Year 6 in Kyoto – episode 9

Right from the start of this post, I have one thing to say:

HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!

Ok, got that off my chest 😊. This is, of course, my reaction to last Friday’s announcement of the reopening of the borders – finally. Two and a half years (approximately) have passed during which we just waited and waited and sighed and hoped. Then it happened, and within hours we had our first enquiry (about our cancellation policy) which led to a booking later that same day. We celebrated.

So, on the day after my birthday, tourists will be able to enter the country without a visa, without being in a travel group and staying where they like. How wonderful, and just in time for the lovely Autumn weather and colour.

Which brings me straight to the weather – which has now become much more comfortable. The very hot and humid weather continued up until the middle of last week, thanks to the efforts of a few typhoons. Essentially, if they head in our direction, they push hot tropical air before them. Now that they have passed, the temperature has dropped down to a very nice high 20s/low 30s. We have had the windows open over the last few days, which is most pleasant, and we can now start venturing out more, which I intend to do from next week.

As to what we have been doing with ourselves over the last month (aside from waiting, sighing and hoping😊), well a significant part of it has been centred around our friends Lilia and Yuval, who are now back in Israel. One thing that Lilia had been asking about over the last few months was whether we would consider hosting another vegan meet-up here, which we had decided to do, but with the Covid numbers being high over the last few months, we were not keen to have too many people here at once. As I mentioned last time, we did do a mini version for Isi and a few friends prior to her departure.

So, as the Covid numbers had started to decline and the date of their departure was getting closer, we decided to have the meet-up on the weekend before they left. What we didn’t realise was that the following week included two public holidays, on the Monday and Friday, so a lot of people had made holiday plans. On the night we ended up with eight diners, not all of whom were vegans – in fact it was a 50/50 group, with half being vegans. Still, it went down very well, and we all had a lot of fun.

Six savoury dishes and one sweet dish – Street food!

In the following week, Lilia and Yuval came to stay with us for two nights prior to their departure. We suggested that they could stay here, so that they could pack up all their belongings and clean out the flat they were living in and have somewhere to sleep. It also gave us time to spend with them and say goodbye, and they could relax a little after tying up all the loose ends. As their flight out of Kansai wasn’t until 11:30pm, we had time to go out on their last day here and meet up with two other friends of theirs. We ended up at the Starbucks near Kiyomizu-dera, which is the only Starbucks to be established in a traditional Kyoto Machiya house.

Machiya are traditional wooden townhouses that were popular with Kyoto merchants and craftspeople until just before WWII. They are usually two storey buildings, often contain an enclosed courtyard garden and the interior is traditional Japanese, with tatami mat floors, minimal decoration, exposed wooden beams and sliding shoji or fusuma doors between the rooms. Usually, the materials used in a machiya are exclusively organic. The Starbucks has retained a lot of the traditional features of the machiya, including tatami flooring in some areas, where you sit on large cushions (zabuton) around small, low tables. It was a very pleasant place to sit for a few hours, eating, drinking tea and coffee and laughing.

Prior to the meet-up, we spent an evening with Lilia and Yuval, doing something that is very typically Kyoto – full moon viewing (tsukimi). The September full moon is known as the harvest moon and is celebrated widely in Kyoto. Many temples and shrines were having tsukimi event, and we chose to go to the Yasaka shrine event as it is close to us. We met up in the Gion beforehand and went to a restaurant in the area that has a special vegan menu, which includes okonomiyaki (basically a Japanese style savoury pancake), yakisoba (a noodle dish), teppanyaki and few other dishes.

The restaurant, named Tanto, appears to be run entirely by women, is very atmospheric and in a great position in the Gion, next to one of the canals. The tables are almost completely taken up by a hot plate, on which you partially cook and then serve the food. It was nice, though the food wasn’t as good as at other places we have been to.

After dinner we went to the shrine to watch the proceedings, which took place on the central stage area. The first hour, or so, of the ceremony was entirely religious in nature, with musicians playing mostly wind instruments in the background. They have a very unusual sound, which I love, and it is very typically Japanese style. The priests each had their parts to perform and, as happens in Shinto ceremonies, each of the directions were acknowledged, at which the watching crowd in that direction bowed. This happened a number of times.

During this period the moon started to rise over the hills, which added to the whole atmosphere. After the religious rites were completed, two dancers came onto the stage, dressed in amazing orange outfits. Their movements were very precise and stylised. Dance is often a part of Shinto ceremonies. Following this a group of Koto players took the stage and played a few songs. Watching the movement of the players is as much a part of the whole performance as the lovely music they produce. Then, drums were set up on stage. Taiko! Yes, it has been a while since I have seen a taiko performance, and it was wonderful to watch, though it did make me miss playing…

At the end of the ceremonies, they handed out the grasses they had as decorations, for which there was quite a jostle, as they are considered good luck having been used in proceedings. Lilia grabbed one for me, but in the process of pulling it in, she managed to stab me in the stomach with the stalk…! Anyway, here it is.

There are two other experiences to mention before I sign off – one relating to Japanese bureaucracy and the other involving a long drive. I have mentioned previously the sometimes onerous bureaucracy here, and it is an ongoing process. What we didn’t realise is that someone from the Kyoto hotels section is supposed to visit us once a year, to check up that we are following the rules. Somehow, this sort of slipped during the last two years, but they finally caught up with us. So a woman came to visit us, and luckily she could speak a little English.

The main focus was on our reception area, checking we still had it (of course, it’s part of the building) and what we tell our guests when we register them (don’t litter, don’t smoke in the streets near houses, be quiet/don’t yell, etc) which we always do because our licence can be revoked if there are complaints. She was a very nice person, and it was all over in about five minutes!

The drive, on the other hand, took just under two hours (one way). I had been wanting to visit an Ikea store here, just to see what it was like (basically exactly the same as in Adelaide) and to look for a few things which we needed, so the long drive was part of the adventure. The nearest store for us is in Osaka, down in the port area, and the drive involved expressways and toll roads (unless we wanted the journey to take at least an hour longer), but as a one-off visit, we thought it was worth it.

We entered Ikea into our GPS, and set off on our adventure. For a long while it was fairly straight forward, then we hit Osaka, and then it got very complicated. On ramps, off ramps, some very close together and hard to tell which one was the right one to take, and sometimes the on ramp took us onto a four laned road and we immediately had to cross the four lanes to get to the off ramp! A number of times we were driving in circles – literally. For a while it was quite stressful trying to navigate, even with the GPS, but we made it.

We also had to cross some interesting bridges. One had an entry and exit that were literally corkscrews – you went up three levels to get to the bridge, and then had to go down three levels on the other side. The other bridge scared me. It is a very long box girder, beam bridge, ie a simple structure where the road sits on beams, with no upper support. This one happens to be the longest of it’s type in Japan. It is very high above the river it crosses and the entry and exit sections are fairly steep (we went up behind a truck which was moving very slowly because it was so steep).

View from above

When we were moving it seemed reasonably ok, though the height of the bridge combined with a fairly low barrier wall was a bit unnerving (what is it like when it is windy?). The problems set in when we got to the other side, which was backed up thanks to some traffic lights. When we stopped (and we were still quite high up above the river and buildings below), I could feel the bridge moving – vibrating up and down, somewhat like an earthquake, and not small movements. I kept thinking “how old is this bridge?”, “how is the structure now?”. I wanted to get out of the car and literally run down to the ground level, but there wasn’t anywhere to run, it was all road on our side. Every change of the lights we edged further down, then stopped. Suffice it to say I never want to go on that bridge again. I have read since that it also moves laterally when it is windy…

At the beginning…