Year 6 in Kyoto – episode 3

Now, where was I…? Ah yes, I was about to say hello to you all. Hello! Yet another month has passed and it is my intention to tell you the highlights of the past month (because, otherwise it would go like this: woke up to Zowie chirruping and Ziggy tapping me on the shoulder; got up; made tea, fed the kids and emptied the dishwasher; drank tea, checked emails and weather then did some sudokus (kick-starting the brain) while sitting in bed; had a shower; ate breakfast…etc).

While not necessarily a highlight, the weather does impact our daily lives and particularly what we do and when we do it. This month the weather has remained pretty much as it was in the previous month – we even had some snow in late February! The cold has just rolled on, however, it has just begun to warm up late this week. As a result, the plum blossom blooming has struggled, with the early blooming trees having well and truly finished, while the other trees were really holding off. This time last year the cherry blossom had already started, but there doesn’t appear to be any prospect of that until later this month. The current prediction has it at about the 28^th.

As a result, the plum blossom hunt really just fizzled out. We actually returned to Chishakuin on the 4^th of March, and the trees which were in the process of opening on the 12^th of February were finished, some of the others had opened, but still there were trees which hadn’t. This visit came about thanks to our Israeli friends calling us to see if we were home and would like to meet them there in about an hour, as they were looking for plum blossom. So, we dragged on some suitable clothing and made our way there.

As the blossom wasn’t that great, I suggested we go into the museum and the tea garden area. Despite having visited the temple before they had never been in there, so they thought it was a good idea. The painted screens and fusuma in the museum are worth having a look at (and there is one small panel with some irises that would look very nice in our home!), but the garden area and associated buildings are really lovely. There are some very funny English signs scattered around there too. After that we took Lilia and Yuval up to the back of the temple area, where the hydrangea garden is located, recommending a visit there when they are in bloom. While we were there a stream of Buddhist monks started passing through the area, along the path we were on. As we let them through they all said hello to us, one at a time, and we are talking over twenty monks passing through! There was a lot of bowing and “konnichiwa”s happening 😊.

(Don’t ask me why all the photos in the garden area are hazy – the camera was fine before we went in there, and fine subsequently…)

We did also head off to Nijo-jo late in February as part of the hunt, but that wasn’t overly successful either, despite the website saying that the blossom had started opening in the plum tree grove. The grove is usually closed off to the public, only opening for the blossom season, and we had never been in there – in fact, we didn’t even know there was a plum tree grove in the Nijo-jo grounds. Anyway, it was a glorious clear day, and the walk over there was most pleasant (about 6km). After strolling around the grounds we headed off to find a Starbucks for a matcha latte, then walked back into the centre of town and caught a bus home from there.

The 2nd to bottom sword belonged to Date Masamune (a daimyo or feudal lord) in the 14th century

Our other major outing this month was to visit a temple we hadn’t been to before, but which sounded interesting. Known as Daigoji, this temple is in the mountain range behind us, to the south east and somewhat off the beaten track, so we actually drove there!!! A hermitage was first built there by a Buddhist monk in 874CE and subsequent emperors contributed to the expanding temple complex. The oldest verifiable building in Kyoto, a five-storey pagoda, is located in this complex – completed in 951CE. While the most of the buildings in the complex were destroyed by fire at various time, including during the Onin Wars, this pagoda has survived.

It is a massive temple complex, spread over many hectares up the side of the mountain to the summit. Many of the buildings further up the mountain are looking a little in need of a fresh coat of paint, but otherwise it is really a very nice place to visit, surrounded by forest as you travel up to the middle part of the complex and on. What we did notice is that there are hundreds of cherry trees spread around the complex – so we are hoping to return early in April to see this. The history of the trees is that Toyotomi Hideyoshi had 700 cherry trees planted there in 1598, along with a small temple complex including a garden built, known as Sanboin, to have a huge party where about 1,300 people (including Hideyori (his son), wife, and mistresses) joined him to enjoy the views. They have planted more cherries since, with apparently around 1,000 trees now. Each year, on the 2^nd Sunday of April, they have a festival to celebrate the first hanami party there – we will go there on another day, to avoid the crowds!!!

Note the stepping stones to the fall

In my first post of this year I mentioned that we were feeding some local street cats, and that one of the was an un-desexed female bobtail cat. Last month we decided to try to catch her, before she went on heat. So, we set up a cage on our back deck – and then, the very next day, she went on heat…I knew this because I saw her behaving as a cat on heat does, and then I saw the local tomcat and her, together. So, at this point I knew it was very likely she would be pregnant, which made it even more urgent we catch her.

After three weeks of gaining her trust and feeding her inside the cage, we managed to catch her and carried the very heavy cage around to the front door and into our dining room (no guests…). Last Thursday we took her to the vet, who confirmed her pregnancy and also tested her for diseases (she is clear). Tahlia (as we have re-named her) is due in about four weeks, so we have been busy learning what to do to prepare for this. Tamara, the woman who feeds and desexes local street cat colonies (using donations), lent us the cage and has said she will take the kittens for adoption. More to come…

Yes, that is my finger in there, trying to get her to look at me

As many of you will know, it was Craig’s birthday recently and as there are currently Covid restrictions in place, Craig decided he would like to go out for lunch. He wanted to go to a tempura restaurant that serves some vegan options that we hadn’t previously tried, but when we got there we found a queue waiting to get in. Not wanting to queue for food, we decide to walk on into town and go to Ain Soph (this seems all too familiar!). While walking to the restaurant Craig mentioned that he had seen photos on fb of a large kokeshi doll located at Kiyomizu-dera, so after lunch we stopped by on the way home to have a look. It was huge, and along with that there were two large metal dogs – rather like temple dogs – on display, all of which was part of a Kyoto crafts festival. The dogs were incredible.

I have one ‘Close Encounters of the Animal Kind’ to mention in this post – while the cage was on our back deck we would leave food out in it, except when we went out and when we went to bed (we learnt the latter was a bad thing because Miro would get very loud if there were any visitors during the night). Anyway, as it got dark, we would leave a light on outside and the curtains open enough so we could monitor who was visiting the food. We always knew if there was a visitor, because the kids would suddenly show a lot of interest out the back. One night they were at the back door checking out a visitor, so we had a look to see who it was, and lo and behold there was a badger!!! I tried to grab a camera, but unfortunately it was scared off before I could get a photo – it was about ½ metre from our back door. Dang.

Finally, before I sign off, I thought I’d mention something about everyday life here – yesterday was 11^th of March, the anniversary of the huge earthquake and tsunami that occurred in 2011. Many ceremonies are held on that day, to pay tribute to those who were lost on that day – around 20,000 people, including those who were confirmed dead and who disappeared. What we didn’t expect, or know was going to occur, was an earthquake drill for all of Kyoto! At 9:30am, our phones started vibrating and then a sound somewhat like a xylophone playing five notes, over an over, commenced. All of this was at full volume. Interesting, because my phone is not set to vibrate and, while it is set at a fairly high volume, it is not on full blast. Subsequently a voice started speaking in Japanese, and this went on for quite a while – from what I could make out, it wasn’t repeating anything, just giving a lot of information. There was also a message on the screen, mostly in Japanese, but there were a few words in English, including ‘This is a drill’. Phew.

That’s all for now.

Cheers!