Well, the waiting is over and Typhoon 21 did live up to the hype (I have seen coverage in other countries calling it Jebi, but names are rarely used here). Apparently it is the strongest typhoon to hit Japan in 25 years.

Hi all, just thought I’d post a very quick episode to let you all know that we are ok and came through the cyclone/typhoon unscathed. I have to say, I am extremely glad it came through during the day because the noises at night and not knowing what was happening would have been quite scary.

It lasted about five hours here, with maximum gusts up to around 150 kph. We also received about 100mm of rain during that time. Having not been out today, I’m not sure what has happened elsewhere, but up here I saw pieces of corrugated iron fly past, some antennae came down and I heard some glass breaking but I wasn’t sure where it came from. This morning Craig found some pieces of glass in our front yard, as he was cleaning up – we suspect that some of the windows broke in a turret atop the kiln over the road, along with being the source of some of the galv. that flew by.

While I was watching the storm upstairs, the house vibrated occasionally, but otherwise we came through with minimal impact other than some pot plants blowing over, a metal lizard blowing off our wall, one of the chimaki blowing off our door and some bins blowing over. Apart from the glass, a part of our neighbour’s roof ended up in our yard (which they collected this morning). Interestingly, at one point my ears popped from pressure and an emergency light flashed on and off in the room I was standing in.

As you may have seen, Osaka was hit hard, with Kansai airport flooded and the bridge to the airport now sporting a tanker decoration, amongst other damage.

 on tv

There is also some footage around of something smashing into the glass roof at Kyoto station, with both it and shattered glass falling into the middle of main area at the front.

I’m starting to wonder if all of these events are being sent to prove how well built our new house is!!

That’s all for now (I hope).

Don’t drive on bridges in a typhoon

I didn’t touch it!

Where do I start?

A carpark

Cranes don’t like strong winds

I’m glad our shipping container wasn’t there…

Yes, yes, I know, it has been two weeks since I last blogged and I really am trying to maintain a regular weekly habit, but sometimes there just isn’t that much to talk about. As always, there is the weather and other events of that nature but right now, for me, it’s more of a waiting game: waiting for our flat to sell, waiting for our next guests, waiting for more bookings,… (waiting for Godot?).

This has also been a time of waiting for tropical cyclones. I say that, rather than typhoon, because the Japan Meteorological Agency uses the term “tropical cyclone” on their website, rather than typhoon. Not sure why. On the day that I wrote my last post, we were waiting not for one but two cyclones both heading in pretty much the same direction, nearly side by side. I don’t know how often this occurs, but it was interesting watching them move in sync, somewhat like a dance of the cyclone. The one further to the west was slightly ahead of the other and so kept it further east and moving very close to us – just west of a direct pass over us. Nonetheless, we received strong winds and some good rain although nothing like what the areas to the west of us received (again).

At the moment we are waiting for another, single cyclone, which is heading our way. This one is a lot stronger than the previous cyclones and the eye is forecast to pass very close to us. At this stage the rating of the cyclone is “violent”, but by the time it reaches us it will be “very strong”. This brings me to another term usage difference of the Japan Meteorological Agency – rather than use a numerical rating system for cyclones, such as category 1, etc, they use a naming system of “strong”, “very strong”, and “violent”. Violent equates roughly to a category 4+ in Australian terms (there is nothing higher here, while Australia has one higher category). Having checked on the electronic oracle, it turns out that the rating systems for storm strength vary from country to country, and depend on where the storm is.

In terms of temperature, the last two weeks have proven how wrong I can be – having said the hot weather had finally passed, it turned out that the seven day forecast was slightly optimistic and instead we returned to hot and humid weather.

One other natural occurrence during this period was another ‘rattler’, ie earthquake. Hard to call it an aftershock, given the first earthquake was in June, but it was more like an aftershock than a full tilt earthquake. It happened last Tuesday night and proved to me just how unnerved I have become about these things. I think it is just the issue of not knowing how strong and how long…(!!!)

