Hi all and welcome to this special anniversary edition!!! Yes, as of yesterday, I have been here in Kyoto for one year. It’s funny that it feels perfectly natural being here, despite the weather being very different to what I’m used to and living day to day in a very small space. Not that our house in Adelaide was that big, but it was a lot bigger than this two bedroom flat where our bedroom doubles as our lounge area and the second bedroom as our official office! I am covering two weeks in this post, having got slightly behind due to certain circumstances (being a little unwell for a while and having some visitors stay with us)

I am definitely looking forward to having more space, even though most of our new home will be for the use of guests. Turning to The Very Nearly House – or as I am calling it now, The House. Yes, it has been upgraded because it now has a front door. The scaffolding is still up (or was a few days ago), but there is a door there, covered as it is for protection. The main focus of the work at the moment still seems to be ‘upladder’ and the outside, eg there are now dividers and a handrail on the balcony.

 (prep’d for shoji)  (covered door)

On Friday we had a meeting with our builder and architect, to make some final selections re colours and finishes. The architect brought with him a little model of our new abode, which was very cute and included the carport with a car in it! He took pleasure in showing the inside levels – the roof came off and the second floor lifted out. The roof even had the large pendant light fittings that are going to be in the atrium area attached to the underneath 😊.

While there, I mentioned that we had seen a light fitting we liked which we would love to have over the breakfast counter. They had planned two downlights there as it turned out, but I really don’t like downlights (the glare), so I was glad I mentioned it. It turned out our builder knew the manager (or owner?) of the shop we saw the light fitting in, so he called him and said we would be there the next day to buy it. He also said his friend would give us a discount and that he (the builder) would pick it up for us! (service never ends here). So yesterday we went to the shop and bought the light fitting – it was already on special when we went in and then he reduced the price even further. Lucky, really, as our budget is getting very tight at the moment.

(similar to this)

Moving backwards in time, two weeks ago we went to visit Arashiyama, where the bamboo grove is, to see how the autumn colour was going there (no, we’re not obsessed – well, maybe a little bit). It was a lovely sunny day, so the blue of the sky offset the oranges, reds and yellows beautifully. We did our best with photographs, along with the hundreds of others doing the same…

   (artist at work)

In the second week we went to a market outside Heian shrine, tasted a lot of nihonshu, then continued up to the Philosopher’s Path (feeling a little warmer inside!). More autumn colour, although this day was less sunny and very, very cold – the wind-chill made it feel even colder. There were even more people there that day and it was very hard trying to get your own shots while trying to avoid photobombing others. Still it was a very nice and very long walk (also very few toilets, with very many people queueing ☹).

Following this excursion, we had a friend of Craig’s and a friend of hers come to stay with us for a night. This took up some time, both in preparing for their stay, including rearranging our official office to make room for two beds, then taking them to a few places and clearing up after. It was very nice to have someone here again. When they arrived they indicated a few places they wanted to go, and we were able to work out two itineraries to encompass their wishes.

Two of the places they wanted to see were Fushimi-Inari and Kiyomizu-dera. So, we took them to Tofukuji which is on the way to Fushimi-Inari, to see the autumn colours, then Fushimi-Inari and after we went to Kiyomizu-dera then out to dinner. They had travelled from Tokyo to Kyoto on the shinkansen in the morning, so we didn’t have much time to do all of this! At Tofukuji, there were hundreds of people there taking in the colour spectacle, so it was hard moving around, let alone take photos. Interestingly, most of them were Japanese, not foreign tourists. On the other hand, Fushimi-Inari was much quieter than normal, so they were able to get some shots with no people in them!!!

We returned home for a brief pit-stop, then went up to Kiyomizu-dera. By this time it was fairly dark so the lights were on around the area, which made for a very ethereal experience. Of course, there were many people there but not as many as during the day, so it made it easier to get around. As we hadn’t been there at night before it was a new experience for us too. After that we had an enjoyable, warming Indian dinner. Yum.

So, my first year here ends with lots of colour and very cold weather, along with some good company. I managed to catch a cold during this period, which was the first time I have actually caught anything viral here. I wasn’t too bad, but it did stop me visiting The House this week. The most difficult thing here has been finding our way through the bureaucratic maze in a foreign language. It still amazes me that in such an advanced country, as Japan is, that so little is accessible on-line, eg there is no company register on-line. It really is a paper-based society still, along with the fact it is also very much a cash-based economy. Many places still do not accept payment by credit card and there is definitely no mention of paywave here. I find it absolutely incredible that you have to buy certificates of company registration every six months to provide proof of the status of the company for many transactions and, on top of that, to pay for the certificate you have to go to a separate part of the Legal Affairs office to first purchase some stamps, which you then have to take to the counter to collect your certificate, where you have to lick the stamps and apply them to another form for payment!!

Anyway, it has certainly been a learning experience, with each day a new adventure. The surroundings are beautiful, on the whole, and it is rare not to find yet another hidden secret or amazing place as you wander around here. We often take slightly different routes to places we know, choosing the small back streets because you never know what you will find next.

One other thing I forgot to mention – yesterday, on the day of my anniversary here, Hakuho won the last sumo basho of the year, a day early! A very nice way to celebrate my year here (apart from the 2004 Bottle of Rockford Basket Press…)

Cheers for now

  (another artist at work…) (???)