That time again? What, it’s past that time? Three weeks????? What have I been doing?

The answer to the latter, is not that much, really. We have been quite hibernal, in the sense that we have been staying home more than we usually would, going out mainly for the essentials, including me going to gym (which is now an essential). Despite this, we have managed to do some marketing for our minshuku and I (finally) caught up with my book keeping (sigh).

Now, to the weather – frankly, it has mostly been quite wintry, with the occasional day above 10C. The temperature actually reached 14C the other day, seemed almost warm!!! We had another fall of snow late last month, this time a bit heavier; it snowed on and off all night. We, of course, got plenty of photos, especially since it is likely that was the last of the snow this season.

As it happens, the night it snowed, we had a booking at the restaurant that I mentioned in my last post. The owner had contacted us to market their wholesale food service (felafel, etc) and the restaurant, so we decided to visit the restaurant. We told them this in an email indicating we would be buying their product for our guests. They replied asking us if we wanted a reservation made for Saturday night!!! Nothing like direct action for positive outcomes!

We walked there, which took around 30 minutes. It wasn’t windy and the snow wasn’t too heavy, so it was quite a pleasant walk. The owner arrived after we were seated and once he found out we were there, came over and joined us for dinner 😊. The food was good and the surroundings were quite pleasant, with an eclectic mix of decorations and furniture, including some very large lounge furniture. Quite comfortable for a restaurant/bar, which it is.

 The owner (in grey)

On 3 February, we celebrated Setsubun, which is officially the day before the beginning of spring. It is complemented by a ritual called mamemaki, which is meant to cleanse all the ‘evil’ of the previous year and drive away disease-bringing ‘evil spirits’ for the new year (it was originally new year’s eve at this time here). I carried out the mamemaki this year, not traditional for a female but I am a pig and it is my year, so…

Anyway, I threw the roasted soybeans out each of the doors of our home, calling out ‘Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi! – basically meaning ‘Demons out! Luck in!’. We also each ate our age plus one of the remaining soybeans. Along with this, it is customary in the Kansai region to eat uncut makizushi (rolled sushi) called ehō-maki (which literally means lucky direction roll) in silence on Setsubun while facing the year’s lucky compass direction, which is determined by the zodiac animal of the year. So, Craig made us some makizushi with cucumber and avocado for dinner which we ate while standing facing ENE.

During the day we walked over to Yasaka jinja, to see the Setsubun festivities there. I bought a bag of soybeans, for good luck, and then stood in line for around 20 minutes waiting to select a number which determined what prize you would win with the ticket they give you. I only bought one bag and hence received only one ticket. Many other people were buying multiples – a good money maker for the shrine! Unfortunately, this time I only won a bottle of soft drink.

 It’s a straw turtle

After that we went over to wait for the Shinto priests to come out for the celebratory activities, which includes throwing packets of soybeans (similar to the ones I bought) out to the gathered crowd. It is considered very lucky to catch one of these bags. We weren’t sure what time the formal festivities commenced, so we waited for around 15 minutes until Craig tired of this and went to find out what the start time was. It turned out it was another 30 minutes away and Craig wasn’t overly keen  to stand there that long. I decided that, as standing in a restive and growing crowd for 45 minutes in total was going to be increasingly uncomfortable, I might as well pay my respects to kami and leave.

On the way home we passed by Entokuin, a small temple associated with Kodaiji, which we had never visited. So we decided to take the opportunity to go in there when it was fairly quiet. Entokuin was built for Nene, the wife of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, by her nephew. According to the board out front, Nene had this temple built in 1605, 10 years after she had Kodaiji built post his death. She lived in Entokuin for 19 years and apparently visited Kodaiji every day to pray for her husband. A lovely place and very peaceful, with some beautiful fusuma-e (paintings on the sliding doors (fusuma)) painted by Hasegawa Tohaku in the 1500s. Many things were taken from Momoyama castle to Entokuin, presumably these fusuma were included in that.

The white dragon is Toyotomi and the cormorants his subordinates

Before I sign off, I thought I would mention my visits to the gym this week. I decided it was time to start going to two classes each time I visited there, since it takes around 30 minutes to travel there, rather than going more often. On Tuesday, there is a ballet class before Zumba, so that seemed opportune as I feel I am now getting back into the swing of ballet (or should that be spin?). This class is run by a different instructor and is a little harder than Friday’s class, but was good. The instructor can also speak some English, so she went out of her way to tell me things in English, which was mostly unnecessary, but she is trying to be helpful.

On Friday, after ballet class, there is a “theatre Jazz” class (actually written in Japanese style English “shiata-JAZZ). I wasn’t exactly sure what this would entail, but I have never done Jazz before and thought it might be fun. Turns out half the class was stretching and limbering up, then the other half hour was spent doing a dance to ‘Another Day of Sun’ from La La Land. Most of the people in the class already knew the routine, and I was flat out trying to learn it! It was quite fast and doing moves which I had no experience of. None-the-less, I did enjoy it and will go back next Friday to try to get it right 😊.

You can never have too many opportunities to dance.

Cheers!

Warm gloves are essential! The skulls optional…

A new shikishi

It snowed on the mountains while I was at gym

This was at Entokuin

Just because I love these buildings

A kawaii handbag!

Whip it good?

A stowaway? Should this be reported to the Pastafarians?

No remark/observation/annotation…

Hello there – tis me again, sitting at the keyboard fully rugged up on a rather dull day. It is very overcast today and quite dark inside. We even had a little rain this morning. This is in complete contrast to many of the recent days which have been glorious, clear and sunny though quite cold, being winter as it is. We haven’t had any more snow as yet but there may be some on the horizon.

I’m finding winter a lot easier to cope with this year, in part because our house is very well set up for winter, with the double glazing making a huge difference. In addition, the underfloor heating which we have on timer to start late in the afternoon and turn off when we go to bed, along with the air conditioner which we have on overnight (set at 17C), means the temperature inside stays fairly constant. The kids have told us they are quite satisfied with their new living conditions.

Now that we have some money I have also made some clothing purchases which are more suitable for this climate than what I had previously. Uniqlo has a range of items called Tech Warm which are extensive and aren’t overly expensive. I am living in the Ultra Warm tops and have one pair of their jeans I wear on really cold days when we go out. I also bought a new puffy jacket the other day just to wear at home. It was ¥2,500 down from ¥9,500!!! (I do love a bargain) On xmas day I also found a pair of locally made pants at the market we went to, composed of Japanese design material and which are fleecy lined. One other good recent purchase is a fleecy cover for the futon, which you sleep directly on – it is very warm and not cold when you first get into bed 😊. Of course, heated toilet seats are indispensable, so much so that it is a real shock when we are out and find one that is not heated (a rarity, thankfully!).

A picture of sartorial elegance I’m not – but warm!