This week we went to see a Bauhaus exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art Kyoto (MOMAK), which we had seen advertised on a poster when we were out and about. I had never been to the MOMAK, so it seemed opportune that this poster caught my eye. On another nomenclature note, before moving on, most of the places I would call an art gallery are known as museums here – not sure why.

Anyway, the MOMAK is located in a precinct where there are three other museums related to arts and crafts, so is a good place to go to see a cross section of art works, both Japanese and international. Many exhibitions are held in these museums and they also have a very good selection of modern art in their collection, both Japanese and international. MOMAK has a particular emphasis on artists and arts from Kyoto and the wider Kansai area. There are also a number of other art museums dotted around Kyoto.

Looking out of the window at MOMAK to the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art (under renovation)

When we arrived at the museum, it turned out there was another exhibition showing of a Japanese artist Higashiyama Kaii which took up most of the space in the museum. Not what we expected, but we thought it would be interesting to see everything on show. As it turns out, I absolutely loved this artist’s work and was very glad we saw the Bauhaus poster. He was born in 1908 and died in 1999 and was/is one of the most popular artists of post-war Japan. The exhibit comprised 68 paintings and 45 studies and sketches.

The majority of his works are landscapes, but he also painted some townscapes, particularly while he was in Europe. Many of his paintings are of significant proportions and, for me, some of them literally did take my breath away. The ones that I really felt an attachment to were quite soft and somewhat low light. It seemed he was trying to create an atmosphere as much as representing details or places. There were a number of paintings of dawn and evening and also at night, under the moon. Quite a few of the paintings comprised a landscape and its reflection in water.

There also was a full installation of some murals and fusuma (sliding doors) paintings which he completed for a hall at the Toshodaiji (temple), Nara. These were laid out as they would be in the hall, not just in a straight line, but rather as two or three walls together. The largest was a set of fusuma entitled “Sound of Waves” which literally rendered me speechless (or did I say “wow”?) as I entered the space. It is a 36-metre long ocean panorama painted on 12 panels which were set out in an L shape, as they are in situ. I stood there some time taking it all in, as did many others who walked while we were there. A number of us stood as far back as the space would allow, just leaning on the wall, letting it wash over us.

Part of Sound of Waves

Ok, enough superlatives! Unfortunately these fusuma are rarely available for public viewing, so it really is a once off viewing. The other fusuma, by the way, were painted in black and white and depicted mountainous scenery from China, as a tribute to the founder of the temple, who was from China. Also beautiful and awe inspiring. In total, the entire commission took ten years to paint.

Yesterday we left home (very) early, picked up Takako and went up to Ohara to visit the Sunday morning farmers markets (there are two, which are fairly close together. Ohara is such a lovely place, in amongst the mountains, and it was a lovely, sunny morning, so very pleasant overall (despite it being so early).

We bought some vegetables and locally made yuba and Takako bought some flowers (a bunch of yellow roses for ¥250) and then had a coffee in a café area made up for the morning market. While we were sitting there, a woman sat down next to us who happened to live very close to Takako, so they started chatting. The a family came along – a man, two women and two children – who also sat down around the table.

As soon as I heard the women speaking, I knew they were from Australia originally. The younger woman is married to a Japanese man and they have two children, and the older woman was her aunt. As you might have worked out from this description, we also struck up a conversation, with these people. The couple and their children live in Kyoto and attend the market recently, while the aunt was visiting from Hong Kong (her home now).

After speaking for a while, Craig and I started to suspect that the younger woman would know Takako’s daughter, because of the work she is involved in. She told us she had help established the annual Kyotographie exhibition and we know that Sara and her partner are involved in art and exhibitions here. Takako hadn’t been listening to our conversation, so when the opportunity came up we told her what we thought – and it turned out we were right! It seems that Kyoto is just like Adelaide, one degree of separation…and we had to travel to Ohara to find out. So, our circle of contacts grows 😊.

