/fly out guests

My toes…

There were gardens around the Sky Bldg, including some crops, with scarecrows!!

In an underpass the walls were all decorated – this was my favourite section

Well, funny you should ask…

(on the window, it said “ESSENTIALS” and underneath “Fear of God”!?)

Building decorations

What can I say? Weird? WTF? Who…? (…are they? …designed this?) Why?

Interesting bamboo decorations

Us waiting in the Emperor’s Palace grounds for Craig’s vaccine timeslot

Couldn’t resist another pig photo at this shrine

Me looking into the abyss

Most summer flowers are now gone