Hello all, I am here yet again to sit and talk about what we’ve been up to, and anything else that takes my interest!!!. So here we are at the time when summer starts to recede and autumn should be advancing into our lives. Well, that’s the theory anyway. In fact what has been happening more and more recently both here and elsewhere (from what I hear) is that summer and winter are both getting longer, while spring and autumn are shortening, becoming more like inter seasons.

This year the warmer weather period has been very different to how it was last year. There have been significantly fewer typhoons this year; we have only just had number 12 move through Asia. In my last post I noted the rainy season, which I said appeared to be over, had lasted a lot longer than last year. Now we seem to be back into a rainy season – rainy season part 2. We have been getting some rain nearly every day over the last few weeks. Perhaps my statement that it appeared to have ended stirred up the two gods related to weather – Raijin and Fujin – who then decided to prove me wrong.

Raijin is the god of thunder, lightning and storms, while Fujin is the god of wind. They are feared deities in Japan because of the damage typhoons and storms have caused here over the years. In an interesting aside, apparently parents used to tell their children to cover their bellybuttons during storms, because Raijin likes to eat bellies! Anyway, they are often depicted in statues at the entrances to Shinto shrines, as protectors for the shrine.

Speaking of storms, this year we have had only one typhoon pass fairly close to us; number 10. It was a very large cyclone, and also very slow moving. It impacted the more westerly areas of Honshu along with Kyushu and Shikoku for quite a few days, causing significant rainfalls and associated flooding. For a while it looked like it was going to turn further east than it did, which would have brought the eye very close to us, however, it wasn’t to be, so we just had some heavier than usual rain (around 120 mls in about 7 hours).

With so much rain about, we have been spending more time inside, sometimes looking to see what midday movies are on BS Cinema (which plays in the original language as well as overdubbed or sub-titled in Japanese). Recently, a film was advertised – Johnny Oro, which the Japanese called Apple Kid (not sure why) – and they termed it a “macaroni western”. Interesting, so I just had to find out why this genre title was used.

Turns out that it dates back to the time when Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars was released in Japan around 1964. A well known Japanese film critic (Yodogawa Nagaharu) in his critique said that “spaghettis are thin and meagre”, which he obviously thought this was not, so he instead referred to this genre of movies as “macaroni westerns”, a name which has stuck here in Japan.

A DVD set

A CD

A book

Despite the weather, we have managed a few outings during this time, mostly trying to fit them in around the rain. The first outing was to the local Buddhist high school (Otani School) to view the Daimonji (fire) festival. People who live in our area are invited each year to go to the school and watch the fires from the roof. Last year we couldn’t go because I had a broken toe, so we decided to take up the offer this year, and we went with a friend who lives near us – Rachel.

Before many arrived

Daimonji is the culmination of the Obon festival, on 16 August, which involves the lighting of five fires on the hills around Kyoto. These fires form specific shapes and are lit as a send off for all the spirits of ancestors who have revisited the household altars during Obon. (Obon has been celebrated in Japan for over 500 years.) Specific families in Kyoto have the hereditary duty of organising all the logistics of the bonfires, and they spend many hours each year maintaining this tradition.

The teachers and students were very welcoming, with some of the students practising their English on us. There were many people there and you could see all but one of the fires, though not in one position. Unfortunately I couldn’t get any good photos of the fires – the limitations of a phone camera. I should have taken the ‘big’ camera. When we were leaving, some of the students were walking around passing out ‘yoyos’, which were actually small balloons with some water in them and a longish piece of elastic tied to the top. A bit of fun learning how to use them!

You can just see the orange glow of the front of the boat

The next day we met up with a Taiko friend from Adelaide, who had been travelling around Japan with a tour group. It was a hot/humid day, so we spent a lot of the time with her indoors, at Starbucks for a coffee, then Mumokuteki for lunch. This café is mostly vegan, so Dot (who is a vegetarian) enjoyed having a complete meal, as the tour group didn’t really cater well to her dietary needs. Later we walked across to the Gion area. It was nice, as always, to spend some time with someone from Adelaide.

Speaking of vegan restaurants, we visited another place which we hadn’t been to before – Yamashokuon – a vegan Indian restaurant. It is run by two Japanese people and they serve mainly south Indian oriented cuisine. Not sure how this came about, but the food was good and the restaurant was an interesting space as it was part of a hiking goods shop. One thing that really caught my attention is that they had two curry leaf trees growing in pots in the shop. I asked if they bought them here, but they said they didn’t – they did, however, offer to try to grow a sapling for us from one of the seed pods. We have our fingers crossed.

Our final outing during this period was to see a teamLab installation at Shimogamo shrine. You may recall we went to an installation of theirs in August last year, with many, many hundreds of other people. This year we decided to go during the week and it turned out to be a night which was slightly damp, ie raining. This, however, was a good thing as there weren’t anywhere near as many people there so we could move around quite freely, see things easily and didn’t have to wait for long periods to take photos.

The installation was a mix of some of last year’s eggs and spheres, with the addition of a long screen in the forest in front of the shrine, on which figures were moving along a virtual track. It was not a pre-recorded video, but rather a computer simulated creation using an algorithm which meant that it continually changed in some ways. There was also some music and sounds playing, including mooing of the cows/bullocks as they moved past. Again a fantastic experience.

So, that was August. There is one final incident worth mentioning – I call it “the Lizard Incident”. I have mentioned the skinks that live in our backyard, well Ziggy has recently started trying to catch them, as they are moving around a lot more at the moment. Despite the fact he is on a lead, tethered to the deck, he has managed to capture a few. If we see him do it, then we try to save them (at the moment we are at around 40% success rate, because they often die just from the shock).

The incident in question happened when I rushed outside to get him and he rushed inside with the lizard. As I battled to get it away from him, it escaped…into our house. After a bit of searching we found it behind the large cupboard which is in the lounge area. Following the removal of some weight from the cupboard, we were able to move it but couldn’t see the lizard. Eventually, we discovered it on a ledge underneath, and coaxed it out. Then we spent around half an hour nearly getting it in a container (it was very fast), only to finally lose sight of it. Some time later I noticed Zowie showing some interest in something in our spare room and finally, after another 15 minutes, or so, we caught it. Thank goodness it survived all that! Lesson learnt.

Cheers 😊

  Love dragonflies

More of these mouse/cat/bear creatures

This is outside the front entrance of a clothes shop…

Ah, my favourite time of year – Halloween is coming. Thankyou Costco!

The science of happiness?

A friend on our deck – note the food leftovers in the web, including other spiders

Would you buy these?

Just a lantern

There were three geckos grouped around this light – one on the other side, two this side – but one ran away

Finally coming into flower after being transplanted