I am now attending gym twice a week – three times a week would be better, but it is a bit of a hike to get there. At the moment I am doing about half an hour of stretching before each class, and do I need it having not done much since I’ve been here. I am going to a Zumba class and a ballet class, both 1 hour. The Zumba class is fantastic fun, with great music and lots of different styles of dancing. I knew it was going to be good when the very first song was September, by Earth, Wind and Fire, one of my favourites. The instructor is full of energy and really enjoys herself, and she changes between routines from the more funky to Latin, to Bollywood style to hip hop,…I love it.

I am going to a different ballet class from the first one I tried. This one is a little less intense and the teacher actually spends time telling people how to do the exercises, which is good for those who are new to ballet. Most of the class is barre work, with around 15 minutes of centre work. Much better for me trying to get back into the swing (as it were). I have bought a pair of shoes and may even go back to the other class down the track, but for now, this is good.

During this period we received an email from a new business which is targeting the growing vegan market by making bulk falafel, pita bread and hummus. Not sure how they got our email address, but I’m glad they did. We ordered a free product test kit, which was good and we are thinking of buying some to make available for our guests to buy as either lunch or dinner. They are also opening a restaurant fairly close to us, which will also give our guests another option for dinner.

There have been a lot of celebrations happening at temples and shrines for the new year in the last two weeks and we decided to go to one of them after Takako told us it would be a good one to go to. It was at the Kyoto Ebisu shrine, which is in the Gion area. We weren’t sure what it was going to involve, but when we got there we found the street outside the shrine lined with stalls of all sorts (more food than anything else).

Inside the shrine people were lined up to pray for good luck for the year and to buy branches of lucky bamboo grass, called Fuku-Zasa, which has been blessed in a special ritual by a shrine ‘maiden’. They then buy more lucky charms and talismans, which they attach to the bamboo branch. These charms come in all kinds of designs, but two of the most common we saw were treasure boats (for wealth) and red sea bream (for future success). We considered buying one, until we found out that the bamboo was ¥3,000 alone. So, we wandered around the stalls, bought a couple of things and then I prayed for good luck for the business at the shrine before we left.

The ‘maiden’ is dancing behind, with musicians at the back

Our purchases – a good luck charm of Ebisu and another shikishi (painted by a Buddhist monk)

Recently, we discovered there are some Costco stores here in Japan, with one in Kyoto prefecture. We decided it would be a good idea to join as a business to buy some of the necessaries in bulk, so went on an excursion to the store last week, with Takako in tow. The store is located about halfway between Kyoto and Osaka and took us about 30 minutes by car to get there. We thought we should go to see what they had the first time, but in future we can order and have items delivered for free.

I had never been to a Costco before and had no idea how huge it would be, luckily I wore my walking shoes because a full tour of the store was like a half marathon, but with a giant trolley. There weren’t as many things available as we had hoped for, nonetheless we managed to spend a large chunk of money and we are now well stocked up with toilet and kitchen paper, along with various other useful items. I also found a huge bag of frozen blueberries and a bag of frozen avocado…had never seen this before but, given how hard it is to get good avocados here, I’m hoping this is a good way to buy them!!

…and, speaking of avocados, we attended another vegan event yesterday, this time a special one-off vegan menu was being served at a mexican style restaurant which specialises in burritos. The place would normally hold up to 14 people, but over 20 people turned up for lunch, so some were standing inside, while others had to wait outside. Luckily it was one of those glorious sunny days, so it wasn’t too uncomfortable outside. We arrived just in time to get the last two seats, thank goodness. Most of the people there were foreigners, and most knew each other. It reinforced for us just how large the foreign vegan/vegetarian contingent is here. The food was good and while we had only met one person who was there before, it is good to get ourselves and our business name out there. We suggested to the people running the restaurant that it might be a good thing to continue with some vegan options on the menu in future. Fingers crossed!

Well, that’s all for now.

Cheers!!!

 Couldn’t resist this one!

Who knew Tanuki might need glasses? Must check ours!

 Sunbaking in winter…

There are 32 rows holding 1,200 dolls in this temple

 Just an interesting building

It was a coat? Which one? 

Apparently this mascot (supposedly an otter) was sacked for doing inappropriate things…

Happy New Year!!!!! Hello and welcome to 2019, the year of the pig, or inoshishi as it is called here (meaning wild boar). So, yes, I am a wild boar instead of a pig…and I’ll leave that as it is.

In terms of the weather here, well it’s winter and unsurprisingly it has been cold. Most of the days in the past two weeks have been sub 10C, with most nights hovering just above 0C. One unexpected event, this early in the season, was a fall of snow a few days after xmas. It wasn’t much here, just a dusting, but further north in our prefecture and those nearby had some heavy falls.

Last time I wrote, we had two lots of guests staying here – four people – who all left us on 24 December. It was certainly nice to have some guests late in December; a brother and sister meeting here before xmas (one from the UK and the other from Hong Kong) and an older Swiss couple (which, by the way, was a little spooky, initially, after our previous experience) one of whom works for the Swiss consulate in Tokyo. All lovely people.

The day after they all left, being xmas day, we went for our traditional Indian lunch at Ajanta restaurant. Delicious as always, and made even more enjoyable by the ever streaming Bollywood music videos. I am a bit of a sucker for Bollywood music and dance. After lunch, we went to the Kitano Tenmagu market to meet up with Takako, if only briefly, as she was not going to be there until 4:00pm, and we had to get home to feed the kids (it takes a long time to get from there back home). The market was going to continue into the evening, as a special event. This was the first time we had been to this market, having only been to the Toji and craft markets before.

Not tea, spicy carrot and tomato soup. Yum!!!

We had a bit over an hour to kill before she arrived and so we looked around the market. It was a huge market with new and secondhand stalls, along with many food stalls. Being a secondhand items addict, we spent most time at these stalls. I really wanted to find a shikishi, which are small to medium sized pieces of cardboard used for calligraphy, paintings, etc. I had previously bought a circular frame from the craft museum, which is designed to hold shikishi, so was keen to find something there. We looked through many in a number of stalls and in the end found one we both liked and thought appropriate for our minshuku.

Once home, we made toasties and watched Love Actually, another xmas tradition. I can never get enough of watching Bill Nighy playing an inappropriate and ageing rock star. Hugh Grant plays, as always, Hugh Grant 😊. I am also a fan of lobsters at the Nativity!

While we don’t exchange gifts for xmas, surprisingly we did receive a xmas present this year, as the prize for the Nature’s Charm competition arrived shortly after xmas – and what a gift! We didn’t know exactly what we would be getting, so when a largish box arrived we were surprised. Inside were ten items, all different and all vegan. We are still working out how to make best use of all the items, having started simply by eating strawberries dipped in the chocolate sauce.

On the Saturday after xmas, we attended a vegan cooking class we had been invited to by Sakiko to watch the class and eat some of the resultant foods. It was held in a 300 year old Samurai house fairly near Kyoto station, called Kyoto Concierge Salon. BentoYa rents space in this house every Saturday to run the classes. Other classes and experiences are also held in this venue, such as the tea ceremony, ikebana classes, kimono rental, and even a traditional dance class.

