Hello to you all! You may not remember me – I am the one who used to write to you all pretty much on a monthly basis, recounting the activities and adventures we have been undertaking here, in Kyoto-land. Well, I can now tell you that we have been unbelievably busy business-wise, starting from the day after Craig returned from Australia (18 February). We have not had a ‘guest-free’ day since that time, and we won’t until 18 June. During this period, we have had an average of eight guests per night. The only way we are getting any time off from the 18th is that we blocked the bookings for two weeks – otherwise it is likely it would just continue on and on, with no break.

Bookings are building up for the rest of this year (and into the Spring period next year!) and we are already booked out for a number of nights in Autumn. During this stretch have had an interesting passing parade of guests from around the world, with many from the UK, US, Australia and Germany, but we have had some guests from most of the countries in Europe, and we have also had some return guests.

Fun facts about our guests:

• Three honeymooning couples stayed here;
• Three couples became engaged while staying here; and
• One of the guests who stayed here turned out to be my second cousin once removed from England!

Weather-wise, it has continued to be a different year from average, although, despite predictions of an early blossom season this year, a sudden cold snap a few weeks before the predicted blooming slowed it right down and it ended up happening in the ‘normal’ range. Sad for those who booked for an early timeslot based on predictions but a relief for those who had booked many months prior based on the ‘normal’ time frame. Of course, we have only really seen the weather from a ‘through the window’ perspective. We did manage to get out for a walk into town (mainly for shopping) once, and we made a special effort to get out to a very special event once!!! All the other outside forays were to go shopping, for ourselves and for the business.

Prior to the great influx, Craig spent just under three weeks in Adelaide visiting his family, particularly his mother who had required hospitalisation. He also managed to catch up with a few friends too, which was lovely. While he was there, I had a friend stay here with me for a week, which was also lovely. During that week I went on many quests, including finding a new bamboo forest fairly nearby, visiting two art galleries for specific exhibitions and attending an Ikebana class!

We are now calling the close-by bamboo forest, the ‘secret bamboo forest’, so that it won’t become like Arashiyama with thousands of tourists flocking there. It was an amazing place, with virtually no-one else around and a lot more natural than Arashiyama has become. I think that we only saw a part of the forest, that it is much bigger, so more exploration is to be had – perhaps in June!!!

The first gallery we went to was in Osaka, and the exhibition we viewed was a selection of paintings by Japanese women, dating from the late 1800s into the 1900s. It was nice to see works by women, looking at their views of life in Osaka and really good to see works exclusively by women, especially given it is rare to see any artworks from that period by women.

The other exhibition we went to see was a fibre art display, showcasing the work of Kobayashi Masakazu, who was active in this sphere in the 70s, 80s and 90s. There were some other pieces displayed which were mainly by artists working with him, or whose works were influenced by him. It was marvellous seeing so many pieces of fibre art in one dedicated exhibition.

For our Ikebana class, we went to Rokkakudo (Chohoji) temple, which is believed to have been founded by Shotoku Taishi (Prince Regent Shotoku). The temple is understood to be the birthplace of ikebana and successive generations of the Ikenobo school headmasters have served as head monks of this temple. The style of ikebana taught here is somewhat different to the style I had been using and the particular variety we were shown was called ‘free form’.

Demonstration arrangement

My arrangement

The creative process and swans

We both enjoyed the class, making our own arrangements after the teacher demonstrated the style for us, and we were able to take the resulting arrangements home with us. We also found out that there was an ikebana shop upstairs from where we were, so had to go there to see what was available – the range of items was huge, and it was hard to limit myself…!

After our floral arranging fun, we went to a nearby shop which sells both plants and vegan ice-creams made to look like bouquets. Expensive ice-creams but look incredible and taste great 😊.

Yum!!!

Interruption!!!…I started this post on 13 May and never had time to finish it. So, here I am over a month later finally taking time to complete it and send it out. There was a time in the middle of all the guests where it started feeling like groundhog day and, to be honest, I suspect if I passed by any of them in the street I wouldn’t recognise them – barring a few standouts. Anyway, we are sort of having a holiday now (and I say that because we still have one guest who has been here for over 20 nights now, but that’s a story for next time).

Now, onto the very special event – The Night of the 100 Yokai! (in English, yokai roughly translates as demons or monsters), which is part of Japanese folklore. In the folklore this mainly refers to a parade through the streets of Japan at night involving many yokai, which is sometimes an orderly procession and other times a riot. Yokai often have animal-like features (such as the kappa, which are depicted as appearing similar to a turtle, and the tengu, commonly depicted with wings), but may also be humanoid in appearance. Some yokai resemble inanimate objects (such as hammers or other items which have been left abandoned), while others have no discernible shape at all, or may be ghosts. They are typically described as having spiritual or supernatural abilities, with shapeshifting being the most common trait associated with them. In relation to behaviour, yokai run the gamut from mischievous and murderous, to benign and protective.

The parade we went to first started in 2005 in a shopping street in the northwest area of Kyoto. At that time the local shop owners all created their own small yokai to stand out the front of their shops, which are still there today. Between 2005 and 2020 a special costumed yokai parade was held once a year but was discontinued during the pandemic. This year a special effort was made to resurrect the parade, and so we just had to go 😊.

We couldn’t stay out too long, since we had guests staying here, but it was most definitely worth going to see. There was a celebratory, fun atmosphere to the event as the yokai paraded along the street (there was also the occasional scream of a young child as one of the yokai passed them – hehehe). Once they had all passed through, we started making our way back to the car and then we were stopped by police to clear the road again, as the yokai were returning the other way along the street. So, we got to see them again! Fantastic.

Once more – with scary feelings…

Cheers for now!!!

Zara in destructive mode

Post class arrangement

Tiny frog sculptures!

We had some lovely walks in beautiful weather

Outside of our own yard this is about as much as we saw of spring

Luckily we have quite a few flowering plants at home

We snuck out quickly to see this glorious creature

Saw this one while shopping…

???

Do I look big in this box?

Enjoying time with a friend