Hi all, tis me again, bringing you all the latest about our lives here in Kyoto and other titbits. Firstly, I am officially changing my name to Nostradamus Addams for the purposes of this blog, since my prediction about The Virus in my last post has proven to be fully accurate – sadly. Yes, it seems we are heading into the fifth wave, and we are now officially in the fourth state of emergency. The infection numbers in Tokyo have risen back over 1,000 for the last two days, while here in Kyoto they are on the rise (although we have never had huge numbers here). Just in time for the Olympics.

The good news for Craig and I is that we received our vaccine coupons a few weeks ago (in separate letters), but the bad news is that just after I received mine, and before Craig received his, the prefectural government notified all doctors and others administering the vaccines that they had basically run out of the vaccine and it was unlikely they’d have any more before September! This is apparently the case right around the country, although the small, rural prefectures actually have some left since they received enough to vaccinate all the above 18s initially, and there have been many who haven’t wanted to be vaccinated. Apparently they have been vaccinating the under 18s with the surplus…

Moving on to the weather, the story is wet, wet, wet. There have been few days since the last post that there hasn’t been any rain. Up until yesterday, we had over three weeks where it rained every day. Some days it only rained briefly, while on other days it rained all day. While there was no rain yesterday, it rained again early this morning. We have also had a run of thunderstorms, which, of course, I am loving. Not so poor Miro, who has turned out to be our very own thunderstorm early warning system, now named Miro Ninja Cat because she will suddenly appear from wherever she is running low and fast, up against the wall, to her thunderstorm hiding spot, which is in my clothes cupboard. When she reappears we know it is over.

Another wet day

The clouds of summer

It has been raining a lot right across Japan, with some local flooding and landslides in various places, which seems to happen here every year. Some of the rainfall figures are truly astounding, with one area experiencing 100ml of rain in a one hour period! You just wouldn’t have been able to even walk in that kind of rain. Another place had double the rainfall they normally experience in the whole of the month within the first twelve days of July. We have been avoiding going out when it is raining heavily here.

Luckily we were able to have a couple of outside excursions without getting wet (rain, not sweat, because it has been very humid when it isn’t actually raining and so you do end up damp anyway), though on one occasion we had to go out so that I could suspend my gym membership (finally) and it did rain and we got wet. One thing I have been waiting for, which really lets you know it is summer here, is the cicadas – halfway through summer and no ‘sound of summer’. Well they finally started on the day we went to Uji (see below)! Thank goodness.

One of the outings was to an art exhibition where a neighbour had some works showing. The exhibition had been delayed due to The Virus, but they decided to go ahead during June, and she had invited us to go, so we really wanted to get there. Since we were going to have to walk there (it was around a half hour walk from home, and there is no public transport in the direction of the gallery and very limited parking in the area (as there is anywhere near the city)), we were waiting for a day when it wasn’t raining, the exhibition was open and we had enough time to be able to spend most of a day going out.

We ended up going on the last day, as it turned out, and we enjoyed it, especially since we hadn’t been to any exhibitions for many months. It was a very interesting mix of works, including painting, photography, pottery, mixed media and some little statues (which I loved). Our neighbour’s works were based around printed photographs.

One of our neighbour’s pieces

After the exhibition we decided to walk into town to have some lunch, which we thought should be ok since we were still technically in the state of emergency (in fact the last day of the third ‘lockdown’), so it shouldn’t be too crowded, right? How wrong we were. It was unbelievably crowded in the city centre, with many groups of young people out together and also lots of young families. Most of them seemed to be just there with no particular purpose other than just being in town.

For our other outing I was looking for lotus flowers, since they were just coming into bloom, and I wanted to find somewhere we hadn’t been before. Takako suggested a temple in Uji might be good (we met with her to help with the suspension of my gym membership), and we thought that maybe going somewhere outside of Kyoto city might be good. I did some research about the temple she mentioned and found there was another temple fairly close to that one which was known as the flower temple for its surrounding garden which is made up of many different plants, including lotus.

The latter temple is known as Mimurotoji and was established by Emperor Kōnin in 770CE. Although it was originally established as a palace, it was subsequently converted into the temple (during his time as emperor). As with many temples (and shrines and castles, etc) it has been rebuilt, in this case three times, with the current main structures being built in the early 1800s. Interestingly, the second time it was destroyed was at the hand of Nobunaga. The temple properties and treasures were confiscated until Toyotomi Hideyoshi ascended to power after the death of Nobunaga and restored the temple.

I have to say that the given title of ‘flower temple’ is well justified – it is a truly beautiful place to be and I can imagine that it would be equally stunning when the hydrangeas or azaleas or cherry blossoms or…are in the ascendant. For those who watched Monty Don, this is a classic example of a stroll garden with borrowed greenery from the surrounding hills, which were not part of the temple. We were extra lucky to be there on the day we went because, while it was fairly hot and humid, the giant clouds of summer were around and there was rolling thunder for the entire time we were there. Bliss.

A long entrance

Borrowed scenery in background

Also, some fish!

The other temple we visited was Manpukuji, a much younger temple having been founded in 1661 by the Chinese monk Yinyuan Longqi (known as Ingen in Japan) and his disciple Muyan. Ingen Zenji (Zen master) had been repeatedly invited to visit Japan and finally did in 1655, with many Buddhist monks and others attending his arrival. Having received the devotion of Emperor Go-Mizunoo and Shogun Tokugawa Ietsuna, Ingen Zenji was offered a piece of land in Uji. Instead of returning to China he decided to found Manpukuji and ended up making Japan his permanent home.

The temple structures were built in the traditional Ming Dynasty Chinese architectural style, and the layout of the buildings also follows the Ming Dynasty architectural style, apparently representing an image of a dragon. The main buildings of the temple were constructed from teak, which is also very unusual here and, unlike so many others, the buildings are still the original structures from 1661. It has many other interesting features, including a gyoban, which is a large wooden fish that is, in fact, a wooden percussion instrument which is used by monks and others in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition mainly during rituals involving the recitation of sutras, mantras, or other Buddhist texts.

No flowers…

It was a very interesting place to visit, but it did not have the expected lotus flowers (lucky we went to the other temple!) – the plants were there, but they weren’t in flower. Curiously, we only saw one other person actually walking around in the huge area of the temple while we were there, a monk. It felt like something had happened and we were the only people left, and in this very peaceful place. Again, there was rumbling thunder the whole time we were there. We had planned to have lunch at the temple restaurant which serves shōjin ryōri (Buddhist cuisine which is vegetarian or vegan), but it turned out that you had to have a reservation to eat there, so we went home hungry. Still, all in all a lovely and rather dramatic outing (with thunder sound effects). When we got home we found it had been raining quite heavily in Kyoto – luckily not in Uji.

Well, that’s it for this episode, and I am not going to make any predictions about what happens in the nearish future!!!

Cheers

Vale Maeve

Road art in Uji – apparently the city of trees (yes, that’s my hands in the photo – it was on the road and cars were coming…)

Yes, a human head on a snake – a local deity

It’s all about the packaging

The only flowers at Manpukuji

A little sake tasting keg building…I think

The dragonflies are out and about

Just stunning

My one and only gerbera

Carpenter bee visiting hosta

Moss flowers soon!

Pan in his natural environment

The Kyoto Art High School, Uji

What is that rabbit doing?

More rabbits

Who is that masked woman?

On the train to Uji

…and so, despite the issues still existing re The Virus, with the delta variant being the major infectant being detected everywhere here now, the restrictions are being lifted for most areas (barring Okinawa) by the end of this weekend. The proviso is that although restaurants and bars will be allowed to serve alcohol (and I use the word ‘allowed’ loosely, since they weren’t banned from serving before, just asked not to), the only restriction is that they stop serving alcohol from 7pm and then shut by 8pm – please.

This is happening a month before the games are due to start (so enough time for the numbers to build up again), and just as the indicators are looking suspiciously like they did before the numbers started increasing significantly last time. On top of these indicators, we have the delta variant which spreads much more easily, is affecting younger people more and can come on very fast. Do I sound frustrated?

In terms of the vaccinations, things are moving a little faster now, in part because the government wants it to and in part because a significant number of the over 65s are declining to have the vaccine. Apparently this stems from some bad experiences with vaccines in the past in Japan, where there have been some bad reactions, including deaths, despite the rest of the world not having any problems. So far there have been a significant number of anaphylactic reactions to the Pfizer vaccine and a lot of bad reactions to the Moderna vaccine here.

As a result, they are now opening the mass vaccination centres up to all people from 18 yrs and up, so, theoretically, we could make an appointment and have out first shot. The slight problem, however, is that you have to have received a coupon that has a personal number on it which you have to use when you book, and we have not yet received one of these coupons. The coupons are being posted out to everyone by the respective prefectural governments and it seems the national government may not have informed the prefectures that they were going to open up the vaccinations so soon. As far as we can work out, the Kyoto government has only sent out the coupons to the 65+ year old citizens so far. We wait in hope.

Turning now to the weather; I mentioned the rainy season had started earlier than usual in my last post, and we have had some good rain, with the heaviest rain here in Kyoto being a bit over 120ml in one day, which included 17ml in one hour. Yes, that was pretty heavy, but there were areas which had much heavier rain. Luckily, there doesn’t seem to have been any major flooding anywhere – fingers crossed it stays that way.