Cheers!!!

 Simplicity

 What is that thing in front of the wall for???

 The local bus station at Ohara

 Crepe Myrtle time

Hello one and all and welcome to episode 22 of the recurring “Year 2 in Kyoto” series, avidly (ok, maybe slightly keenly) read by nearly 50 people! I find myself back in front of the keyboard after only 1 week, despite my somewhat impaired state. When I say that, I mean that it is surprising that I have anything to talk about, since we haven’t been doing overly much. I don’t have any more really exciting news (ie, that we have sold the flat, or we have suddenly had an influx of bookings), at this stage, but we remain hopeful of more movement on these in the near future.

The very hot weather really seems to have passed now. Having said that, the estimated max. today is 35C, however, this is the hottest day for a week now, and the seven day forecast is all low to mid 30s. We also have had a couple of good thunderstorms (finally) and some rain. The only slight issue with the rain is that it happened to be the day of the Diamonji bonfires, so we decided not to go and sit on a roof in the rain (also, my toe was hurting due to me doing a little too much the day before…).

We have had one ‘touristy’ outing this week – yesterday we went to see a teamLab installation at a shrine. What’s teamLab, you say? Well, according to their website they are “an art collective, interdisciplinary group of ultratechnologists whose collaborative practice seeks to navigate the confluence of art, science, technology, design and the natural world. Various specialists such as artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians and architects form teamLab.” Hhhhmmm. From my perspective, they do amazing installations and create works of art using light. Very often the installations are interactive, so the viewer can have some input into how the light is used and acts and can sometimes add their own illustrations to the installations.

We saw an ad for this installation at Shimogamo jinja and took the opportunity to visit it, since they don’t have many installations in Kyoto. It is entitled “Resisting and Resonating Ovoids and Forest and Floating, Resonating Spheres – Shimogamo Shrine”. As the title indicates, there are many egg shaped and spherical objects of varying sizes made out of a material that is somewhat soft and rubbery, and these are placed around the shrine, along the road to the shrine through the forest and in the forest itself.

We decided to go to the shrine during the day, so we could see what it was like and get some daytime photos, for reference. The shrine is one of the oldest in Japan, having been founded in the 6^th century. It is situated in a forest named Tadasu no Mori, which encompasses approximately 12.4 hectares and is preserved as a national historical site. It is the last remnant of a primeval forest which is left to grow in its natural state. It is neither planted nor pruned, which is quite unusual in Japan.

What a lovely setting and it is a nice shrine to visit, not just for the teamLab installation. The area around the forest is a very pleasant suburban area too, consisting of especially nice homes and streets – some dishevelled looking places too, however mostly an area that would be nice to live in. We visited a café in the area so I could have a bit of a rest, off my feet (toe) and to wait for the evening to draw nigh. It was in a bookstore and had a somewhat dreamy, 1970s feel to it – different to Starbucks!

After this, we went to eat at a vegan ramen restaurant located nearby, known as Towzen (and Mamezen – not sure why it has two names). Some of our guests had been there previously and said it was very good, so we thought we would take the chance to try it while we were in the area. There are not overly many items on the menu but what we had was very nice and not too expensive. It is worth the travel to get there, just for the fact that vegan, or even vegetarian, ramen is a very unusual thing here.

 the entry to Towzen

 a local spy watching us eat…

We didn’t rush our meal, because we thought we would have time to get back to the shrine and then wander around comfortably in the warm evening. We didn’t expect overly many people there because it wasn’t the first night, it was a Monday night and just after the end of Obon. It was a nice night, with a very pleasant breeze. So we ambled back to the shrine, to find a massive queue with thousands of people waiting to get in…I have to admit, I was tempted to just turn around and go home, assuming we would be in the queue for at least an hour, but we stayed, and waited.