We had a fantastic time, meeting the owner of BentoYa, who was there from Tokyo for the year end class and the owner of the venue, Shinzo, and his fiancé Serena, watching the class, meeting a family of four from Sydney who were doing the class and getting to eat some ramen and gyoza produced in the class. Yum!

It seems that the BentoYa people are keen to partner with us and, as it happens, so is the owner of the venue, who invited both himself and his fiancé to our place to see the minshuku and try our breakfast! Highly unusual behaviour for a Japanese person, but we were delighted they did!!! They loved our minshuku and enjoyed the breakfast and made some good suggestions to help us with marketing. They also invited us to try some of their classes and experiences, as well as giving us two gifts (one as we left their venue and one on arrival at our home).

A beautiful handmade tissue box cover

A shamoji from a shrine they visited for new year

In a return to an old segment – the wonderful world of tv in Japan – I just had to mention a programme we saw the other night. I have to say we often see really interesting segments and programmes on tv, many of which lead us to interesting places and sometimes things or people. In this case, the programme was about a female Japanese artist named Toko Shinoda. She was born in 1913 and is currently still alive and fairly well – quite lucid, in fact, and says she still puts brush to paper every day.

  At work years ago

 Shinoda now

She began as a calligrapher and had her first solo exhibition in 1936. By 1945 she was producing more abstract forms, departing significantly from the strictness of calligraphy. In 1956 she moved to New York, after successfully exhibiting there. While living there she was exposed to abstract expressionism, including the work of Jackson Pollock, which had an impact on her work. She has been prolific over the years and her work can be found in galleries and private collections around the world. If I had the money…

…and on that note, here endeth my first blog for the year. I hope you all have a wonderful year, and let’s hope things move in a much more positive way this year.

Cheers!

Gambolling inoshishi

Found while out on a walk 

 Last vestiges of colour

 Then, on the ground

Haven’t had anything kawaii for a while!

Glorious sunny (if cold) days on the Kamogawa

A very small guest under our verandah (hard to get a good photo, was spooked easily)

Thank goodness for the under floor heating!

Hello and welcome to Year 3!!! My, doesn’t time fly…have I talked about that before? Oh well, time flies and takes some of your mind with it – or, is it getting to the point of being too full? I might have to do an archiving process 😊. So, here I am at the beginning of my third year here with the knowledge that this year is indeed going to be all about me, actually 2019 is the year of the pig and as I am a pig (or boar as the Japanese call it – if I call myself a pig they look at me blankly), it has to be a good year for me – right?

We have been quite busy recently, with many different things to do (bureaucracy), places to go and people to meet, along with the usual shopping outings. On one of our shopping outings, we took the opportunity to walk home via the Kiyomizu old shopping area where there is a lovely small garden in behind the shops. I have added photos of this garden in one of my previous posts, but this time we get the added bonus of autumnal colour.

We also took the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to go to the Ohara farmers market again while we had no guests staying here. Always a lovely place to go, with plenty of good produce and the bonus of being out in a mountainous area. Takako (our employee) wanted to go to the market to buy a brazier the same as one I had bought when we went there with our friends. Any excuse is good for us.

 Takako and daikon friend!

The night before we went to Ohara, we went to a vegan meet-up, organised by the Kyoto Vegan Meet-up Group, which we had discovered via Instagram. We had previously looked to see whether there was a Kyoto vegan group because we had found a Tokyo group and hoped to find one here that we could join, but without luck. Then fortuitously we found one while browsing through postings and our site.

The meet-up was held at Vegans Café, which is not normally open at night, with a cover charge of ¥3,000 each for all you could eat – and there was a lot of food. Before we went I had wondered if we would be amongst a group of Japanese people, with whom we would only be able to have brief conversations. It was not to be, however, as most of the people there were foreigners living in Japan. It turned out to be an even better networking opportunity than we thought, with the added bonus of a good meal!

The first round of food!

At the meet-up we met a woman living here who was in the process of setting up a website for vegan people living in Japan and visitors to Japan. A sort of practical guide to vegan life here. Anyway, she asked if she could do a story on us for her site, which of course we agreed to enthusiastically. In fact, we offered her 1 night’s free accommodation for both her and her friend who was coming to see her. We haven’t seen the story yet because she was returning to Germany shortly after for xmas and would not have time to work on it until later this month. Once it is posted I will add the address to my blog.

We also found another person via Instagram this month, who runs a vegan Japanese cooking class in Kyoto. I contacted her via her site to get some details for our guests and she offered to come to our place to meet us and deliver some flyers. Her name is Sakiko, she speaks fairly good English and she is a lovely person! She suggested that she could run a special class here, in our kitchen, if any guests were interested. We’re hoping she will have time to come here soon and run a class for us, so we can see how it goes.

Our brushes with bureaucracy involved both the Kyoto tax office and our immigration lawyer. Apparently all new buildings are visited by a tax official in the first year to check the building for valuation purposes to assess land and property tax. This must be a huge burden on the office, in terms of staff time, checking whether the building is as it is stated in the registration documents. He was a very nice man and he spent his time here checking the architectural plans and then going through the entire building checking what materials were used in the construction, etc. This kind of double checking would never happen in Australia, unless there was a really (really) good reason. The cost to government and, hence, taxpayers would be huge, for very little benefit.

In terms of our lawyer, we had to finalise the capitalisation of the company, which we were able to do once we received the final payment for our flat. We basically had to show we had credited the amount in the company bank account. Unfortunately it turned out to be a problem because we had deposited the cash via an ATM, with the dual purpose of counting the cash as it went in. The lawyer said we needed to show we had deposited the amount, personally, ie having our names against the transaction.

So, we had to go to the bank, withdraw the money, deposit it into our own accounts and then reverse the process, thereby having our names against the transactions. Hhhmmm. How to explain what we needed to do, and why, to the bank staff? Would they think we were crazy foreigners? Dodgy criminals? Just plain weird, or all of the above? Anyway, with the help of Takako we managed to get it done, and our lawyer was happy. It also cost us his fee and the capital input tax…yes, they tax money being put into a company here!

We have been able to do a few things since we received the money for our flat – Craig has bought a bike, I have joined a gym and we bought a new piece of furniture to house some of our ‘treasures’. As I sit here, I am well aware of my recent foray to the gym – to do a ballet class – thanks to the pain in my leg muscles! Yes, they have many different types of exercise classes, including a number of dance classes, such as hula, latin, hiphop, ‘freestyle’ and ballet. I was assuming the ballet class would be more like a barre class but, no, it was a full-on ballet class. It went for an hour and a half and I did many things I hadn’t done for many (many) years, including pirouettes (both en dehors and en dedans). Thankfully there was no grande jete or fouetté (apologies to those who don’t know what these are; basically the first is a leap and the second is turning on one leg with the other leg raised and ‘whipping’ around so that you turn. If you’ve ever seen Swan Lake, you’ll have seen many fouettes).