We have moved into warmer weather now, with most days 30C and over, and unless it is overcast with rain approaching, it hasn’t been very humid. We have had a few thunderstorms, but nothing to write home about (haha). Yes, I am a little disappointed about that. So it has been good growing weather and our garden is in full swing now. We have had the irises bloom (as you know, my favourite flower) and the hydrangeas are still in flower -we’re talking around three weeks since they first opened.

Above: Taken early June

Below: Taken yesterday

Some of the flower heads are the size of a dinner plate!

Very pink – needs more acid…

One hosta to rule them all

Regarding the insect life of spring/summer, we have seen a few Red Helens, although that was some time ago, and we are seeing other butterflies, moths and bees, but no ‘sound of summer’ cicadas yet. In fact, we recently had a community of Carpenter Bees move into our backyard – I kid you not, a significant Close Encounter of the Animal Kind. They are called Carpenter bees because they burrow into bamboo and dead wood to make their homes and lay their eggs, and so it has been here, with our small bamboo fence now sporting quite a few circular holes of a bit less than 1cm diameter, just big enough for them to go in and out. They are about 2cm in length.

Carpenter Bees do not live in hives, rather they live alone, however, they do sometimes live in little neighbourhoods, which is what happened in our backyard. There were four of them that I saw, all busily going to and fro and making a lot of noise – they are very loud. I checked on them using the electronic oracle, and from what I could tell, the bees we had here (they seem to have gone now) are not the native Japanese Carpenter Bees, but are interlopers from Taiwan. They probably arrived in Japan in a bamboo shipment and have now settled in quite happily. The only thing I couldn’t find out is whether they are affecting the native species in any way. Apparently lay six eggs in their nest.

During this period, yet again, we have not been doing very much. This is mainly due to my reticence to put us in peril of catching the delta variant. We go shopping once a week, and occasionally go for a walk, though with the wet weather we have been having, there haven’t been many suitable walking days. We ventured into town recently to buy a few things, and while we were there had lunch at a Nepalese restaurant we have been to before (we were the only customers). This was our first meal out in over two months, and was most pleasant. On the way home we dropped by Chishakuin temple, to look at the hydrangea garden, which is always nice at this time of year.

Strange hydrangea?

We only had one major outing during this period, which I decided should be to seek out a new place to look at hydrangeas. Consulting the electronic oracle I found a shrine, Umenomiya Taisha, which apparently also had some irises in their garden. Perfect, I thought, and we had never been there before so even better, but I was proved wrong as the bus pulled up at the stop we had to get off at and we both recognised the area. It was very near a property we had looked at five years earlier, when we were trying to find a location for our guest house.

As we considered the property, we had a look around the close neighbourhood and found a shrine, which is known as being associated with sake brewing, thanks to one of the enshrined deities (at the time, I remember thinking this seemed good…). I also remembered thinking that it wasn’t a particularly captivating shrine. We had no idea that there was a huge garden surrounding the shrine on three sides, as it was fenced off and there were no obvious signs re a garden.

There’s the entrance to the garden, over in the corner…

So it was when we arrived there that day, however, knowing that it did indeed have a garden, we looked a little more closely and found a small, entirely unremarkable entrance (with a gate that looked somewhat like one you would see on a farm, made of old bits of metal and a long spring), with a very faded sign next to it. We also knew you had to pay to get in, so we looked for somewhere to do so, and found a small window on the other side of the central shrine grounds.

Having paid our fee, we returned to the little gate, through which you could see a large pond/small lake, a bridge across the lake and a small tea house to the left. Again, unremarkable and no sign of hydrangeas, although we could see a few irises. After passing through the gate, there was a small bridge across a ditch, which was a bit over a metre wide. In this ditch were literally hundreds of irises, although not many of them were in flower, but it looked nice.

After we crossed the bridge, we could see that the garden was larger than we thought, and there were large Koi (carp) in the lake, which was edged with some more irises. As we moved further around the lake, you could see there was a lot more to this garden and the further we went, the more irises we could see. At a certain point, about a third of the way along the edge of the lake, there was a “Wow” moment, as you could see that there were many hundreds of iris plants along the edge of the lake and on the ‘island’ in the middle of the lake, where the tea house was.

We kept going, drinking in the stunning beauty of the irises, until at a certain point, we could see that beyond the zigzag bridge, the lake was completely covered with lotus leaves and some flowers. “Wow”. I was completely mesmerised by all this, strolling, looking and taking many, many photos, when I noticed a noise, a loudish screeching noise (a bit like a loud cockatoo). So, anyway, we kept strolling, enjoying, soaking it all in when, again, we hear the noise – “what is that noise?”. Hhhmmm. So, we strolled (loud screeching noise), strolled (loud screeching noise, getting sort of used to it); strolled (loud zombie like noise) “what the hell was that?”; crossed a small bridge onto the ‘island’ (loud noise that sounded like a large animal being drowned) “what the f*#@ was that?”.

At this point, despite what was around us, the noises had really started to pique our curiosity. After the second time we heard the drowning sound, we decided we had to find out what it was. As we were near the end of the path around the lake and on the ‘island’ we continued on wondering where the hydrangeas were and what those noises were (you couldn’t see much outside of the path) – curiouser and curiouser. At the end of the path it opened up into a large space edged by hydrangeas (there they are!), with a large square pavilion in the centre and a stand of very large trees to the left – and it was the stand of trees from whence the noise was emanating.

Looking up into the trees we could see huge nests of sticks, in which Great Egrets were nesting – both white and grey varieties it seemed. They were making those three quite distinct noises, the screech, the zombie noise and the drowning noise. We could only guess at what the latter was, but we decided it was likely a parent feeding a chick. Having solved that (sort of), we tried to get photos of the birds, but our phone cameras just weren’t up to it. So, we continued on into the hydrangea area of the garden.

There’s one…

The number and variety of hydrangeas there was amazing, and they were truly beautiful. The design of the garden was such that it was a strolling garden and also that you couldn’t see overly much beyond where you were, unless you were next to a lake or pond, and in the case of this garden there was one small lake and a pond, both with irises and lotus plants, although the pond had only a small area of lotus surrounded by iris. Next to the pond there was also a wisteria walkway. Past the main hydrangea area, there was a stand of plum trees, and a small bamboo grove.

What a truly amazing garden – wonderful design, beautiful plantings and quite large, although not in the league of Heian Jingu. The birds added an extra air of drama, and it turns out that there are cats which live at the shrine and are cared for by the shrine employees and volunteers. Information about the garden indicates that there are also cherry trees and many azaleas, so the blooming starts in February and keeps on until around mid-summer. A place that is definitely worth re-visiting and is not likely to be overwhelmed with tourists.

Yes, it was quite warm!

Before I sign off, I thought I might mention an interesting coincidence that was recently highlighted to me by a friend who spotted an article in The Guardian about a new book which has been published containing photographs of lost and lonely gloves taken by Nick Cave! It seems Nick and I saw the same thing in these gloves, and at around the same time, with both of us taking our first photos of gloves in January 2018. Interesting.

L: Together but homeless, R: Wait!!!!

L: Lost for weeks, R: Hitchhiking home

Trying to crawl home

Cheers for now!

We’ve seen many types of vending machines, but these are the first vegetable (above) and rice (below) vending machines.

The view across to Arashiyama, while walking from the shrine

There were also quite a few crows at the shrine

There are also a lot of egrets nesting along the Kamogawa

Hallelujah for drink, or Craig? Both!

America’s new secret weapon in the space race – The Emperor Shuttle!

Looking out the back window

Homegrown flowers

How much do I love flowers???

Hello and welcome to Japan in ‘lockdown’, which is nothing at all like Australia in lockdown, with very few actual restrictions imposed and the various governments – local and national – almost begging people to behave sensibly. I am noting a certain increased level of anxiety in the language being used by MPs, although apparently the PM is still more concerned about the economy than the virus and has only increased the areas covered in the state of emergency due to what I suspect must have been very strong language from the expert panel. Thank goodness they are now pushing their point more forcefully, otherwise this would likely drag on forever.

The state of emergency has also been extended to the end of May, which is also a good thing. The other good news in relation to The virus is on the vaccine front – the government has asked the military to help by setting up mass vaccination centres in Tokyo and Osaka, and today they are starting to take bookings, with the first vaccinations in Osaka commencing today (Tokyo will commence 31 May)! Apparently people from Kyoto and Hyogo will be able to travel to Osaka to be vaccinated starting in the second week of June, if we really want to.

Now, to something a little lighter…the weather! Yes, I know, I am somewhat fascinated by the weather, and living here you do experience many different types of weather patterns, especially because the weather here can come from nearly any direction, quite unlike living in Adelaide where it nearly always comes from a westerly direction. The interesting news at the moment is that yesterday the Japan Meteorological Agency declared that the rainy season was well and truly open in western Japan, which includes the Kansai region.

