Yes, it’s me again, bringing you the latest in the My Life in Kyoto series. Ok, so it’s not really called that, but that is what it’s all about. I’m now up to week 18, although I am going to include the latter half of week 17, of which the first two days were me being somewhat of a hermit after Craig left. Perhaps feeling a bit sorry for myself, also the weather wasn’t that great.

On the Saturday, the kids indicated to me that it would be best if I went out to get them their supplies – the kitty litter was running out…So, off to Aeon Mall I went, my mission very clear, get cat food and litter or they would make it difficult for me. It was a nice day and it did cheer me up to be out in the sun. Successful mission under my belt, I decided to do my grooming rituals (ie nails and hair) on the Sunday – the weather had turned grey and wet. Monday was nice and sunny again, so I went out to do my shopping for the week as I was expecting a visitor from Australia during the week and I likely wouldn’t get time later in the week for shopping.

On Tuesday, I set out on a fairly significant walk with two aims. Firstly, I had to find the Kyoto Shimbun (paper) office and secondly the International Community House. Unfortunately, they were on opposite sides of the CBD, but it was a good chance to test out my new shoes. Believe it or not, I had bought some lace up walking shoes!!!! The inner sole is made of memory foam, so they were immediately comfortable. All up I walked just under 11 kms and my feet were pretty good at the end, especially since I had only previously worn them to Aeon.

So, why the long walk, you ask? On Sunday I had happened to see an ad on tv for Kodo, a taiko group, and they are undertaking a summer tour around Japan, with one performance in Kyoto! As many of you will know, I am a lover of taiko so this was very exiting news. I immediately got onto the electronic oracle and found that tickets were available at the Kyoto Shimbun office. As it happens, there were only 10 seats left when I got there early on Tuesday. Lucky! I would have been devastated if they were all gone.

The second leg of my journey was to the International Community House, which is over near the Philosopher’s Walk. For those of you who know Kyoto, I had to walk from the Shimbun office (near the Imperial Palace) across the Kamogawa (river) and up past the Heian Shrine. This was the longest leg of my journey. My aim here was to get help with completing a form in a letter I had received from the Kyoto tax office. I also wanted to see if they could help me find an English speaking tax accountant. The people there were very helpful, although the girl at the reception desk could speak very little English, which I thought was a little strange given she would mostly be dealing with foreigners.

We worked out how I should complete the form, which was asking questions about Craig, however they said they don’t keep lists of professionals who can speak other languages. What they told me to do was put a notice up on the noticeboard which was used by foreigners to request many different types of assistance. I saw at least one which was seeking to find a new friend in Kyoto. Anyway, I wrote up a notice and gave it to them to put on the board. I assumed they were going to vet it to make sure nothing untoward was being put up there.

At around 6:00 that night I got an SMS from an accountant asking if she could help me! I suspect the person at the community house may have assisted this search…So, we exchanged a few SMSs and, as a result, I have an appointment with her next week. All aims satisfied; a very successful outing all in all, including testing my new shoes.

The next day I felt a little under the weather, so just stayed at home and did some housework. I wondered if I had had a little too much sun the day before – I am a bit sensitive to the sun, being so pale as I am. Or, is it just that I’m part vampire???? A vegetarian vampire…?! The next day I was due to meet up with an ex work colleague, whose job it was to provide me with the opportunity to indulge my love of Kyoto and being a tour guide!!!!!!

So, on Thursday morning I went to meet Kerry at her hotel and then my plan was to take her on a walk to Sanjuusangen-dou temple (previously mentioned as the venue for an archery competition in January). I had hoped the blossom would have started opening, so my route included a street (Kiya-machi Dori) which has a canal running along it lined with blossom trees, but unfortunately it hadn’t. At the temple, there was one blossom tree in flower, so we got some photos of blossom there.

The temple name literally means Hall with thirty three spaces between columns, which describes the architecture of the long main hall of the temple. The main deity of the temple is Sahasrabhuja-arya-avalokiteśvara or the Thousand Armed Kannon, of whom there is a large statue inside the main hall. The temple also contains 1,000 life-size statues of the Thousand Armed Kannon which stand on each side of the main statue in 10 rows and 50 columns. At the front of the Kannon statues there are 28 statues of guardian deities. It is an amazing sight.