As it happened, the queue moved reasonably quickly and were in after around 30-40 minutes. Unfortunately, some of the installation was not working, with the first 200 metres, or so, in darkness. In the distance, though, you could see coloured lighting in the trees overhead. The race to get photos once we reached the lit area was fairly frenetic and we had to wait our turn to get any photos without multiple people in front of the giant eggs in the forest.

The changing colours and the egg shapes made the forest look somehow otherwordly, more like a place where very large creatures were putting their eggs for incubation and the music being played added to the effect. It would be wonderful to wander around there with fewer people – significantly fewer – but then large crowds are generally a fact of life here. I had to be very careful in the dark to make sure I didn’t end up with my toe being knocked or trodden on.

Once past the forest walk, through the tori into the shrine compound, the eggs which were all corralled during the day had been spread out. It really was ethereal, despite all the people and the shrine gates and buildings. The giant romon gate looked even more spectacular lit up and with giant, coloured eggs in front. Within the gated area there were many giant spherical shapes, which floated above the ground attached to weights on the ground. It was interesting watching people interacting with these shapes, like a playground for young and old. Some of the eggs and the spheres changed colour when they were bumped or hit, while all of the others changed colour in a more regular way.

It really was worth the queuing and the unexpected extra time I spent standing and walking (which meant I was in a fair amount of pain by the time we got home) and the ¥1,000 entrance fee. I’m glad we went and that I can rest today!!!!

That’s all for now – oh, just one thing I forgot, we received some flowers yesterday, just before we left for the shrine, from our lawyer wishing us the all best now that we have our licence. A thoughtful and considered surprise – most of the flowers and leaves in the arrangement are from Australia, including some gumnuts!

Cheers!!!!!

Not sure if this dog is famous

 ??? Not sure

  Reid????

 Before

 After – slightly different angle…

 Crepe Myrtle time

…and in breaking news, Vegan Minshuku Sanbiki Neko is now a fully licenced accommodation facility. Yes, in a record breaking 40 days, approval has been granted to the extremely grateful Addams Family to now run their minshuku as a fully fledged operation.

An email was received just before midnight on Friday night from the scrivener informing them of this momentous outcome – it was in Japanese, but they were able to ascertain the general gist. At around 5am on Saturday morning, a full English translation of the email was received, confirming this result.

Hello and welcome dear readers to possibly the shortest post yet! We have been doing even less than before, due to a certain phalanx injury, so I am mainly reporting on the above headline news.

It’s funny, though, as much as I want to be really excited about this news (just as I wanted to be really excited about finally selling our house in Adelaide) because it has taken so long and been quite fraught, what I am really feeling is relief. So, now there is one final hurdle to completing our plans and fully settling into our new lifestyle and that is the sale of our flat (so we can buy all the things we need to finish the fitout of the minshuku, and buy ourselves a full sized fridge 😊). We also now have to start really pushing ourselves out into the market. We already have three reviews on Google, which is a good start.

One question that springs to mind – why did the scrivener send us an email so late at night? Was he still working? I can’t imagine that he received the news himself just before he sent the email, but then maybe the public servants having been doing a lot of overtime to get through the work…hhhmmmm, hard to imagine them working that late, though. Funny we should receive approval on the day our newest friends left to go to Tokyo. Also, Saturday was the anniversary of Craig arriving here permanently.

Our last two groups of guests truly were lovely people and we are staying in touch with both of them. In fact, the family of four have invited us to stay with them in London if we ever go back to the UK. We are also now friends on FB with the couple (well, Craig is, as I have no presence there).

On the weather front (!), another typhoon passed through the other day and this time it turned north east, so we did not get any of the stormy weather here. It did, however, finally give us a little relief from the heatwave, and we are now experiencing some cooler days below 35C (although still above 32 so far). What has also changed is the humidity, ie it is now becoming more humid. In essence it is now becoming more like the summer of last year. Ironically, we are now hoping for some rain!!!