We managed a BBQ in between the rain

Have I talked about the Kansai region before? Well, it is in the central section of Honshu, on the western side of the island. The region includes the prefectures of Mie, Nara, Wakayama, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyōgo and Shiga, and sometimes Fukui, Tokushima and Tottori. The metropolitan region of the cities of Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto (the Keihanshin region) is the second-most populated region in Japan after the greater Tokyo area, with a population of over 23million people.

Anyway, back to the weather – apparently the rainy season is at least three weeks early this year, which sort of fits with the early blossom bloom. We had pretty much guessed the rainy season had started, it was the rain that gave it away (uh-huh) We have had some clear sunny days, some overcast days and quite a few wet days – days where it basically rains all day. It hasn’t been too heavy (yet), with the most rain in 24hrs around 90ml so far. Unfortunately this hasn’t brought much in the way of thunder and lightning so far. I await…

One good thing about the rain, it helps to keep people home. We haven’t been going out very much, including not going to gym for the time being (neither of which have closed). We have had two very pleasant long walks, taking advantage of a couple of the clear days to get out of the house for a while. I am also back to doing ballet at home, though that has been a bit interrupted recently thanks to a ‘Close Encounter Of The Animal Kind’.

While doing some work in my little garden bed out the back I had a brush with an orb weaver, which, while I noticed it was there, I underestimated how wide its web was. Thankfully it was still quite small, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it has been over two weeks now, and it still hasn’t fully gone away, though it is a lot better than it was. We get quite a few of the orb weavers in our yard every year, and I am quite aware of them – they are actually quite beautiful in their spidery kind of way. I have talked about the Spikes in previous posts and even included photos of them; they are the largest spiders in Japan with their bodies reaching up to 25mm. My body reacted to the bite by sleeping a lot longer than usual for me (I generally need at least 7 ½ hrs sleep to be human), as well as inflammation, itchiness, a slight burning, etc. They are known as the Joro spider here, and, like it’s counterpart in Australia, the female is larger than the male and they eat the male after mating.

Uh-oh

Moving right along, the first walk we embarked on is a part of the Kyoto trail, which is a 70 km loop that encircles the city. The whole trail is split up into three sections: East, North, and West, and we have walked along the East section before, both to Fushimi Inari via the trail from our home and in the other direction to Kiyomizu-dera and on to Heian Jingu, the latter of which we did again earlier this year. This time we went to walk part of the northern section, which began at Takao, a sparsely populated, mountainous area with three historic temples located in the area and is a one hour bus ride north from Kyoto station.

The trail

This is where you get off – we were a little perplexed initially

We visited two of the three temples, Saimyo-ji and Jingo-ji – the other temple was a bit further away from the trail. These two temples are part of the Shingon Buddhist sect and are connected in both having a history related to Kukai, who I have mentioned before. Jingo-ji is believed to have been established in the year 824CE as a merger of two private temples. In 812CE, Kukai resided at Takaosan-ji temple, which was the predecessor temple that existed at the current site of Jingo-ji.

Saimyo-ji Temple was founded between 824 and 834CE by Chisen Daitoku, a leading disciple of Kukai, as a branch temple of Jingo-ji Temple. We visited this temple first, which you enter via a bridge over the river Kiyotaki. It is a very small temple and is located in a very verdant setting. Nothing spectacular, but a lovely calm place to visit.

Jingo-ji, on the other hand involves a reasonably strenuous climb up many stairs and is apparently the successor head temple of the Koyasan Shingon sect. It is a big complex covering a large area on Takao-san mountain. The information we had said that there was a place there where you can undertake ‘kawarake-nage’, taking small bowl shaped ceramic cups (kawarake) and throwing them (nageru) from a lookout down into the valley below. The idea is that you transfer your bad luck to the ceramic and it serves as a mayoke, a charm against evil, which you then throw away from you.

The valley from the lookout

Borrowed photos of people throwing the kawarake – we were so wrapped up in the process we forgot to take photos…

The instructions we had was that the further you throw it the better, and that you should hold it curved side up and throw it like a frisbee. So, this is exactly what we did – we had two each – and the first one for both of us went a long way, off to the left and out of sight into the valley. The woman from the shop where you buy the discs was very excited by how well we did (there was a Japanese woman there also throwing discs, she had a box of them (!) and she wasn’t doing very well at all). On our second throw, both our discs curved to the right, and mine ended up in the trees…but Craig’s went out further and skimmed past them.

After that, we went down into the valley, walking along the river for kms, past long open structures sitting next to the river which are part of local restaurants, across bridges and through forested areas. We actually walked along the valley floor where many of the kawarake end up, some still intact, some not. The track along the river is quite soggy in some areas as water runs from springs out of the valley wall sides into the river. Mostly, however, it is a most pleasant walk.

The water in the river was crystal clear

A weir and what appears to be a salmon ladder

Water pours out of the hillside in spots

A large part of the forest along the route consist of extremely tall and very straight cedar trees, which are supposedly tended to make them like this. As we were walking I suggested it would be perfect to have the song “A Walk in the Black Forest” playing, since we had taken this to Germany with us so that we could walk in the Black Forest with music but it turned out it wasn’t possible to walk in the forest where we stayed (it was very dense and very, very dark). Anyway, as we walked into one stand of trees Craig surprised me by playing it😊. We both quickly fell into the rhythm. Fun.

A Walk in the Black(ish) Forest

We decided to take a side track to a waterfall, which took us through another forest, taking over an hour in total, and by the time we got back to the original track it had become overcast and had cooled down a lot – it looked like rain. So, we gave up on finishing this part of trail (which is 11km in total) and went to the nearest bus stop, taking us back to Arashiyama to catch a train back to the station. A really lovely walk, which we will do again, with or without music.

!!!! I didn’t realise quite how far we had walked. Hope there are no highwaymen

More stairs – to the waterfall

For our other walk I had been wanting to find where the trail went after the end point near Heian Jingu, so we took a bus to start from that point. The trail near our home has a series of post markers along the way, so you can walk it without a map. We found the marker at the point we had finished previously and set off from there. The trail took us up towards Nanzen-ji, but then we couldn’t find the next marker, so continued on toward the Philosopher’s Path, which we reasoned would have to be part of the trail.

The beginning of the path

Well, we didn’t find any more markers but decided to walk the path because it is a very nice walk, and there were very few people around (unlike spring or autumn). Along the way we came to a bridge and there were two Japanese people standing there with buckets and various bits and pieces. They beckoned us over (while also saying “free”) to show us some small boats they had made with leaves and flowers, which they said we could drop into the canal from the bridge (about 1½ m drop). They  gave one to Craig and asked me to select one (I chose one with a yellow and a purple flower, of course), then showed us /how to drop them. We did as they said and they both landed upright and started off in the strong current, at which they w mere very excited and said it was good luck for us (again!). We really do need some good luck for our business…

Our little boats – mine had hit an obstacle and was listing

We continued on to Ginkaku-ji (though not inside) and set about finding where the trail up to the diamonji begins, as we’d heard it is a nice hike and didn’t know how to get there. After a quick search we found it, surprisingly it wasn’t very well marked, perhaps they think tourists wouldn’t be interested. In any case, we now know where it is, and that may be our next adventure. Before going home we had our first kakigori (shaved ice sweet) for the season – with matcha syrup, adzuki beans and matcha mochi. Very refreshing.

The diamonji

Well, that’s it for this episode – how long will the rainy season last; what will happen next in The virus saga; when will our luck kick in? Who knows, maybe we’ll have some answers by the next episode. Hhhmmmmm

Cheers

I call it rain?

Not sure if the yellow one is a Tanuki..?

Interesting decorations on a building – The Aoi Matsuri (top 2 levels) and the Gion Matsuri (bottom)

Finally – I hate to queue

” I’d like the fish sushi set please”

Nice day for an outing

OK, yes I am a little obsessed with clematis. I soooo wish I could grow some

Ziggy nearly fits in there!

Ooops, it seems I’m running a little behind. I don’t know how time got away from me so much – we haven’t really been doing that much. Perhaps it has been the focus on what’s happening here, virus-wise, and us looking for something to do that might generate some income. Anyway, I apologise for the delay and hope you find something to smile about in this post. Certainly, if you like flowers, you’re going to LOVE it!

Spring! Blossom!! Glorious. Wonderful. Beautiful. Stunning. Otherworldly. How many superlatives can I put in one paragraph? Yes, the blossom has been and gone, but just reflecting on it brings a smile to my face. I mentioned last time that the blossom was going to be early this year, thanks to some occasional warm days in February and early March. Well, it turns out that this year’s blossom peaked so early that it was the earliest it has been since 812CE. How do we know exactly which year? The Buddhists – yes, it seems one of the roles they play here is recording the blossom season each year and, as a result, they can tell us exactly how it compares to other years.

I have to assume that in 812CE it also warmed up earlier than usual. Since my last post, most days have been above 20C (just the odd one here and there in the teens). Currently we are having a run of mid 20 degree days, and yesterday, on my way home from gym, I had only a t-shirt on top, no coat or long sleeves! What a pleasure it is on that first t-shirt day of the year.

As to our outings, we undertook two blossom viewing excursions on two lovely, sunny days. We walked for both outings, the weather was just too good not to! For our first journey, we walked along some of the back roads near Kiyomizu-dera (avoiding the crowds as much as possible) to Maruyama park. After that we walked down into the Gion area and finally into town, taking the road along the canal near the Pontochou area.