The final, and most important, outing that I am going to mention happened on 15 December – yes, it was our anniversary; 29 years together and 27 years married!!! Have I mentioned the whole time flying thing previously? We went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant to celebrate, for something a little different. We hadn’t booked, so had to wait over half an hour to be seated and it was somewhat cold sitting outside, but we were together and that’s all that really matters.

It must be love…😊.

Cheers

Have a Merry Addams Festive Solstice Season!!!

We entered a competition to win some veg products from America – and won!

The fireys training outside with their tiny trucks

Kawaii or kowai (scary)?

 Yayoi skateboards?

Now, where was I up to…? Ah, yes, re-visiting Fudo-myo, and watching him watch me. The next day’s schedule began with a bus ride to the Heian jinja and museum area. We started by going into the shrine and the lovely garden behind the shrine. It was a gloriously sunny day and perfect for wandering in a garden/park. We ended up sitting on the covered bridge, soaking up the sun, warmth and view. What a wonderfully peaceful and relaxing thing to do.

Once we awakened from our reverie, we went through a touristy shopping complex and then on to the Kyoto craft museum, where I spent some time imagining I had more money to buy, and the room to store, quite a few items. It’s nice to dream occasionally but the truth is I don’t actually need any of these items – it’s still fun to dream, though 😊.

Given it was a nice day, I had decided to walk back to the Gion area via the canal , which is also a pleasant way to spend time. We stopped part-way along the canal and had a drink at small café, sitting on some chairs outside. While we sat there, an elderly lady came out of the café, said hello to us and walked off. Around five minutes later she returned, gave us a bag of coffee lollies and then walked off in the opposite direction! Another example of the generosity of spirit that exists here in so many people.

Next morning was Sunday and so it was time to take our guests to the Ohara famer’s markets. Ohara truly is a lovey place, surrounded, as it is, by beautifully forested mountains. We went to both the markets, and ended up sitting drinking coffee and soaking up the atmosphere at both. We also bought some foodstuffs and had fun scouring the secondhand stall at the smaller market, making some wise (and very cheap) investments. My friend also bought and armful, or two, of flowers and foliage – and so, later that day, our dining room ended up looking somewhat like a florist.

After the markets, we continued on to Sanzen-in, walking up the pathway lined with small shops. While the hydrangea garden at the temple looked a little bedraggled, the Autumnal colour more than made up for that. It was fairly crowded there, being a Sunday, but still a very nice place to visit and spend some time walking around in nature. Again it was a sunny day and a most pleasant time was had by all.

While we were wandering around the Gion, we had noticed a poster for the Yayoi Kusama exhibition, which I had been to many months prior. The poster indicated that the exhibition had been extended and was currently still showing, so we decided we would take the opportunity to go while they were here. I am always happy to see her work, being one of my favourite artists, and there were a number of paintings and prints there that I wanted to see again. As it happened, the exhibits had been changed, including the large pumpkin outside which was now a red version. So, it was an entirely different exhibition and even had a large walk-through installation. A fantastic surprise.

From there, we took a bus to Nijo-jo, which is another place I am always happy to return to. One thing that always strikes me when I am showing people these places is how I can experience a new perspective through their eyes. By the time we had finished looking through Nijo-jo it was mid afternoon, even so, I thought it was worth going on to Kitano Tenmangu. As it turned out we didn’t end up having enough time to go into the wooded area, particularly as six busloads of people, mostly students, arrived as we were there.

Our final full day involved a sumptuous collection of temple gardens and Autumn colour. The colour was finally reaching peak perfection (although, it is still darkening up, even now). We first visited Kodai-ji, where I discovered one of the buildings had disappeared…Not sure why it was gone, but it looks like the replacement is going to be virtually identical, which makes me wonder if it was badly damaged by Typhoon 21.

After this, we went on to Nanzen-ji and then Eikando, a place I had never been before. All of these were visually superb and probably would have been enough in one day, but we had enough time to continue on along the Philosopher’s Path ending up at Ginkaku-ji. Stunning, not much more to say really.

 A sneaky shot

I know that the majority of the photos I am posting in this and my previous missive involve trees, sometimes with buildings as backdrops, but this time of year brings on a kind of warm-colour palette madness, I think. Even now, when we are walking back towards our home, with the hills as background, I don’t get tired of looking at the Autumn colour as it continues developing. While I always love Spring; the renewal of life and the prospect of the warm seasons, I actually have many more photos of Autumn here than the blossom – and I just love to inflict them on you!!!

So, that’s the end of this post and my second year here, but definitely not the end of Autumn, yet.

Cheers for now

My friend…

 Illumination at Kyoto station

  Oops

Hello and welcome to the Autumn episode of this year’s bloggings (a new word for this episode!).Before I start on the full spectrum of this season, I thought I should note that today is the second anniversary of my residence here in Kyoto. Does it feel like two years? Not sure how to answer that – time is a relative thing and certainly the more you experience of it the faster it seems to pass. I know a lot has happened since I moved here, although I had thought it would all happen faster than it has (in the real-time sense). All I can say is that it definitely has been worth it, because we are meeting such lovely people (well, 99% of them) and we get to go to and see such beautiful places and things. We are also living in a really nice home in a good area.

The other thing about time is that it is very easy to fill up when there are guests here and so a period of, say, three weeks may pass before there is time to sit down at the keyboard and write one’s episodic postings. What it does mean is that I have many (many) photos to upload (mostly of trees and gardens, as is my wont in Autumn), so I will be splitting this episode into two parts.

First, to the weather, which is being brought to us all by the letters W T & F (ok, I borrowed that from a meme, but it seems very relevant for us all). Here, we are getting some very cold weather, with overnight lows under 10C at the moment. Last night the minimum was 5C. The days are cool with some overcast and grey, and then, like today, lovely and sunny. When the sun goes behind the clouds however, you can really feel the temperature drop. The only thing we are not getting is rain, which is unusual.

We did have a short spurt of low 20s for a few days a couple of weeks ago but as I said last time, since the heat of summer has passed it has cooled down quite suddenly. For the people of Australia, well, who knows what’s going on. Prepare for anything and you most probably will be right.

This month we have had a reasonable number of guests come through, including a very good friend from Australia. Knowing that she was going to be coming here at this time of year, I developed an itinerary that included many locations which would afford plenty of Autumnal colour, as well as the usual temples, shrines and other historic places. I had pre-warned her to make sure she was ready for quite a bit of walking, because I would be dragging her (and her friend) to all parts of Kyoto. And, so it was…

On the first day they arrived, we took them to see Tofukuji, which is close to home and has some wonderful garden areas, including the gully, which has many deciduous trees. The colour at this stage had begun, but was still building. This meant that there weren’t as many people there as there can be in Autumn, which was a blessing.

Someone has created terrariums of some of the gardens at Tofukuji!

