Year 7 in Kyoto – episode 9

…and here it is getting close to the end of September and I haven’t got around to sending out a post. Well, I am about to rectify that situation, though I have to fit it in and around our work. After a few days of full house, the last of a group of guests left late last week and then we had one day to gather ourselves together in preparation for the Autumn onslaught, which will last until the end of November. After that we have a few guests up to the middle of December, but with odd days here and there free.

We have bought up fast food supplies (and by that I mean food that is quick and easy to prepare) for ourselves, and been to Costco to buy bulk supplies for the business. In amongst this ‘onslaught’, it is also my birthday and this year I will go out to dinner, though it won’t be on the actual day as we have lots of ins and outs around the actual day. In preparation I have already made a reservation to make sure it can happen.

One task we had to get onto was finding a new sake for the guest fridge – we have apple juice, beer and sake in the fridge, in part to give each guest one complimentary drink after check-in and to have some drinks available to buy if they want something. The sake we had been buying in little cartons had disappeared from Costco shelves, so we decided to go the sake brewing district in Fushimi ward. After a brief electronic oracle search, we decided to try one from Kizakura brewery, the brewery with a Kappa museum we have been to before, as they had some small bottles of sake at the right price point.

We had booked out a small holiday for ourselves in early September (if we don’t do this, we don’t get time off) and chose one day to set off for Kizakura Kappa Country! They have a lovely courtyard at the brewery and a shop full of their brands, so we picked one, bought it and sat outside to sample. It was still quite hot outside, but there was a table under a gorgeous large tree, thankfully. Anyway, we liked it and went in to buy a carton but they didn’t have one available, so we bought six and they said they would have a carton available the following week, which we duly collected. Turns out a group of four who stayed here with us last week really liked it and drank about eight of them, so we had to go back to buy more!

Onto the weather it has remained fairly warm, with the run of 35+ days continuing until the 5^th of this month. Since then most days have been around 32 – 33C, but more humid, and we even had some days back up to 35C. There has been a bit of rain around, but often in sudden heavy falls which end quickly. There aren’t any typhoons on the horizon, at the moment, and it appears we may ne moving into a period of low 30s / high 20s from now on.

We made the most of our ten days off, getting out and about, including eating out a few times. Our first outing was with Takako, who had found out that the only film version of Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji) made in Japan had been resurrected and some English subtitles added. The story was written in the early 11th century by the noblewoman, poet, and lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu. This story is widely acknowledged as the world’s first novel. The film we saw was made in 1951 on 35mm film, and the character of Genji was played by a famous Kabuki actor. As a consequence, Genji wasn’t quite as attractive as he was written to be and was quite effeminate. Having not read the story I’m not sure exactly what Genji is like in the book, but in the film the actor played the part somewhat like he was playing a female role in Kabuki.

In the story Genji has numerous affairs and moves between these women at will, with many knowing he is seeing numerous others, and so the film consisted of him bedding many women. Sometimes it seemed he just took them without their consent, he had at least two children (one to his first wife and one to one of the Emperor’s concubines), he kidnapped a teenage girl and took her to live at his house (he brought her up to be like the woman he really loved, then when she was old enough…) and finally had to leave Kyoto in fear of his life (for having had an affair with the Emperor’s concubine), etc. I really did enjoy it, though some parts were a little comical, but it was very interesting seeing how these people lived and dressed (and presumably accepted multiple affairs), since it appears that Murasaki based the story on her life at court. Prior to seeing the film, which ran for just over two hours, we went to a nearby café which was actually a hair and beauty salon with a small room where food was served!

The next day we finally went to see the ceramics exhibition that I had been waiting for so long to see. It mainly showcased a group of potters in Kyoto who lived very close to where we live and who eschewed the traditional style of Kyoyaki (Kyoto-ware ceramics) making their own very avant garde style of pottery. They called themselves the Sodeisha group. The group was founded by Yagi Kazuo, Kano Tetsuo, Yamada Hikaru, Matsui Yoshisuke, and Suzuki Osamu in 1948. Yagi Kazuo was the father-in-law of the woman from gym who befriended me a while back, and her husband has also become a potter.

It was fairly expensive to get in to see the exhibition but it was more than worth the money. It was incredible, with 183 exhibits with a few that you could take photos of; interestingly most of these were created by Yagi. Some of the early exhibits showed more traditional works of Kyoyaki, for context, and it was clear that the Sodeisha group leant heavily on all the research and skill of those who came before them here. The majority of the exhibits came from different art galleries within Japan and around the world. By the way, Sodeisha means ‘crawling through mud’ 😊.

After the exhibition we walked back to the Gion area to have dinner at Bali Bali. We arrived at the Gion area before the restaurant opening time so ended up going to a nearby izakaya and had a drink. It was an interesting place and had some food items which were vegan, including some which they smoked in their own smoker. Something to keep in mind for another day!

One unexpected outing was taking a friend and her fiancé to Sanzen-in up at Ohara. It was unexpected because up until recently Mika had been living in England. Out of the blue she sent us a message via Instagram saying they were moving to Kyoto for at least two years and she would like to meet up with us. It was a lovely surprise, as we hadn’t seen her in the flesh (as it were) since we were studying Japanese in Adelaide. She had won a grant to live in Adelaide for a year to study English and teaching a language and our Japanese teacher acted like a mentor every year for recipients, so we met her at our classes and became friends.

It was lovely to see her again, after ten years, and to meet her fiancé whom she met while studying in England (he is French). For something a bit different for them we took them for the drive up to Ohara, walked through Sanzen-in, then drove over to Kurama and had lunch at Yoshuji. A lovely way to spend a day😊.

One final outing to mention is my exciting trip to renew my driver’s licence. Last time I had to go out to the driving centre and go through the whole process, including a two hour lecture on road safety. Not the most exciting way to spend half a day – in fact, many people actually fell asleep during the lecture (not me, the seating was too uncomfortable, but the Japanese are masters at micro-sleeping anywhere!). This time, because we have both had our licences for five years and not had any ‘incidents’, we are classed as ‘model drivers’, and our reward is being able to renew at a venue near Kyoto station and a much shorter lecture; only 30 minutes!!! The process still requires waiting in queues for different parts of the process, but it only took about two hours all up. Fabulous.

Well, that’s it for now – I’ll try to get the next one out closer to the middle of next month…

Cheers

This gets me every time – does it mean we have to worship the Regular Route?

We finally found out (thanks to Mika) that these effigies are to acknowledge people who have given donations to the temple (Sanzen-in). The names are under the little statues.

Summer is the time of dance festivals (in the heat!). This is one we caught on TV

Speaking of Summer, we finally had a kakigori, the really yummy lemon one

Also speaking of Summer – the clouds continue to fascinate me!

…and the final speaking of Summer photos – one day out walking we came across a swarm of Dragonflies, about 3m off the ground and flying in a tight, fairly stationary (ie in the same spot) group. I took many photos trying to get them, but in the end only managed to get a single individual in two photos (top two). When we got home, there was another swarm of the same type of Dragonflies in the carpark across the road from our home. Again I tried, this time I only got one photo. The question is, what were they doing and why?