It was mid-week, but despite this there were many newly weds having photos taken around these areas. Apparently many couples actually have their official wedding photos taken in either spring or autumn for the scenery, no matter when they actually have the ceremony. Not to miss out, I took a few unobtrusive photos of some of them because they did look beautiful.

Our next walk took us further out, along some of the other back streets and canals up to Heian jinja. There were many family groups picnicking in Okazaki park (which is in front of Heian jinja), so we went a bit further to the next canals and ate a fabulous vegan bento lunch from Vegan Farm, which is a fruit and veg shop that also sells takeaway foods. Most of the benches were taken along the canal just past the park and jinja, but we found one unoccupied – the only one that was not under trees. Still, it was nice and warm and we had a good view of the canal, and the boats traversing it for hanami. We had no idea that this actually happened in blossom time!

Just walking along those canals I had a smile on my face the whole time. Absolutely the best tonic for forgetting what was happening nearly everywhere else in the world, and particularly here, in Japan. Yes, I am referring to The Virus. I know I said in my last post that things seemed to be going in the right direction in terms of the numbers here, but I definitely spoke too soon.

It seems a combination of a certain amount of Covid weariness, hanami travelling and the fact that at least three of the variants have been able to make their way into the population here, has meant the numbers have sky-rocketed. The UK, Sth African and Brazilian variants are here, and to top this off we now have our very own Japanese variant, which came from the Brazilian variant. It seems these have taken hold, so much so that nearly all new cases now are the variants. This is resulting in a flood of new serious cases requiring hospitalisation and oxygen (which is in relatively limited supply compared to the need) and many of these serious cases are younger than previously.

In this period, then, we have come out of a ‘national emergency situation’ and we are about to enter another one, as of Monday. This time, given the dire seriousness of the situation, it is going to be a lot stricter, and the Osaka Governor is saying that he intends to stay in ‘lockdown’ until at least the end of May, mainly because the numbers in Osaka are horrendous, with over 1,000 new cases per day for the last three days – much higher than the numbers in the last peak (or third wave). I think Kyoto will follow the lead of Osaka and Hyogo (collectively, the three prefectures are known as Kansai and do work together a lot) – the Governor here has asked people to stay away from Kyoto and as many tourist destination places as possible are being asked to close.

In terms of travelling, Kyoto was literally flooded with visitors for the one week period at the blossom peak. The reason for the numbers visiting here is that Kyoto has literally thousands of cherry blossom trees in and around the city. Along the river and the canals, in parks and temples, and basically anywhere trees can be planted, there are blossom trees. Everywhere you go you will see some trees – just driving to the hardware store is picturesque. They are very important to the psyche here and the trees are generally very carefully tended and preserved.

Even the end of the blossom period is spectacular, as the petals rain down on you and there are huge drifts on the ground below the trees. I have coined a new word for this time – hanayuki time – hana being the Japanese word for flowers and yuki the word for snow 😊.

We actually had a visitor stay here with us in March too, although he didn’t actually come here for the blossom, just to have a brief holiday from work. He stayed with us for two nights, and was a real pleasure to have here. It really reminded us of how much we missed having guests, and we may have perhaps taken a little too much of his time here just talking to him. He left us a very generous gift when he departed, so I have to assume he didn’t mind too much or he just felt sorry for us🤔?

On the 27^th of March, it was 14 years to the day that we first came to Japan, arriving very early on the 28^th, sleep deprived strangers in a strange and wonderful new land. While it was very much a learning experience in terms of us finding vegetarian (at the time) food here, we loved it so much we kept coming back. It was during that first trip when we were walking down one of the main roads in Kyoto that we remarked how much like home it felt to us. Little did we know at the time that years later we would be ensconced here, although the idea started forming at that time.

That’s it for now, and I’ll try not to get so side-tracked next time. Let’s hope there is some good news re The Virus…

Cheers

Vale Villi

Artists at work😆

A non-blossom tree!

???!!!

There are sooo many ornaments for flower pots here…

Is that Mary Poppins going to my gym?

Wall art at Starbucks – looks familiar

Yes, birthday crowns for that special 4-legged someone!

Our first azalea flower opens!

Now look at them – planted late last year

This what a dogwood should look like – ours is a third of the size and had one flower…

So, Spring is springing into life here – hurrah! Welcome all to the increasingly warm weather and ‘the blooming’. Wonderful, and with the warmer weather the Covid numbers are gradually falling, thanks to a combined effort by the government and The Virus (and viruses in general) not being particularly fond of warmer weather. Earlier in this past month we were still having wild swings in temperature, with a temperature of 21C followed a few days later by a maximum of 4 in the week following my last post. We seem to have settled into a mid to high teens pattern now, though still cold overnight when it is clear.

As a result of the warmer days here and there previously, the cherry blossom is starting to open now, very early indeed. Prior to the cherry blossom, the plum blossom makes an appearance, and though we went on a few outings to view the plum blossom, we weren’t overly successful in finding the right place at the right time – but more about that in a while.

Firstly, I thought I would tell you a wee tale of surprise and mystery, our surprise that is. A few weeks ago we received a parcel from Amazon, but not the one I was expecting. It was, in fact, a Thai vegan cookbook which we had not ordered, as far as we remembered. We became worried that we had somehow accidentally ordered it, Craig does like to look at what cookbooks are available from time to time. So, we scoured through our Amazon orders, both the business and my personal account, but to no avail. Our brains were well and truly racked!!!

Craig had opened the package, so I checked the inside of the envelope to see if there was anything at all inside it which would give us a clue, and there it was, a note saying it was a gift from a couple we had met through the vegan meetup group and who had subsequently paid for a brunch here. Following the brunch, they had added an entry to their vegan restaurant blog, which was very complementary. So when we thanked them for this we said they should come here to have dinner with us when they were back in Kyoto. This did go ahead and they tried to give us money to pay for it when they left, which we refused having invited them on the basis of it being a shared meal.

Anyway, they decided to buy the cookbook for us which is authored by the owners of their favourite veg Thai restaurant in New York (where they live). So, mystery solved, but it did have us going for quite a while – “we can’t have accidentally bought a book, can we???” 😊

Now, onto the blossom. We undertook three blossom seeking outings during the past month, travelling to Zuishin-in, a temple in Yamashina (over the mountain from our home), the Imperial Palace park and Heian-jingu shrine, none of which were overly successful, unfortunately. Nonetheless, the days we went out were clear and sunny, so most pleasant anyway.

We decided to go to Zuishin-in because we thought it would be quiet (it was), it was in Yamashina (ie close) and we had never been there before. As it happened, while most of the blossom trees were just starting to come into flower, the actual blossom garden was not yet open, so we decided to have a look around the temple itself. The history of the temple begins in 991, when permission was given by Emperor Ichijō to construct a temple, named Gyuhizan Mandara-ji, in southeastern Kyoto. Some time later, the fifth Chief Abbot of the temple founded Zuishin-in as a sub-temple of Mandara-ji, but it was reduced to ashes during a rebellion (shogun v emperor) in 1221.

In 1599, the main hall was restored and subsequently some sizable donations contributed to the reconstruction of the full complex, with most of the temple buildings being dated to the 17^th century. Though the temple is renowned for its connection to Ono no Komachi (825 – 900), a famous Heian period beauty and poet, Zuishin-in did not exist during her lifetime, despite the many references to this found on the internet. Her family, however, did have an estate in the Ono area (yes, named after them) where Zuishin-in was built. There are a number of artefacts and paintings related to her at the temple and there is a well on the grounds, excavated fairly recently, which is said to be where she drew water to prepare her makeup each day (according to a plaque at the site).

An ukiyo-e of Ono no Komachi

(PS this is not in the collection at the temple, just for reference)

Stone inlay with one of her poems and close-up

The temple buildings do look a little run down (due, no doubt to the fact that there are fewer paying customers visiting the temple) the art works contained with the main complex are very beautiful and well worth a visit to see them. Unfortunately, as with so many temples, you cannot take photos of many of the old fusuma-e (paintings on the sliding doors in tatami rooms – the doors are called fusuma, and the ‘e’ refers to the painting). I did accidentally take a photo of one of the rooms, and Craig then not so accidentally took a straight photo of that room.

My accident

Not so accidental

Modern fusuma-e

(photos allowed)

The best tree there, but not within the temple

Our next outing was to the park, which surrounds the Imperial Palace. We hadn’t been there for many years, so thought it might be nice to have another look at the park, and there happen to be about 200 plum blossom trees there. It is an extensive park, as you would imagine it would be, with the majority of the trees being of the pine family. The grove is near one of the entrances to the park, and quite a few of the trees are fairly small, they appeared to have been planted in the last decade although the grove began as a collection of cuttings from shrines around Kyoto in 1945. After that walk we went to have lunch at a local restaurant, which was most pleasant.

The roads in the park are wider than most outside!

A fallen tree that refused to die…

Craig’s lunch!!!

The last outing during this period was to the Heian-jingu garden, my favourite garden in Kyoto. I really love this place, finding it to be a very beautiful and peaceful place to be. There are only a few plum blossom trees, but it is always worth visiting and this time the Japanese Andromeda or Dwarf Lily of the Valley (Pieris japonica) was in full bloom around the grounds.