The next day we went on a long hike down past the Kiyomizudera area (thereby avoiding the madding crush) to the Yasaka Pagoda, that iconic view that is quintessentially Kyoto. Continuing on we went into the Maruyama Park to see more trees and then down through Yasaka-jinja to the Gion area. My friend’s friend (names are not used, to protect the innocent!!!) was collecting the stamps and calligraphy at temples and shrines along the way. Unfortunately, because Autumn can be so busy, some of these places were not doing them on the spot, but rather selling pre-written pieces of paper, which is just not the same.

 Cafe Muck???

After the Gion we walked down my favourite street, Kiyamachi dori, which had much less colour than I expected. The colour here this year has been quite patchy, with some trees having changed colour then losing their leaves quickly, while other trees are only really getting to full colour now. We have also seen a few, random cherry trees in blossom. This has likely been caused by the cyclones/typhoon and the hot summer. Apparently there are hormones in the leaves which stop the buds from flowering until the usual time, so, if the leaves are damaged, the hormones are gone and the flowers open. This also means that these trees will not flower next spring.

 Side by side

On our next outing we went to the Arashiyama area, to visit Daikakuji, walk the bamboo path and go into the Tenryuji garden. Again, we saw some colour, but still not how it was last year. None-the-less these are beautiful places and worth the journey to see. We also went into the Randen line railway station, to look at the kimono material poles, which are always fabulous to look at. Having done all of this before lunch, we decided to go to the Iwatayama monkey park after our repast. A nice way to walk off our lunch and we got to see the babies now running around on their own 😊.

The final outing I will cover in this post was a visit back to Tanukidani-fudoin, up the 250 stairs. This also gave Craig and I the opportunity to visit the house, Shisendo, that we missed last time we went up that way. What a lovely home and glorious garden, which was created by Jozan Ishikawa in 1641. He was a samurai before he retired and moved to Kyoto, a scholar of Chinese classics, a master calligrapher and a landscape architect. Following his death, the ownership of his home was passed to Buddhists, as it remains.

Following our sojourn there, we continued up via the Hachidai-jinja and then climbed to the temple area. I was again able to go into the nave to see the statue of Fudo-myo., with those glowing gold eyes that follow you in the dark. This really is a once in a lifetime opportunity that I felt very privileged to see twice.

To be continued…

Cheers!

Last Halloween photo for this year – I promise!

 Is she cold? I am just looking at her!

It’s not a Tonka toy…

No comment 

Hi all, here I am again, in front of the keyboard and thinking about the last couple of weeks. My first thought is that it has been quite cool. I mentioned last time that it had suddenly become cooler and this has not changed since. Some days have had a maximum below 20C and we have had a few sub 10C nights. This has come with consequences; the Autumn colour has started early – very early. For those amongst you who are planning to visit Japan in the next few weeks (and I know at least one member of the reading audience is 😊), DON’T PANIC! It should be at peak colour in about two weeks.

This is nearly one month earlier than last year, which is strange, considering summer was long and HOT. Perhaps there is a set amount of heat available here and we used up most of it for summer, so we have gone straight to cooler weather…OK, just kidding, but it certainly feels like that.

During this period we had another couple staying with us, a young couple from the UK, who were really lovely. After they had left we found two origami butterflies (one large and one small) in their room with a wonderful thankyou note. It’s people like these that really do make it worthwhile. Somewhat different to the previous guests, who we haven’t heard from since (thankfully – although, as I said last time, the woman was a very nice person).

Early last week we met up with the buyer of our flat, again, and received the second instalment of the purchase price. We were also told that she had now sold her flat in Tokyo and so would be able to pay us the final instalment early December. As a result, we are today awaiting the delivery of a washing machine for our minshuku laundry (which we will now be able to call a laundry, not just “this will be a laundry room one day”) and two more light fittings, which will complete all the rooms, in terms of lighting. We still have to get the rest of the bedding and other items needed to complete the final two rooms.

Before I get onto the main outing we have had this fortnight, one thing I didn’t mention in my last post was a visit to the Kyoto local crafts museum, which was well worth the visit and very difficult to come out of empty handed. This building is around the corner from the MOMAK and for some reason we had never been inside. So, we took the opportunity to visit when we went to the MOMAK to buy two Higashiyama Kaii prints, which are now hanging proudly in our upstairs hallway.

The building itself is also interesting

As it happened, on the day we went there, there was a world gem stone fair happening in a huge auditorium on the ground floor, as well as an exhibition put on by the Kyoto City Dohda Senior High School of Art. I managed to get out of the fair with just a small purchase, but was sorely tempted by some of the beautiful amethysts…

The art exhibition was absolutely stunning and appeared to be an annual display of the students’ major works. Some of the exhibits, which included the eight majors of art and design studied at the school, had awards on them, so we assumed there was some judging of the pieces within the eight areas at some point. The school is a specialist art high school which was founded in 1880 in the Kyoto Imperial Palace. Over the years the name has changed slightly and the venue, but it has existed since that time. What a fantastic way to nurture future artists!

Last week, on Halloween, we decided to visit the shrine which is dedicated to Oda Nobunaga (his body was never found), a daimyo who was responsible for the start of the process of unifying Japan. The daimyo were powerful Japanese feudal lords who basically disappeared in the early Meiji period (the late 1800s). Nobunaga is also known for his brutal suppression of determined opponents, including the thousands of monks and civilians living on Mt Hiei, so it seemed somehow appropriate to visit this shrine for Halloween.

(Before I go on, I would like to point out that the photos I took on this day were taken with a new phone I bought (due to my other phone gradually becoming unusable) and it was the first time I had used to phone for this purpose. As a result, the quality of some of the photos is a little less than desirable. Another learning experience.)

The shrine is located on top of a hill known as Mt Funaoka, although it isn’t overly high. It was a pleasant walk up to the shrine, as it is still wooded and there were very few people around. The hill itself is long and fairly narrow and is oriented in an east/west direction. It is said it was used as a reference point when Kyoto was laid out as the new capital in 794.

It has also been strategically important over the years, being used as the site for the military base of the west army during the Onin Wars and another important battle was fought there decades later. Years later the land was donated to Daitoku-ji temple and in 1931 was opened as Funaokayama Park, used for recreational purposes.

Following our exploration of Funaokayama, we went to visit nearby Imamiya shrine and Daitokui-ji temple. Imamiya shrine was originally established in 994 for people to pray for safety from an epidemic of the times and has subsequently evolved into a shrine where people can pray for general good health. It too is located within a forest and is a really picturesque shrine – a nice place to stay away from epidemics…

Craig and I had been to Daitoku-ji before, but the day we visited was quite wet, so we thought it would be nice to see it sans umbrellas. We also had by-passed one of the garden areas, so we took this opportunity to look inside. Daitoku-ji is a very large Zen Budhhist complex, covering 23 hectares, and is laid out with many wooded areas. It is a very peaceful place to be, despite being in the middle of an urban area. The inner garden we went into was worth the price to get in but, unfortunately, you are not allowed to take photos inside, which we were reminded of many times (despite having put away our photographic devices)!

