Hello and welcome to Kyoto in the slightly rainy season. Yes, we have had a little rain, but not overly much. The forecast 200+ ml last week turned out to be only 105 ml. I realise that that is still quite a lot of rain in one day, but it doesn’t make up for the ran that hasn’t fallen. The last few days have been quite humid – Sunday was in the high 80s to low 90s all day. The first really humid day since I moved here and I can tell you I am not very good at humidity. My skin felt sticky and itchy most of the day. It’s still better than cold for me, however…

The kids have been lying full length on the floor and have enjoyed the fan at night, since the humidity started. On Humid Sunday (a new type of Sunday) I put the fan on during the day and they all found positions to take advantage of the breeze, along with me! I recently saw a segment on tv showing all the different types of umbrellas currently available (given that this is supposed to be the rainy season…). There was one that had a fan above the central rib joint area, which was presumably powered either by solar means or batteries. I now wish I had one of those when I’m out walking!!!! Quite expensive, though (over ¥60,000).

This week I decided to visit Kodai-ji temple. This was in part to provide some hopefully interesting photos and because I had seen a website that said this was the author’s favourite temple and garden to visit. Along with this, I had seen another website which said that the first machiya-style Starbucks in Japan was being prepared for trade near the Hokanji pagoda (the very famous Kyoto pagoda that you see many photos of), which is near Kodai-ji. This is the area between Kiyomizu-dera and Yasaka Shrine, in the Higashiyama foothills (near our flat). So, I just had to see that as well.

So, off I trekked, camera in hand, anticipation in mind. I went to find the Starbucks first, which involved going up past the pagoda. I took some lead up shots because it is a very impressive sight (the pagoda) no matter how many times you see it. Also, it was unbelievably quiet up there – normally there’d be hundreds of people going up and down that street, taking photos, wearing kimono, etc. I even got to one section of the road that was empty and I just had to take a photo of that too.

Anyway, I found the building, with a very traditional looking sign in it – not the usual Starbucks sticker on the window. It is actually an old machiya building which they are renovating for purpose. What is a machiya, you say???? Machiya are traditional wooden townhouses (the literal translation of machiya) found throughout Japan, and which are very much a feature of Kyoto. The typical Kyoto machiya is a long wooden home with a fairly narrow street frontage, with little or no space at the back of the block. They comprise earthen walls and baked tile roofs and  often contain one or more small courtyard gardens. Generally, they are one, one and a half or two storeys high. In Kyoto they are sometimes called kyomachiya and have defined the architectural style of downtown Kyoto for centuries.

After finding this, I headed for Kodai-ji., through the amazingly traditional backstreets in that area (lots of machiya). Just prior to Kodai-ji is the Ryozen Kannon temple, which I had passed a number of times before but never been into. So, I decided it was time. The temple with the Kannon on top was built in 1955 to commemorate all the Japanese people who had died in WWII. In 1958 a monument was added to the temple complex to commemorate the 48,000 unknown soldiers from around the world who had died on Japanese, and Japanese controlled, territory during WWII.

I’m glad I went in – it was a lovely place and certainly felt very peaceful. There was also a very large stone with the Buddha’s footprints engraved on it and a wishing stone (although I didn’t know at the time that was what it was – I certainly would have made a big wish there…). You can also go inside the Kannon, which is called the womb of the Kannon, and houses the principal images associated with the Asian zodiac – essentially all various statues of Bodhisattva, from what I could see in the darkness of the ‘womb’.

After that interlude, I went into the Kodai-ji temple complex. I can see why it is a favourite, it really was beautiful. The temple was established in 1605 by Kita-no-Mandokoro (aka Nene) in memory of her late husband – Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a fairly important person in the history of Japan. You may recall that my local shrine is a Toyokuni shrine, established to commemorate Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

I could go on and on about this temple and garden, but I will let the photos speak for themselves. One thing that did happen there, which was a bit difficult, I broke my vegetarian diet…a fly flew into my mouth and was gone before I had a chance to react. It wasn’t my choice to ingest a fly – it was an unfortunate, and uncomfortable, accident.

In the world of tv this week, I saw another hilarious show (as so many are here), mainly involving a series of skits, some of which were loosely joined by a theme of a samurai household and the goings on therein. The main character had his faced painted white, in kabuki style, so I’m not sure who it was, but he was a very good taiko player as well as comedian and actor.

There was a guest at the beginning of the show – a guy Craig and I have seen before here during our various visits, who is an impersonator, mostly of male singers. He is extremely good at what he does and very funny, as well as obviously having a good voice. While I don’t know most of the singers he is impersonating, I have seen some of them and his caricature of them is incredibly good.

Finally, before I sign off, I just want to put in a plug for a friend who has recently opened a shop in Regent Arcade. It is called Hebe & Co, and sells skincare and beauty products which are cruelty free and vegan. I recently tried one of their nail polishes (yes, I know, surprise, surprise) and it was an excellent product. It went on smoothly and the finish was very good. Jenny is one of the subscribers to this blog, so go in and meet her and maybe buy some products!

http://rundlemall.com/business-directory/hebe-co/

Well, that’s it for now – hopefully I will have some positive news re the never ending house sale story in the next few weeks!!!

Cheers