There’s the blossom tree, to the left…

Before I leave you, I thought I would mention that on 11 March it was the 10 year anniversary of the giant earthquake and tsunami in the Sendai and Fukushima area (north east from here). I remember this event very clearly, especially as it occurred a month before we were due to travel to Japan including travelling along the east coast up to Hokkaido, with a four night stay in Sendai booked. Watching the footage of the tsunami was devastating then, and still is. A lot of video was shown on the 11^th that we had never seen before, with some from cameras in cars as they were swept up and also from roofs where some had found refuge, which showed their reactions and them yelling at people to run.

Many of the areas affected still have not been fully rebuilt, particularly since in some areas so many people lost their lives and with most of the buildings destroyed many of those who survived just have not returned, even though local councils have offered incentives and the national government provided huge amounts of money to the councils to assist with rebuilding. A lot of this money is still unspent.

That’s all for now – *spoiler alert* next post will definitely have lots of sakura 😊.

Cheers

Both at Zuishin-in. The palanquins on the left are carried as per figurine below (yes they are hanging from the ceiling)

The birds are loving this weather!

Hina display for Girl’s Day

WTF???

This is just plain wrong

A knot of toll roads

Is that Winnie? Is he trying to escape?

Gorgeous ceramics

Magnolia time

Love these trees – the Japanese Red Pine

(for obvious reasons – see below)

I’m lichen it (hehehe)

Uh-oh!

Ziggy harking back to Halloween while watching me do ballet

He’s mine!

Me next to a large camellia – and not to be outdone, Craig next to a very large tree

Hi all – yes, here I am again sitting at the keyboard, collecting my thoughts about the past month. There have been some very interesting things happening internationally and nationally, but not quite so much in our lives. As a result of not having that much to do, and for such a long time, I have been spending more time focusing outwards, with my attention having been especially drawn to the events occurring in the US.

Before I start on life in Kyoto in winter during a state of emergency due to a pandemic, I will first talk about the weather here. The first word that jumps into my head is bizarre, and then changeable. So far this winter has had some of the coldest days we have experienced here, and also some of the warmest days in winter we have experienced here. Last Sunday the temperature reached 21C (which was glorious, BTW – I opened up all the windows). Since then it has cooled down, with a good rain on Monday (over 30mm) and the expected max. dropping to 5C (or less) on Wednesday and Thursday, with the possibility of snow on Thursday! Hard to keep up with, really, and if it’s confusing for us, imagine how it’s going to affect the sprouting plants and the birds who have been happily doing spring things.

Suffice it to say that the weather combined with the state of emergency have kept us at home a lot over the last month. We also had a slight issue with the actual virus, after a friend we had over for dinner and a movie (Mon Oncle) discovered a text after she left our home informing the staff of the school she teaches at that some students had tested positive to The virus.

As you can imagine, she was horrified and embarrassed that she may have exposed us to infection. Subsequently it was found that one teacher and over 40 students had been infected. Interestingly, while there was some information about it in the Kyoto paper, the name of the school was not included, apparently because the school had insisted that their privacy be protected (and their reputation as a private school, no doubt). So we self isolated for two weeks, with only a very careful trip to the supermarket for food during the period (we had no choice in this, having no back-up options).

Luckily there was plenty happening in the news during this period, and I spent a lot of time reading the ABC US politics blog. Fascinating. I had never had overly much interest in US politics, but that all changed with the election of the now ex-president and watching a tv show called “Designated Survivor”. I learnt a lot about US politics from that show, which made it much easier to understand what was going on over there., and the ABC blog was really absorbing. At times it was like watching a train crash in slow motion – you had a bit of an idea what might happen, but you just couldn’t look away. I was hugely relieved when the inauguration went off without a hitch.

Speaking of US politics and the ex-president (and the damage he wrought), we recently watched a two part series about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, about her life and career. What an amazing woman she was – very intelligent, very stoic and quite reserved and petite, yet a giant in her time. The documentary was called “RBG” – well worth watching.

We have seen a few other interesting documentaries on the BS (I kid you not, and they have the BS News…) station which included one about Drum Tao, a Japanese taiko troupe, who performed at the opening ceremony of the Year of Japan in Russia in 2018, at the Bolshoi Ballet Theatre. They focussed on one part of the performance in particular, where one of the drummers played on an odaiko drum (large and on a stand) while one of the Bolshoi soloists (Georgy Gusev) danced. It showed the development of the piece and it was very interesting that even though they didn’t speak the same language, they had a connection through the music. Two of my loves, taiko and ballet, put together – wonderful.

Rehearsal

Performance

The theatre

Some audience members…

Speaking of ballet, since we haven’t been going out much, I haven’t been going to gym, so I am doing three classes a week with Ernst Meisner and Rex Lobo (on piano). I have mentioned them before, but these classes really are a blessing for me, to maintain both some fitness and flexibility. I just wish I had a proper barre instead of using the back of the couch, which is a bit too low and somewhat soft 😊.

Locked and loaded

Apart from going to supermarkets, we have only been out twice on longer outings during this period, once was into town to buy some new ballet shoes (my old ones have a biggish hole in them) and we recently went to the Momak art gallery to see an exhibition. The shoe buying expedition took us through the Nishiki market. For those of you who have been here, you will know just how crowded the Nishiki market (which is a fairly long undercover mall) usually is. It is very popular for shopping and is also a major tourist destination.

Looking both ways – normally wall to wall people

When we were there the other day it was very quiet, with many shops closed; shutters down. We are not sure how many were just closed because of the state of emergency or permanently shut, though we did see some had small ‘for rent’ signs on them. What was really interesting was that the shutters, which you wouldn’t normally see down, were decorated with amazing copies of famous paintings. Many of them I recognised to be by the artist Itō Jakuchū, one of my favourite Japanese artists. As it turns out, thanks to the electronic oracle, I found out that Jakuchū’s father was a Kyoto grocer whose shop was in the Nishiki district, and Jakuchū ran the shop from the time of his father’s death in 1739 until 1755, when he handed it over to one of his brothers. What a lovely surprise it was.

The exhibition at Momak was entitled “100 Years of Bunriha: Can Architecture Be Art?” As per the title, Bunriha was the first architectural movement in Japan, which came into being in 1920 when six classmates of the Department of Architecture of Tokyo Imperial University formed the group before their graduation. Three other architects later joined the group, which was active in exhibiting and publishing their works until 1928. This year marks 100 years since the group’s formation, hence the touring exhibition.

Bunriha literally means “Secessionist group”, which was inspired in part by the Vienna Secessionists. They were worried about the reliance on historical styles and decoration and instead wanted to encourage artistic expression in Japanese architecture. They drew their influence from European movements like expressionism and the Bauhaus school and helped pave the way towards the introduction of the international style of Modernism into Japan.

It was a very extensive exhibition, with many photos, architectural renderings, floor plans and models, along with a number of video displays and some pieces of furniture. One of the videos showed Tokyo just after the 1923 earthquake (The Great  Kanto earthquake), which devastated Tokyo, killing over 100,000 people and flattening vast swathes of buildings, with the subsequent fire causing further damage. Many of the buildings that survived were European style concrete, brick and stone buildings. In fact, Frank Lloyd Wright received credit for designing the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo specifically so that it would withstand an earthquake. The structure withstood the anticipated earthquake stresses (with minimal damage) and the hotel remained in use until 1968. This helped usher in the construction of many more European style buildings.

One other exhibit of note in the gallery was by Kimiyo Mishima, a contemporary Japanese artist, who is known for creating extremely realistic versions of newspapers, comic books and boxes in ceramic. She uses the silk screen technique to print newspaper, poster and label images onto the clay. She actually began her career as a painter in the early 1960s, but then changed to working in ceramics in 1971. Her work is incredible; so realistic that I really wanted to touch some of the pieces to feel they were ceramic, especially the ‘cardboard’ boxes. She apparently designs her peices to look like discarded rubbish, with a focus on ‘information’ contained on and in them.

All individually made

Ending this post on one further bit of design, I thought I’d add some photos of street barricades that I have been collecting for a while, which is rather more kawaii, and very much Japanese. I love them 😊

Not in the Gion (l), in the Gion (r) – just add a kimono!

Cheers

PS – when we woke up this morning (Wednesday) it was snowing – bizarre indeed.

Miro using Zowie as a pillow…

Speaking of interesting buildings…

Interesting items at Costco – Vegetable Origami (?) and 6kg easter eggs!

Looking out the window at Momak

Some very weird sea creatures in a documentary about a trench off the US west coast:

A fish with a see through head. The arrows show the eyes and mouth.

A jelly fish which flashed rainbow colours along ribs

Not sure what this was, but it too flashed lights, as did nearly all of the creatures in the trench

Those teeth…

Watching all these, it was like seeing a nightclub for the deep

Hello and Happy New Year to you all!!! Yes, that’s right, 2020 has ended! Hopefully this year will be a whole lot better than last year, and the spectre of The virus will dissipate and we can get back to some sort of ordinary life again. Now, when I say ordinary, I do not mean dull and boring, but rather living which does not involve having to be so very careful all the time and where we can do more of what we want to do, such as have guests staying with us and being able to go to ballet classes without a mask on.