This week is O-Bon week, during which Japanese people honour the spirits of their ancestors. It is a Buddhist-Confucian custom which has evolved in Japan into a family reunion holiday, during which people return to ancestral family places and visit and clean their ancestors’ graves. It is also believed the spirits of ancestors revisit household altars. It has been celebrated in Japan for more than 500 years and traditionally includes a dance, known as Bon-Odori.

(2 photos from the internet)

The culmination of the O-Bon festival, which is on 16 August, involves five giant bonfires being lit on the mountains surrounding Kyoto city, known as Diamonji. This signifies the moment when the visiting spirits, who are said to visit this world during O-Bon, are believed to be returning to the spirit world and the fires are lit to help guide them back. We will be going out to watch Diamonji on Thursday night – a local school allows locals in to sit on the rooftop to watch the fires, so it’s not too far for me to walk.

I leave you now with a photo of a mascot we ran across the other day, outside the supermarket.

 A duck-like ice cream??

Cheers!

The long, HOT summer…

Hi all, yes, it’s me again, after another longer than expected sabbatical. This heatwave is turning into the never ending story, or so it seems. Apart from two days which were below 35C (although, above 32C), it has now been four weeks since the heatwave started, with every day (barring those two) being over 35C.

One thing that hot days do bring are colourful sunsets and so I have indulged in a few photos of sunsets. It is quite nice having a balcony that faces west, even though we can’t see the horizon for the buildings near us, I can look out and enjoy a colourful sunset in the ever so slightly cooler evenings. Not quite like a good sunset photo at the beach, just a little bit of fun.

I also took some photos from the balcony of our courtyard area behind the carport – yes, we haven’t been doing much and I am itching to get out and take some more photos…maybe in the next week, or so, when the heat finally does moderate a bit.

Something I hadn’t mentioned in my last post, was that some people here were saying what we needed was a typhoon to come through and push away the intense high that was keeping the weather hot. Well, we did get that typhoon just over a week ago, on Saturday night. The only thing was that it crossed the east coast, and then passed directly over us, still as a strong typhoon. This is quite unusual here, so far inland.

When it hit, the winds were literally howling and the rain was being pushed sideways across the rooftops. While I like storms, I am not a big fan of strong winds, so this was a bit unsettling for me. The good news is that, again, the house took it quite well (better than me!). The not so good news is that, while the heat did reduce for those two days mentioned above, once it was gone, the heat returned as if nothing had happened.

As of today, there is another typhoon heading towards Japan, from the same direction. It appears as though it is again going to cross the coast as a typhoon – whether it continues our way, who knows? Will the intense heat finally move on, who knows? From what we’ve been seeing in the news, heatwaves are impacting large parts of the northern hemisphere, particularly in Europe and the UK.

From my perspective we have now had all of the four elements covered: earth (earthquake), air (typhoon), fire (heatwave) and water (flooding rains). What I haven’t had enough of this year is thunderstorms. Perhaps my writing about it will bring some on??!!

In terms of resultant damage from all of this onslaught, Kyoto has got off relatively lightly. We did notice at least one house nearby which had it’s roof covered by a blue tarpaulin (they’re called blue sheets here) following the earthquake, and a cement block wall on an old building down the road is now sitting at an angle (with witches hats in front to keep people some distance away). Following the typhoon, another of the older buildings nearby has had some cement sheets fall off, and looks rather like losing some more (with witches hats below to keep people some distance away).

On the minshuku front, we haven’t had any news either way yet, so we’re hoping no news is good news and that we’ll get our licence in the near future. Meanwhile, we have had some British guests staying with us over the last week – a lovely couple from Wednesday last week and a family of four arrived on Friday. The couple left us yesterday and the family is staying until the end of this week.