Before I sign-off, I thought I might mention the amount of damage that we, and our guests, are seeing at various sights across Kyoto, inflicted by Typhoon 21. We have seen many roofs with damage, especially roofs of temples and shrines which are missing tiles, and we are seeing very significant damage to trees, the majority of which are large trees. Some are completely blown over, others missing limbs and yet others literally snapped in half. Work is ongoing to remove the damage, but there is so much it is taking a long time to cut down and store the remains these trees. Everywhere we are seeing huge piles of wood.

A roof without a base – not sure what happened to it

The other night we saw a program on tv which showed the damage wreaked at Kurama-dera, on Mt Kurama. This is one of my favourite temples and one of my favourite walks climbing up to the temple, near the top of the mountain. They said that around 500 trees had been significantly damaged or brought down. We only knew it had been closed to the public when a guest (who I had directed there) returned and said the train didn’t go all the way to the Kurama station, stopping at the station before and the temple was closed. The show said that the cable car at the temple had that day been re-opened to take people up to the main part of the complex, but they didn’t expect to re-open the walk-way until early next year.

On that sad note, I bid you adieu.

Cheers

Halloween costumes for your pets

and that’s it for Halloween – this year

Close up details

A stray cat at Funaokayama that looked a lot like Zowie

H&C immortalised on Google Street View!!! (with blurry faces)

Well, what an interesting two weeks it has been since we last spoke! On the weather front, there haven’t been any more cyclones/typhoon and the weather has very suddenly cooled somewhat. We are now experiencing days of low 20s and cool nights – cool enough to require quilts. It has been so long since we needed any bed covers that it is a little strange adjusting. Craig has even worn long pants a few times!!!!!!

So, we signed the contract for our flat, and now just have to wait till late December for settlement. We received a deposit, of which we have distributed the majority to a few vendors (yes, a new vacuum, a new, grown up fridge for us 😊 and new teeth/crown for me). What a wonderful thing it is having a vacuum that actually picks up all the bits and pieces, including cat fur.

Since my last post, we have had a few guests staying with us, again some lovely people – all except for the last guests, who we had to ask to leave…They were a Swiss couple in their early 70s, who had booked for seven nights and who had assured us that they were fit and able to get around easily, which indeed they were. What we didn’t know is that there were other issues – in particular, some mental health issues. The first night was ok, although I didn’t really take to the husband; he was somewhat gruff and sour looking. They came in late, so we didn’t do the credit card transaction for our fee, leaving it until the next day.

Unfortunately, because both they and the other guests we had staying had a late breakfast and then talked for a while, we didn’t get a chance to charge them next day, as we had to go to my dental appointment and then had other things to do. In the early evening we had to take the young couple to the station to catch the train to the airport, mainly because the female was a bit unwell, with a bad cold. So, again we didn’t catch up with the older couple for the payment transaction.

That night, they came in later and went upstairs to go to bed. After a while, I started hearing some noises and some slightly raised voices, etc, but thought maybe they were just loud people – until, the yelling started. We were already in bed, but got up and rushed upstairs in our PJs. We had no idea what was going to happen. The husband was ranting, mostly in English, for our benefit, although he did swap back to Swiss German when he didn’t really want us to understand (which, as it happens I did a bit, having learnt some German at school, and the two languages are fairly similar).

We tried to calm things down but he was not going to be easily calmed, so we moved the wife into another room hoping that this would at least calm things for the night. We went back to bed and he went out for a walk. After he returned he went up to his room. Then around twenty minutes later, loud moaning then banging starts (on the floor, we presume). By the time we get up there, he is storming down the hallway and yelling at his wife to come out and talk (mostly in English, for our benefit). She is ignoring him and not opening the door. He is trying to persuade us to open the door (“I don’t know if she has gone out”. “she could be dead in there”, etc). We refuse.

He starts banging on the door, getting louder, we ask him to quiet down. After a while we talk him into going back to bed. Around 15 minutes later, banging and yelling. Again he is storming down the hallway. I beg him to stop – we need sleep, etc – he says he is suffering, I say that we are suffering also and so are the cats. I am trying desperately to remember all the psychology I have read. On the third time this happens, at around 2am, I finally find something that catches his attention – the circuit breaker we need. So, at 2:30am we finally get back to bed for the night.

The next morning, he acts as if nothing happened! “Good morning…”. He took an early morning walk before breakfast, which gave us a chance to talk to his wife. I told her they would have to go. I also ask a few questions about his state of mind and whether he had ever been physically violent. She said he had pushed her and he threw things, but had not gone beyond that. I had suspected the night before that he would have a go at Craig, if Craig got too close, but he would not touch me (for a number of reasons).

When he got back, they had breakfast and talked (in Swiss German), and things seemed relatively calm until she told him we had said they had to go and that she wanted to stay in Japan as planned, but separately from him. He started up, banging the table and picking up the bench and banging it on the floor. At this point I got really angry at him, and told him what I thought (including finger pointing…). He seemed shocked and the wife seemed bemused. After that, he packed, we charged them for the two nights they were here and he walked off.

We spent some time then talking to the woman and told her she could stay if she wanted to, but she felt it was too risky as he might come back looking for her and cause us more problems. We checked that she had her passport and a credit card, which she did, although her husband didn’t know she had one hidden away and had walked off with the other card!! So, she left to spend some time alone and we haven’t seen or heard anything since. We half expected to see something in the media the next day about an incident between two foreigners.

What an experience – we have learnt a lot from this about ourselves and that no matter how late it is, or what we are doing, we must take the money as soon as guests arrive!!! I now have the police emergency number programmed in my phone – even though in this case we didn’t need it, you just never know.

We have now cleaned the minshuku area top to bottom, in a symbolic clearing of the negative energy he spread around. We have also had two excursions out after this, to relax and renew (as it were). It’s funny, but as it was happening, a random thought went through my head that I would prefer to go through another earthquake to experiencing that situation. Strange the sort of things that can pop into your head at times – or is that just me?????

So, to the outings. The first one was to the National Museum to see the current exhibition – ‘Swords of Kyoto’. The exhibition features 120 blades forged in Kyoto. Kyoto has been home to some of Japan’s most talented swordsmiths, over time, who produced many famous blades. Swords made in various nearby regions are associated with “Yamashiro” (the former name of the province around Kyoto), however, apparently those actually made in the capital have always had the highest status, prized by both nobility and samurai. During the Edo period (1615–1868), swords were frequently exchanged among daimyo lords, and a sword from Kyoto was considered the ultimate gift.

 Crowd director

While we are by no means experts in Japanese swords, we thought it would be interesting to see and it was. I had thought they may show some of the accoutrements that went with these swords, but unfortunately it was not so. It is obviously a very popular exhibition with locals – it opened on 29 Sept and as of Tuesday this week, we had to wait over 30 minutes in a queue to get in.