Before that dream begins, I still have one last month of 2020 to review which also happens to be the first month of my fifth year here. This time also happened to be cold, so cold that we actually had some (a little) snow before the end of the year. It started falling during the night of the 16^th into the 17^th, so we awoke to a sprinkling on the plants. That night, at around 3:40am we also had a smallish earthquake – around magnitude 3.5 – and the epicentre was very close to us, about 1.5km north. This was the first earthquake we have had that was centred north of us, so quite unusual.

I was awake at the time (I think Miro had awoken me) and then my bed started swaying (remember it is on the floor), and I heard the noise, and this lasted for around 10 seconds. It actually woke Craig up, which is also unusual 😊. I have recently come to create my own earthquake scale, somewhat different to the standard magnitude type – rather more descriptive. There are four basic types (so far), the Ripple, the Shunt, the Swayer and the Rattler/Shaker.

The Ripple is fairly mild and feels like being in a boat with water rippling underneath. The Shunt is very fast and feels like a truck has slammed into the house. The Swayer is a level up in length and feels like being rocked, such as in a hammock. The Rattler/Shaker ranges from innocuous to very nasty; from glasses rattling lightly together to the lights swaying, pictures tipping and things falling down or over (including buildings, in the extreme), and can keep going for quite a while.

We have had a few more light falls of snow since, including yesterday morning. Elsewhere, mainly along the west coast of Japan, the falls have been very heavy, with cars, trucks and vans being stuck on highways for up to three days. Niigata has been hardest hit, and a number of people have died as a result of being buried in snow, mostly via trying to get snow off their roofs and it falling on top of them all at once.

Not very heavy here…

The weather has been very cold, at times. We have had nearly a week where most days were 5C or less maxima, including one day of just over 2C, and many nights sub-zero, with the coldest bottoming out at -5C. Most of the sub-zero nights have been clear, and hence no snow. We have been careful not to use too much power to stay warm, and end up wearing thermals and lined clothing at home, while puffy coats, gloves, scarves and beanies are de rigueur outside. I also have a pair of puffy leggings, called Poodlegs, which are fantastic when it’s really cold.

In the bus…

As you can imagine, we have been doing more things at home, rather than going out (it’s cold and the Covid numbers are up). For xmas day we organised a ‘xmas orphans’ repast (late afternoon into the evening). We invited four people, though on the day two of them didn’t make it, so the four of us here had a lot of food to ourselves. What a feast 😊! We also had one friend over for new year’s eve, although we didn’t quite make it to midnight…

We have also been watching more tv, including our regular “Nightmare Before Christmas” and “Love Actually” before xmas. We also watched a fantastic Godzilla movie recently, which was being aired on local tv (no English), called “Invasion of Astro-Monster”, which included Rodan and King Gidorah, along with some aliens. Even though we couldn’t understand exactly what they were saying, we could understand enough of what was going on to make it great fun to watch. It was made in 1965 and as a result also included some great design.

Aliens

Spaceships

Aliens taking Godzilla

Godzilla sees Gidorah

Godzilla trashes

Rays firing at aliens

Rodan down

Godzilla gets Gidorah

Something else we also happened across on tv was the opening of the new full-sized Gundam statue/robot exhibition facility. The robot has been built at a toymaker’s factory in Yokohama and on 19 December took it’s first steps outside. It is 18 metres tall and there are decks at 15 and 18 metres to get up close views, along with lots of paraphernalia for sale. It costs ¥1,650 to enter the facility – not cheap, but for fans no doubt all worth it. Watching the comperes at the opening, well known and popular males in their 20s and 30s, they were very excited to be there (they were almost giggling), so I suspect it will be popular.

We have ventured outside a few times, but mainly to go shopping. We did make an effort on New Year’s day to go to one of the local shrines, to plead with Kamisama (the deities) to get rid of the virus 😊, soon. We also took a long walk a couple of days ago, up and over the mountain behind Kiyomizu-dera, with a friend. It was a cold day, overcast initially, but otherwise good weather for walking.

Silliness on the path

We descended from the mountain near Heian shrine, very close to another shrine which I had wanted to visit. As it turned out, it is a shrine associated with the deity Ebisu and the Ebisu festival was being held around Kyoto. Ebisu is one of the Shichifukujin (Seven Gods of Luck), the deity of fishing, wealth, and fortune. This is the first major festival of the year, and is centred around January 10^th, Ebisu’s birthday.

Interesting display – we think they were lanterns at the back

Inside a small museum there

Rubber ducks sitting atop ice in the hand washing bowl, possibly to stop people washing – yes it was cold!

Ebisu shrine

In the past we have gone to the main festival at the Ebisu shrine in the Gion, however, this year we decided not to go due to the current increase in the virus numbers (not sure if it’s the third wave, or whether we are now entering a fourth wave). As a result it was quite opportune that we ended up at a related shrine, so we could ask Ebisu for luck in our business, and to buy a new lucky charm for the year.

After leaving the shrine we headed north, via Okazaki park towards a restaurant to get some lunch. Nearing the park/Heian shrine precinct, we started seeing a lot of young women dressed in kimono (very expensive looking kimono at that) and young men mostly dressed in suits. As we got closer we realised there were many hundreds of them accumulated in this area, and then we remembered it was a public holiday for the ‘Comin of Age’ celebration, for all those who have reached or will reach the ‘age of maturity’ (20 years old) between the 2^nd of April of the previous year and the 1^st of April of the current year, to help them celebrate the fact they are now considered adults.

Most of the celebrations had been cancelled around Japan, but Kyoto had decided to go ahead, despite the threat of the virus. As we walked through the enormous crowd, it really was a fantastic spectacle seeing all these beautifully dressed young people and you could see the fun they were having with all their friends. The sun had come out by then and it really was a feast for the eyes.

Unfortunately the restaurant we had wanted to go to was closed, being a public holiday, so we had to walk a bit further – I’m not sure how many kms we had walked by then, but it must have been well over 5kms including climbing up then down – however, the next nearest vegan friendly restaurant was open, and we had falafel for lunch, suitably distanced from anyone. We then caught a nearly empty train home. The following day was my ballet class day (which I’m doing at home at the moment…), and I have to say my muscles tired a little more easily than usual during the class, but the stretching felt good 😊.

Before I sign off, I should mention that we had a guest stay with us for two nights just after New Year. He was from Hawaii, with some Japanese heritage, and was in Japan early last year when the first state of emergency was called for the virus. Looking back, the numbers were so low then, amazing how the government has taken so long to call the second emergency, given the size of the numbers now…

Anyway, he has been caught in Japan, unable to get home, from March last year. Since that time he has bought a small bicycle and some lightweight camping gear, and has ridden pretty much all the way around Japan (excluding Okinawa). He is vegan and decided he wanted to spoil himself by staying here – he has spent very little on accommodation, at times sleeping under bridges where homeless people are.

When he arrived, he had a hat and face mask on, so it came as a surprise next morning at breakfast to see that he had a longish, thick head of hair, including a long beard! He hasn’t had a haircut or shaved since he has been here 😊. He was a lovely person, as nearly all of our guests seem to be, and it was a pleasure to have him here. He is currently preparing to leave Japan later this week, after having a test to show he is Covid negative. Wonderful to have a guest staying here again.

Well, that’s almost it for now. Just one quick nod to one of our pottery neighbours who invited us to come see some of the things he had been making recently, after I made a few comments about how beautiful they were on Instagram. In particular, he had made some ceramic speaker casings (believe it or not), and was obviously very proud of them. He had finished installing the speaker fittings and as we entered his workshop he put on a CD so we could hear them. Interestingly he chose the Phantom of the Opera, which made the whole thing even more spectacular! We had been wondering what they would sound like with a ceramic surround, but actually they were good, and very expensive at over $1,000, but then they are covered in gold leaf…

Picture from Instagram

Cheers

The end of Autumn

After Halloween toilet paper, there’s xmas toilet paper…

Ok, so it won’t go on Instagram

Interesting xmas decoration in the building where my gym is

All the xmas cakes for cats and dogs…

Display of a festival float in our local council building. All the major pieces are ceramic, including the huge platter

Tanuki at a local sake shop – one can’t see thanks to mask and the other has a beak mouth reminiscent of a kappa

Miro and Zowie up close

Zowie gets attention (not often you can see my natural hair colour…yes, it’s mid-brown, not black)

Beautiful obi display

Love the duck with the helmet, the one with the eye patch and the sleepy one

At the shrine – toilet rules

Partially frozen water at a local temple

Godzilla ice skating on our mochi bowl

Some early blossom buds – already!

Not much in the way of flowers at the moment

Godzilla doing his happy dance after defeating Gidorah

Hi all! Get yourself a caffeinated beverage (if you drink one of those) and take a seat, because you are in for a spectacular anthocyanin, carotenoid and tannin laced tour de force of trees, as this is the Autumn episode and you are going to see more photos of beautiful trees than you may think possible in one smallish post – and you want to be fully awake for the experience!!!