After we left the temple, there was still plenty of time to fill before Kerry had to meet up with a ‘food tour group’, so I took her to the street which runs alongside a famous pagoda (Yasaka Pagoda), near Kiyomizu-dera. The idea being to avoid the massive crowds at Kiyomizu-dera. There were many young women dressed in (rental) kimono and we even saw a wedding party there (ironically just after I had told Kerry that I had seen quite a few wedding parties at the site, having their photos taken). We then walked through the beautiful, traditional back streets near there which are lined with shops, restaurants and cafes and ended up at Yasaka Shrine.

The next day I had planned to take Kerry to Fushimi-Inari (where thousands of torii gates line a walk around the mountain), however, the weather decided against this for us. Following the previous lovely warm and sunny day (I think it got to 20!!!!), Friday was wet and quite cold. I decided to go to Arashiyama instead and move our visit to Fushimi-Inari to the following day (we had three days to fill). Arashiyama is most famous for the bamboo grove, but there are many other attractions there and nearby, including Tenryū Shiseizen-ji a Zen Buddhist temple.

I took Kerry along the bamboo grove path and then back through the temple gardens, which are beautiful and would have been even better with the blossom out…The rain became heavier and heavier, so we went to a restaurant I had been to before and had a very nice lunch, with a view out to the river and the rain! After lunch we came back to the CBD and walked around the malls here for a while (out of the rain).

(note, this photo was taken in December 2014, hence no people)

Later that day we had dinner at Sherry Bar, one of my local bars which is an izakaya style bar with a large menu of small servings, including salads, sashimi, tempura and other deep fried items. The food is good, along with the service, and it is quite cheap. The only downside to the night was when I became trapped in the toilet for quite a while – the lock was stuck. Initially, I tried to force the lock for a couple of minutes, but then realised this was futile.

At this point I started knocking on the door and calling out “Sumimasen” (multiple meanings, in this case “excuse me”…). The knocking and calling out gradually got louder, to try to make myself heard over the noise of the bar. Eventually I was banging hard on the door and yelling out “tasukete” (“help”)!! Finally someone heard me and they tried to open the door…no luck. So they called up the guy from behind the bar and after much shaking and banging and attempting to open the lock, it ultimately did so. As the minutes ticked away while I was standing in the toilet, the door shaking, I was wondering if they would have to find some sort of power tool to either drill into the lock or cut it out. I was imagining a night spent in a toilet…

Next day, after recovering from the trauma of my incarceration, we went to Fushimi-Inari. The weather had improved – it was coolish but not raining. It was very crowded, unsurprisingly, especially in the food area. When we finally got to the shrine, there was a ceremony commencing in the outer hall (which has no walls). Turned out it was a wedding ceremony – in a very public place! There were many hundreds of people passing by during the ceremony.

(note, most of these photos were taken in December 2014, when there were very few people there, except the photos of the wedding and Kerry!)

We didn’t stay for the whole ceremony but continued up to the torii walk. The full walk up and around the mountain is just over 4kms and takes 2 hours or more to complete, depending on the number of people and how fit you are. There is a platform of sorts which is a reasonable way up and which gives good views of Kyoto. Many people only climb to this point, which takes about 30-45 minutes and is somewhat physically demanding. The rest of the trail does get harder and the majority of people don’t attempt it after climbing the first section.

The torii have been donated by businesses and individuals to bring good luck, many are donated by businesses. The torii range in price from the smaller ones at ¥175,000 up to the largest at ¥1,302,000. You will also see much smaller torii placed around the smaller shrines which dot the mountain. A much more affordable option for most people. At one point on the trail, there is a bifurcation of the smaller torii into two paths which run side by side. When we have been there before, you just picked the left path or the right path. Not now! There is a sign directing the ‘up’ traffic to the right. I assume this has come about because of the increased traffic there recently (as with everywhere in Kyoto).

This time, we decided not to go the full distance, Kerry wasn’t that keen! So we came back down and returned to the city. The final place I took her was the Shousei-en garden, an annex of the Higashi Honaganji Buddhist temple. Again I was hoping more of the blossom would be out, but alas…This garden has one of my favourite signs in it:

The first time we (Craig and I) saw it, we wondered if it was a very large bee that lived in the building behind the sign. What we later found was that the Japanese word for bee also means wasp and hornet. Definitely worthy of a beware warning, especially the giant hornet!

That’s all for now!!!