Our other outing was to visit another temple somewhat off the beaten tourist track – Daikaku-ji. It was originally built in the early 800s as the detached palace of Emperor Saga. After the emperor’s death, the palace was converted into a temple and has since been one of the highest ranked temples of Shingon Buddhism. This temple has been the scene of many important events in Kyoto’s history, with a succession of retired emperors essentially continuing their reign from there (despite being retired), and in the 12th century the temple hosted peace talks that reunited the Northern and Southern Imperial Courts after 50 years of civil war. It is also featured in the Tale of Genji.

Daikaku-ji is made up of several buildings connected by covered, elevated wooden walkways, which squeak as you walk over them, like the “nightingale floors” of Nijojo. One of the most important treasures kept there is a copy of the Heart Sutra which was handwritten by Emperor Saga at the instruction of Kobo Daishi (Kukai). The sutra supposedly ended a mysterious plague that was sweeping the country during the Heian Period and it is now kept in the octagonal Heart Sutra Hall.

Before you enter this hall, you pass by a monk who places a small amount of powdered incense in your palm, which you are then supposed to rub onto both palms and repeat a sutra. The incense had the most beautiful scent, like a mix of cardamom, cinnamon and some other spices. He didn’t get us to repeat the sutra, perhaps because we were foreigners. I tried to find this incense in the temple shops, but alas, it is not sold to the public.

(you aren’t allowed to take shots inside, or of any monks or buddhas, so it prevented any shots of the sutra hall. This shot was a naughty sneaky shot of some of the fusuma in one room, because they were just so stunning)

As with many temples, there is also a large garden area in the temple grounds, dominated by a huge pond. It is the oldest surviving artificial pond in Japan and was created by Emperor Saga, who used to throw elaborate parties there and also used it for recreational activities such as boating, fishing and moon viewing. We were told years ago, on one of our visits to Japan, that there are three ways to view the full moon; up in the sky, reflected in water, such as this pond, and reflected in your cup of sake – my favourite way!! 😊

Reflections. I started having Higashiyama Kaii moments!

Another wonderful temple to visit, with a lot of history and not crowded with people, so you can enjoy the beauty of the buildings and their surrounds, and the tranquillity and relaxation of the temple. The pond has over 3,000 lotus plants in it, which I plan to return to see next year.

That’s all for now – what’s in store next???

Cheers!

Inside the arts and crafts museum

 A special euphonium car! Just for Steven…

So, if you don’t have a card you don’t have a noodle?

Halloween goes on

Xmas is coming – order now for your pet’s cake!

Beautiful sunshine

…and once again I find myself in front of a blank screen, thinking about what to include in this new episode. Actually, it is, of course, only new on paper (as it were), because it is already writ in time, I just have to remember where and what I was up to!

Welcome to this, the 26^th episode of the second year of my life in Kyoto. It is drawing very close to the end of the second year here and we have only just been able to officially open our business. We have had our first official guests now – a family group of three and a single male from the UK. Lovely people and truly enjoyable to be able to start relaxing into the lifestyle – we just need to attract more! We do have another guest arriving today and a group of four arriving tomorrow.

In a first for us, we put on a cooking class for the man from the UK, after his partner contacted us and asked if we would and she would pay us to do so, as a special gift for him. We were a little unsure how it would go, but a typhoon was headed our way and it made sense for the guest to stay in and have dinner here. So, we went ahead making a main (nabe – a Japanese winter stew), a soup and some gyoza. As it turned out, we enjoyed doing it and we are now considering adding this as an option for our guests, if they are interested.

Speaking of cyclones/typhoon, number 24 went through on the weekend and we are now awaiting number 25. As it happened, number 24 had much less impact on Kyoto than they originally forecast, as the cyclone’s path was slightly more to the east then they expected. Yet again the eastern side of Kansai and Shikoku were hit fairly hard, as was Tokyo this time. It looks like number 25 will pass mostly to the west of us, but you never know exactly how they will track until they get here.

 Pre the arrival of no. 24

In between the cyclones, the weather has been beautiful, with warm, sunny days in the high 20s. Perfect weather for going outside and walking, which I am enjoying doing again. Yesterday we went on another outing we had been wanting to do for a while, but which wasn’t possible while I was incapacitated. We had seen a temple on a program on television which is two train rides from us, called (loosely) the Tanuki temple. Since we had been fascinated with tanuki since we first came to Japan, it was a place we were very keen to see.

It is actually the Tanukidani-san Fudō-in temple, which had its beginnings in 1718 and existed only as a cave with a statue until the actual temple complex was built in its present form in 1944. The Buddhism that is practiced there is the ascetic nature worship of Shugendō. This practice combines various Buddhist, Shinto, and Taoist beliefs, and Shugendō can be translated as “the way to spiritual power through discipline”. Generally, this involves acts of physical endurance as the path to enlightenment. Shugendō training can include isolation, fasting, meditation, performing magical spells, reciting sutras, and engaging in severe feats of endurance such as standing/sitting under cold mountain waterfalls or in snow.

The walk to the temple is all uphill, with the final part of the ascent involving the climbing of 250 stairs. On the way up, there are a few small temples and a shrine. It turns out there is also a large temple, the Shisendo temple, which we didn’t realise was there. The gate to this temple is very unassuming, although nice enough that we both took photos of it! Next time we will explore this temple, which apparently has some beautiful gardens.

 Shisendo temple gate

One name that we saw a few times, both in the shrine and in association with Tanukidani-san Fudō-in, is Miyamoto Musashi. He was a swordsman, philosopher, writer and rōnin and spent some time in Kyoto training and fighting a series of duels, including one very famous battle in this area. The shrine has a statue of Miyamoto Musashi and a piece of pine tree around which the aforementioned battle raged.

The climb up to Tanukidani-san Fudō-in is lovely, with the path and stairs passing through a forested area. At the base of the stairs is a very large collection of tanuki statues, which puts our three to shame!!! While the climb up to the main hall area is 250 stairs, it is a punctuated with plateaux and a few tanuki statues which indicate how many stairs you have already climbed. There is also a ‘treasure’ quest, where you have to find five small seated tanuki, placed in and along the pathway and temple (which, of course, I just had to do, set a challenge).

One of the seated tanuki hidden in view

The main hall built in 1944, was designed to front the cave chancel which houses the original statue of Fudo Myo-o, literally translated as the immovable wisdom king. The front of the building has a butai or stage area very reminiscent of Kiyomizudera (but without the crowds, as one description says!). Inside is the usual area where tourists and visitors to temples can stand to see the interior, with the nave area in front of that and then the chancel, which you may or may not be able to see into very well.