This year the colours were more intense than I have ever seen them here, and after checking the electronic oracle I found that the conditions this year were text book perfect:-

“The best weather for brilliant fall foliage is a growing season with ample moisture followed by a dry, cool and sunny autumn with warm days and cool but frostless nights.”

All boxes ticked – we had heavy rain for the first half of summer, with follow-up rain through until early Autumn, and Autumn has been warmish (mid-teens mostly) and sunny (as you will see in most of the photos) with very cool nights, but no frost. Interestingly, the leaves are still holding on many trees, and the reds are becoming even more intense. This may change in the next few days, however, as very cold upper level air is coming in and bringing snow to wide areas of Japan, perhaps even here.

The hill behind our home, taken yesterday

We, of course, took full advantage of the colourful pageant, visiting a number of the best places to view these trees. The end result of all of this was a joyous uplifted feeling, many, many photos to be checked, and difficult decisions to be made of which to use – exhausting 😊.

Our first colour outing was a return visit to Takaragaike park, for a picnic. It had been a long time since we’d been on a picnic, which we used to do a lot, so having found a suitable park for such an outing it seemed very appropriate. We still had the old picnic set, an assortment of bakelite plates and tumblers, 1960s picnic cutlery and other bits and pieces, and a picnic rug, so we took these, found a table and enjoyed an outdoor repast.

Prior to lunch we walked through the forest and were surprised when a group of deer walked past us. We had no idea there were any deer in the park, so we were somewhat shocked. Had we been in Nara, well, you just expect it, so it was quite funny that we were surprised with this Close Encounter of the Animal Kind. When I heard the nearby noises, before we saw the deer, I was hoping for a tanuki or maybe (laughingly) a serow, but the deer just sauntered across the path in front of us, with only one stopping to look at us briefly.

A serow

For our next visit we went to Arashiyama. Our walk took us through the bamboo and then up to the top of the hill behind the bamboo forest. In all the times we had visited the area, we had never climbed up the hill, from which you can see further up the Hozugawa river. With the colour and the sunny day it was a fantastic panorama.

We then climbed down to the river and along back to the main area to look for somewhere to eat. The restaurant we had planned to go to had a waiting list to get in, so we tried a couple of other places – one was gone – then checked the oracle and found a vegan café across the other side of the river, called Musubi Café. Initially we were the only people there, which was nice, and we had a fantastic lunch with the best taco rice I have ever eaten.

The final of our three outings for colour took us to Eikando Zenrinji temple, which Craig had never been to. I had been there with friends two years previously and loved it, so it seemed appropriate. This time the colour was unbelievable, so intense, and there were quite a few people but it wasn’t too over-crowded.

After leaving there we dropped into Nanzenji temple and had a snack which we had taken with us. After the beauty of Eikando we just sat there and ate there, and I only took two photos! We then walked back along one of my favourite canals. The weather was perfect for a long walk, mid-teens and clear blue sky. A lovely day.

As the weather continued to be clear, we went for a few other walks. For one we decided to go for a walk in the forest nearby (and yes, sometimes I do hum that tune 😊), taking a route past Tofukuji to see how the foliage was going there – but it had definitely passed it’s peak. We then walked around the back of the temple into an area we hadn’t been before where there were very large houses, many of which were very nice indeed. Like walking into Beaumont, or somewhere similar where there are many large, old homes.

One other noteworthy walk took us into the CBD area, from a different direction, and we found a very interesting small temple there called Rokkakudo. Legend has it that the temple was founded by Prince Shotoku in 587CE. It was previously known as Siunzanchohoji, however, the current name comes from its main hall’s hexagonal shape. Next to the temple is a hall called Ikenobo, which is renowned as the birthplace of Ikebana. The Ikenobo school has produced many skilled artists in Ikebana since the Muromachi period (1333-1568). There is an Ikebana museum there, but we didn’t have time to go in, so that will be left to another time. In front of the hexagonal hall there is a small hexagonal stone, which is known as the Navel Stone and is said to mark the centre of Kyoto.

The Navel

What a lovely time of year it is here in Autumn – Spring is lovely with the blossom on display and the warmer weather ahead but Autumn truly is a magical time here, especially this year. Perhaps nature was giving us a gift in light of the year we have all been enduring.

There were three other noteworthy events for us during this period – 25 November was the four year anniversary of my arrival here to live, we had a second vegan meet-up event here, nearly exactly a year after we held the previous brunch (in fact, it was the first meet-up event since ours) and the Veggy magazine with the article about us was published on 10 November. The magazine is a Japanese vegetarian/vegan publication, so we are hoping this will give us more exposure to the Japanese market.

To ensure social distancing, we held our meet-up event in two groups, one at lunchtime and the other at dinnertime. We made a three course Thai meal, followed by pumpkin spice muffins for dessert (yes, I know, not exactly a Thai dessert but really yummy, so why not?) Everyone enjoyed it and we had some queries about having other events here, and tomorrow one of the couples is coming here for a late breakfast.

That’s all for now. Next post will be the first of Year 5 in Kyoto. Let’s hope things improve and return to something a little more like ‘normality’.

Cheers

(I wonder if it will snow tonight?)

Hikonyan blending in with the trees

Hhhhmmmm

A really good band playing outside the mall where our supermarket is

The Kabuki is back…and we can’t afford to go

Gorgeous tea bowls

Amazing sights often found at temples

Toll roads

Monkey bike

Love this light fitting

What can I say…?

(Yes, I would love to buy it)

Hard to see, but a tiny bee is busy

Miro and Zowie loving…

Miro loving the heated floor

Ah, yes (& Puffy jackets aren’t overly flattering)

Hello everyone, and let me begin with a huge WOOHOO!!! Finally, something really positive for the world has happened this year 😊. Yes, I know there are still issues to be faced, including an unwillingness to face reality, but I feel like some weight has been lifted from my mind with the US election result. It certainly was a tense time, waiting for the results to come in, and I now know a lot more about the American electoral system (which is crazily complicated), but the sense of relief when the numbers started moving in the right direction was enormous. We celebrated, of course, and even watched the Biden/Harris speech live. My favourite thing has been watching the videos of the reactions of people in the US – the giant dance party that erupted and the noise of cars tooting and people yelling in joy when the media called it. Fantastic.

So, back to Kyoto and our other activities outside obsessive election watching. The weather is continuing to cool, and with it the Autumnal colour spectacle creeps in. It has definitely started earlier this year, as has my donning of puffy clothing. We have had many overcast days, with some rain, and the occasional sunny day. In fact, we weren’t able to go on my birthday outing, to Nara this year, for two weeks thanks to the weather.

My birthday happened to be on a Saturday this year, which was perfect as there was a restaurant we wanted to go to in Nara which only opens on Saturdays since re-opening after the COVID shut down. Not sure why that is, but it is a mother and daughter operation, so they can choose to run it as suits them. The problem was that on my birthday a typhoon passed by Japan along the eastern coast, bringing with it the usual wind and rain. So, we postponed until the following Saturday. The forecast the next week looked ok up until the Friday, when it changed to rain…all day…so, postponed again.

The following Saturday was looking good, so we kept our fingers crossed and planned. We awoke to clear skies, and though cool, it looked like it would be perfect for wandering around – and it was 😊. As we had been to see the daibutsu (giant Buddha) at Nara a few times previously, I thought it would be nice to find some new places to go to, so after consulting the electronic oracle I found a garden which sounded interesting and a very old shrine which we hadn’t visited previously, the Kasuga Taisha shrine.

The Yoshikien garden was our first port of call. The land used to be part of a temple complex, used for monk residences. In the Meiji period it became a privately owned site, with the garden being created in 1919. Subsequently the land ownership was transferred to Nara prefecture and now it is open to the public. It is a stroll garden (for Monty Don fans), with some distinct areas; a pond area, a moss garden and a tea ceremony flower garden. There is also a tea house within the grounds. It is a lovely garden, free to enter and there were only three other people there when we visited. I would definitely go back again, if the opportunity arises.

The Kasuga Taisha shrine was established at the same time as the capital (in Nara), in 768 CE, and is dedicated to the deity responsible for the protection of the city. Later, in 841 CE, the Emperor proclaimed a prohibition on hunting and logging in the nearby forest, preserving the forest in its unspoiled state. There are about 3,000 lanterns lining the pathways around the shrine, which have been dedicated there since the Heian period. Many of them are more than 300 years old, and it is said that the custom of arranging lanterns on the approach to shrines and temples began with this shrine. The deer, which are protected in Nara, are thought to be sacred messengers for the Shinto gods.

Following these visits, we had lunch at the vegan Ramuna Café and after that my plan was to watch the mochi pounding (mochitsuki) at a famous mochi shop on the way back to the train, but we arrived just as they were finishing up…Oh well, it was a gorgeous day and we enjoyed our time there.

A huge lunch!

Interesting terrace houses, which are very unusual here

Prior to this outing, friends asked us to join them at one of the Kyotographie installations, being held at the Kyoto station. The exhibition was of photographs by Kai Fusayoshi, who has been an active photographer for the past 50 years, and is known for his photographs of ‘feminine beauty’, which was the focus of this installation. It was set up along the station building Sky Way. As we were headed there we came across a piano put there as a ‘street piano’ for anyone to play, often with cameras installed to record the pianists. We have watched excerpts of this from a number of locations on TV and had no idea there was one in Kyoto. A woman started playing as we arrived – she was very good.

There’s a garden on the roof!

Two other notable events for us were visiting a new bakery, the Kamogawa Bakery, which specialises in plant based bagels and other bread products and, of course, a night out for Halloween. We received an invitation to the bakery opening via Instagram, which was a nice surprise. We don’t know the people involved, but they found us and we were invited to a pre-opening ‘try-out’. We were treated to a free coffee each and some free bagels, which were very good, especially the Keema curry bagel (yes, I know it sounds unusual but curry-pan (bread) is a popular thing here). Yum! We had to sit through a presentation (also, yes, TANSTAFL for those economists amongst you), but that was interesting as even though it was in Japanese, we knew what he was talking about, overall. They have hired chefs to create the menu and items, are trying their best to be environmentally friendly (no plastic straws or take-away coffee cups) and are trying to be fully inclusive of all people.

For Halloween we went out to dinner at Veg Out, a local vegan restaurant, which fronts the Kamogawa and has views over the river and to the east hills (our home area). Part of the reason for this is we knew that this year the night of Halloween was also the night of a blue moon (the 2^nd full moon of the month). So, we were in the perfect position to watch moon-rise, and it was a clear night.

The lights in the sky are reflections of the internal lights on the window, not UFOs!

After this we went to a bar just up the road, which is a craft beer establishment. I’m not a beer drinker, but they usually have a cider on tap…except this night. They did have, however, a citrus beer which I tried and liked. I like this place; the décor is very interesting, with a lot of tiles used as a decorative feature, and they play good music. On arrival we had to sanitise our hands and our temperatures were taken, which they were strict about and which I find comforting, not an infringement of my rights. We invited our friends to join us, which they did at the bar. We had fun – oh, I forgot to mention I was dressed up, as a witch of course 😊.

Fuzzed out to protect the innocent…

The witch is in the house/bar

Before I go, I thought I’d mention one trial I had to go through during October – my driver’s licence came up for renewal. For some reason licences are set to be renewed as of your birthday, though they give you a month to do so. Craig had already been through the process, so I knew what I was up for, a two hour lecture on road safety as it was the first time we had renewed our licences here. Apparently everyone in this position has to go through this torture, along with those who have received fines for road offences and been in accidents (I think).

We left home at midday and arrived home after 4pm. I stood in various queues for over an hour, the first one being the majority of the time, and then had to sit through the lecture, which was in Japanese and included two video presentations. There were just under fifty people in my lecture group and there were other lecture rooms. Some of the people in my group fell asleep (all men, I believe). I stayed awake. Thankfully the nightmares have stopped…(kidding, I survived ok).

Oh, I forgot one thing. Since we moved here there have been some things we missed, and people of course, but the one item of food we have really craved, believe it or not, is Cornish pasties (veg, of course). Recently Craig bit the bullet and tried out making pastry using some added gluten in the flour – for some reason the flour here is really soft, so it is no good for pastry, or many other baked goods, without. They were good, even if one broke open!

Cheers

The last of Halloween, for this year…

The only Close Encounters of the Animal Kind were all deer

Couldn’t resist

You know who this is for…yes, you!

Lights – how mod…

Ah, of course

Not sure but only in Kyoto?

I had to find some flowers

I knew it was coming, but it’s still a shock when it’s so early, and, yes, it is constructed of real wood

Oh?

Bonjour mes amis! No, I haven’t turned French, I just thought I’d find a way to start that I haven’t used before and since the Japanese are such Francophiles it seemed somehow appropriate (in my head, although now I think about it a bit more…).

Anyway, here we are again sitting around having a chat about how we have been passing the time (a rather one-way discussion) when day to day life has been so thoroughly upended. Starting with the weather…well, something else that is rather different this year. We have had a very sudden change from hot to much cooler, especially overnight temperatures. Abruptly we have quilts on our beds – from no covering and the fan on most nights to this! Also, the toilet seat heater is now definitely switched on. Of course it does make for much more pleasant walking weather, so we have been taking advantage of that.

We have been for a few walks too, at least one of which was to a place we have never been. One of the other walks was meant to be to a new destination, but it turned out that the path we took just led us back to a point we had been before – more about that later.

Firstly, despite yet again thinking there would be nothing to talk about, we have had some more ‘Close Encounters of the Animal Kind’. To be precise, all of them have been ‘…of the Insect Kind’. The first is the Red Helen butterfly, of which a few have been visiting our garden recently. It seems the geisha flowers and the lantana flowers are big drawcards for flying insects of all kinds – the gift that keeps on giving. I got some photos of one of the Helens and noticed when reviewing my photos that this one was missing part of one of its wings ☹.

The next encounter occurred as we were walking over to the station area, just past the Kamo bridge. In fact, I nearly trod on it – a huge green caterpillar which was heading towards the road. I had to rescue it, of course, otherwise it would never have survived to the adult stage of life. It had a spiky tail on one end, so I was being careful, just in case it had some toxic chemical in it. Anyway, after several attempts at picking it up (it was not happy about me touching it) I decided to try using a leaf, which was successful, and so it ended up in a safer place.

It was bright green, around 8cms in length and had some very interesting markings. Unfortunately I didn’t get a photo, but on our return home I checked in with the electronic oracle and discovered that the caterpillar of the Oleander Hawk-moth fits this description. So, below are some photos of both the caterpillar and the rather beautiful moth.

The final encounter worth covering is the glorious Hummingbird Moth. We had one visit our garden last year, and again we have seen just one this year. It was slightly different to last year’s visitor, somewhat smaller and not as brightly coloured – its tail was darker – but still just as amazing. I did manage to get some photos…just. They move so fast I had to take around twenty shots just to actually capture it.

Nearly…

Now, to our discovery walks; the first involved a follow-up on a previous walk to Fushimi Inari. You may remember there was a mysterious set of stairs up a hill at the back of the shrine mountain which I just had to find out where they led. Yes, indeed, things like this sit in the back of my mind until I am able to resolve them, one way or another. The change of weather meant that it was time to explore. It was a lovely day for a walk, and walking through a forested area is one of my favourite things to do, which is lucky, because it turned out the stairs led to another of the trails around the mountain, one which we had walked before. Oh well, exercise, fresh air and natural beauty, what more could you want?

The second exploratory adventure came about via me looking at a map of Kyoto trying to find places we hadn’t been before. I noticed a very large green area some distance north of our home, called Takaragaike park. It actually involved a train ride to reach it, but the park itself is nearly 63 hectares, so plenty of room to walk around. The park surrounds Takaragaike Lake, which is a purpose-made, artificial lake dating from the 18th century. It was built mainly to provide a regular supply of water for the area’s rice fields.

Initially, it was only a small pond created by damming spring water, but it is believed to have reached its present size by the end of the Edo period. During World War II, a plan for the development of the park was developed, originally as a Bouku Ryokuchi, or evacuation area, for people to avoid air raids and to prevent fire from spreading into urban areas. In 1961 it was decided to build a conference centre at the park, and the Kyoto International Conference Centre was completed in 1966. The centre was designed by architect Sachio Otani with an unusual hexagonal framework, which resulted in few columns or vertical walls.

The centre was expanded in 1973 and, as it happens, they are now talking about expanding it further to accommodate double the number of conference delegates, which, by coincidence, was a news item on the night we visited the park. This centre is where the Kyoto Protocol was agreed and signed in 1997. The building is truly amazing to see – very scfi-fi like in design. It is huge and looks like the headquarters for a league of superheroes and giant robots (like Gundam).

‘Life-size’ statue of Gundam in Tokyo

As we walked around the lake, after dragging ourselves away from the conference centre, we were admiring the views and how really natural the lake looked, when we started hearing some music. I wasn’t sure if it was recorded or being played live for an audience. As it turned out, it was a man sitting on the shore of the lake practicing playing a shamisen, which also included him singing in some songs. He was very good and it was an absolute pleasure strolling along the forest path, next to the lake listening to his music.

Nice place for practice

The park has many built structures, such as wooden platforms and gazebos, for people to enjoy the views while picnicking. There is even a bird hide constructed near a small pond away from the lake, with some boards attached showing names and drawings of birds which inhabit the area. A very thoughtfully designed and constructed park, which has large forested areas and even has a horse stable area which was formerly the home for a racing stable exclusively for the use of the Heian cavalry. The area is now used by the Kyoto Prefectural Police Department to house the horses which are used for patrol work and traffic safety campaigns. We will be going back to enjoy a picnic there in the near future.

Before I sign off, I just thought I’d mention a gift we found at our front door on returning home from one of our outings. It was a paper bag with some sweet potatoes and other food items inside. On the front of the bag was a little drawing of a face, with the words “From Nezu…mother’s sweet potato”, one of our neighbours 😊.

Cheers and Happy Halloween for later this month (which is the same night as a blue moon!!!)

Halloween items for your dog…

and, of course, Halloween toilet paper…

A bunch of grapes for ¥2,480!

More late flowering plants at home

Some glorious sunsets – even through the shoji

Colour!

Fabulous fungi

Lovely patterning

  Patterned bark too

You know summer has come to an end when the grass is in full seed