This area is where they perform fire walking

As we looked inside, we noticed a sign saying that as it was the 300 year anniversary of the foundation of the temple, people were allowed to go through the nave and into the chancel. This was an opportunity not to be missed and so we did just that. Inside the chancel I realised it literally was a cave, with the statue at the back. It was very low light, but the eyes of the statue glowed gold and it felt like it was watching you, as you stood in front. It was an amazing experience and I felt very lucky to have been there at the right time.

So, yet another fantastic place to visit that is definitely not on the tourist trail and is therefore wonderfully quiet (I think we saw about eight other people while we were there, apart from the monks and a few staff) and gives you the opportunity to really experience a place. The other benefit of going to visit Tanukidani-san Fudō-in is all the other temples and the shrine on the path from the train to the temple. Definitely worth the travel there.

On a final note, tonight we are going to visit a real estate office to sign a contract for the sale of our flat!!!! Unfortunately full settlement is not until late December, but we are getting a couple of deposit type payments in the near future, so we can start buying some of the things we really need for our minshuku – such as a good vacuum (yes, it might sound a bit sad, but I am really looking forward to it!).

Cheers for now

Another new friend and an Australian tree!!!

Our grasshopper family

Ah, Halloween!!!

I always wanted something Vivian Westwood

The mysterious flying tanuki guru

It’s been a long hot, sweaty summer; it seems like years since it’s been cool…

After three months of constant heat and sweaty clothes, we say goodbye…to a somewhat difficult time, including many significant events (of the natural kind). During this time, most days topped 35C (all days at least 32C), with most nights staying above 26C. The most recent of the events have been particularly hard and the after effects are still being dealt with. The train to Kansai has resumed as of this week, while international flights will not fully recommence until this Friday (21/9).

The issues up in Hokkaido are much worse, with the electricity generators which were knocked out (most of them) only now gradually coming back on line. Apparently there have been over 500,000 accommodation cancellations in Hokkaido, and it appears that cancellations have occurred in other areas around Japan, although not to the same extent. Certainly, there seem to be less tourists in Kyoto at the moment.

Since my last post, we have been out and about a lot more, both because it is somewhat cooler and, thankfully, my toe is now back to it’s old self, ie pain free. We have seen some of the damage that was done by the typhoon/cyclone and it is quite visible everywhere we go. A lot of old houses, mostly those that are unoccupied, have sustained significant damage, and many buildings with tiled roofs have incurred varying amounts of damage. In addition, many trees have literally snapped in half.

Two buildings near our home, which had been slightly damaged by both the earthquake and the previous typhoon have partially collapsed, and should now be completely demolished. Who is going to do this is another question. We’re not sure if the house down the road was occupied, or not, but it is still full of personal items, such as clothing, with some of it spread down the slope at the back of the house. It looks rather like the house has vomited!

Our main outings during the period covered by this post were going to the craft market which we had been to before, as a follow up (in much cooler weather) and to see the macaque monkeys at Arashiyama.

The craft market is held on the 15^th of every month in all weather, according to the official website, which we checked before we left home because it was a rainy day. When we arrived at the temple, however, there was nothing except a lone Japanese man sitting at the entrance. As we stood there, slightly confused, we overheard him telling some Japanese people that it had been cancelled because of damage incurred during the typhoon. He didn’t attempt to talk to foreigners who arrived there (including us), so most were wandering around looking perplexed.

We decided to go inside to see what had happened to the temple complex and it turned out it had suffered the fate that so many tile roofed buildings had suffered, tiles had been blown off and broken. The main damage there was the dislodging of ridge cap tiles on most of the buildings. The day wasn’t a complete loss, though, as we found a really good plant nursery in the area, which we will be returning to in our car in the future to make some purchases for our backyard.

On Monday, of this week, we finally made the journey to the Iwatayama monkey park at Arashiyama, which we had put off until I was capable of climbing up to the top of the hill where the monkeys live. It was a lovely day, high 20s (which I like best) and a bit overcast, so the sun wasn’t biting too much. The walk up is a bit strenuous, but it is through wooded areas and there are some seats along the way for those who need to do it in stages. I was surprised how well I did, given the six weeks of minimal activity I had just been through.

The monkeys are a wild troop, just as they are at Yudanaka in Nagano prefecture, which we visited in 2011. There aren’t as many in the Arashiyama troop (around 170), but still enough that you get to see plenty of activity and different behaviours. When we arrived at the top section, there were two macaques engaging in one clearly recognisable behaviour, much to the amusement of onlookers. Interestingly, they were engaging in the behaviour at very short and regular intervals, following a loud screeching noise from the female (which we assumed meant “ok, again”). Both were visibly exhausted, but continued engaging in the behaviour the whole time we spent looking around the park. I don’t know if this is usual ‘engaging in the behaviour’ conduct for macaques, I couldn’t find any information readily available on the internet about it.

Unlike visiting the troop at Yudanaka, visitors can feed the monkeys at Arashiyama but they have to buy the appropriate feed and then they have to go into a cage and pass the food out to the monkeys. I found it quite appropriate seeing the people on the inside of the cage and the monkeys outside watching them!! It is definitely worth the walk up to see the monkeys and to experience the behaviours (all of them!) of a wild troop. It is important to remember that they are wild animals and you must observe the rules about interacting with them, even though they are acclimatised to humans being there. The other positive about going up to the top of the park is the view of Kyoto you get from there.

Returning to the typhoon commentary, we saw many trees which were snapped in half around the area and some light poles which were bent over. The human cage building had also sustained some damage to the roof, but luckily it came out relatively unscathed. Also damaged by the winds was the famous bridge over the Ooigawa/Katsuragawa (same river, the name changes after the bridge), where the railing on the Katsuragawa side is broken and collapsed.

One thing I thought you might be interested in, before I sign off, is our recent visits to the dentist here. It all started when I was testing some toffee that we were making as part of a birthday dessert for a guest, which turned out to be stickjaw toffee and I broke a tooth on it…☹. Luckily we were able to find a dental surgery where someone spoke some English, because neither of us had learnt any language about caries, fillings, dental care etc.

Anyway, we are both part of the national health scheme here, which is available to all those who live here, and standard dentistry is covered in this scheme. On the first visit, x-rays are taken of your teeth, along with photos, then you get a general check up and a clean. All of this for ¥4,280!!! Since that time, I have had a number of visits, as they found a few small caries and they are now working on getting my teeth in order and my gums as perfect as is possible.

The fillings cost ¥1,900 each and a clean is only marginally more than that. I am also going through the process of getting a crown to replace the missing tooth. I can have a metal one basically free as part of the scheme, or if I want one that looks like real teeth, then it is going to cost what I suspect it would cost in Australia. They are very gentle in everything they do, including the hygienist, which is good since I have a bit of a phobia about dentistry. Even the injection is more ‘friendly’ here, playing the tune to When You Wish Upon a Star, as the dentist is using it!!!

Well, that’s all for now – cheers😊.

Only now? Where are they normally?

Trains expand in the wash…

??? Is that Spiky behind? Is Spiky spicy?

There are even Halloween toys for animals!