On the Friday morning (the day the family arrived), I had a slight mishap. After I feed the kids in the morning, I have been putting Ziggy outside for a while, until the heat really sets in for the day. As I was going out to bring Ziggy back in (at about 7:45), I managed to kick the leg of one the outdoor chairs and unfortunately broke my toe. Timing…when we have six guests staying, the largest group we’ve had here, my duck-footedness brings me undone. Now, you’d think that given I have walked like this for most of my life, I would take into account that my feet don’t point straight ahead. Apparently not enough.

So, I am now hobbling around, serving breakfasts and doing other jobs, with a grey/purple toe. On the positive side, it is the fourth toe, next to the little toe, so I can walk (hobble) without putting pressure on it. Also, because our minshuku is a ‘shoes off’ facility, I am able to walk around barefooted. On the Saturday, we had to go to Aeon Mall to get some supplies for the kids (so they won’t attack us for food!!! 😊) and some other supplies, so I had to put on some shoes. To try to protect my toe, I bound the toes each side to the affected toe and I wore a pair of Japanese style thongs. Nonetheless, it was a rather painful experience, so I am now keeping any outings to an absolute minimum.

On Saturday night there was a fireworks display broadcast live on tv, which provided a pleasant distraction. Again, feeling the need to take photos, I took to the camera and got some shots from the tv. The fireworks displays seem to be somewhat different here, with many short bursts of pyrotechnics and then fairly long gaps between. I’m not sure if there are different groups providing each of the individual bursts, or they just don’t set up all of the fireworks beforehand.

Cheers for now!!!

The sound of summer – with Ziggy slightly perturbed!

I got carried away…

My Purple Prince!

My Hydrangea in flower – again

First, they brought us The Earthquake (and the natural sequel: The Aftershocks). Then they brought us The Rain (with the follow-ups: The Floods and The Landslides). Now they bring us The Heatwave – the hottest epic of them all! Also the longest, as we are now coming up to two weeks of continuous heat with all days recording maxima in excess of 35C – and there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight, with at least the next seven days showing expected maxima of 35C+.

Kyoto has been one of the hottest places in Japan, although we haven’t reached 40C, as some places in nearby Gifu prefecture have. The hottest day in Kyoto, to date, was last Thursday when the temperature reached 39.8C, which is the highest temperature ever recorded in Kyoto (there was one other day in the 90s, I think, which also had a recorded maximum of 39.8C). In fact, during this period, we had seven days in excess of 38C – yesterday was the first day under 38C, at 37.7C.

As you can imagine, there have been quite a few heatstroke related deaths, with mostly the young and elderly being affected. There have also been thousands of hospital admissions across the heat affected areas of Japan. There has been one group of people who have been particularly affected; men in their 80s. A number have been found unconscious in their fields, or gardens, who subsequently died. There are also those who have refused to use air conditioners and who have succumbed to the heat.

So, nature really has been throwing everything at us over the last two months. Western Japan has been particularly hard hit, with the clean up from the floods and landslides continuing, and during this extreme heat. The only thing that has made it slightly easier to bear is that it is not as humid as it would normally be this month. Ironically, after all the rain we had recently, we are now having to water our plants every day.

Despite the heat, we are still having to go out on occasion to purchase food, etc. Along with my parasol, we are both taking fans with us and Craig has now bought a hat! We also decided to have two outings which were mainly for interest, despite the heat (both days were during the period of heat over 38C). Call us crazy, and at times I did think that maybe we had been a little crazy to go out, but in the end it was worth it just to get out for a while and see the sights.

This month is Gion Matsuri month, during which various events are held, including two parades of the yama (the smaller floats) and the hoko (the big floats – up to 25 metres tall and up to 11 tonnes). During the three days preceding each of the the parades, the yama and hoko are displayed in the streets near the centre of town. While they are on display, some of the floats can be entered by tourists and stalls are set up in the areas nearby which have some interesting items. After 6pm the streets are closed off to traffic around the floats and the whole area becomes a huge outdoor food and drink fest.

Our first outing was to see some of the floats and to buy a new chimaki, a traditional good luck charm related to the Gion Matsuri. Chimaki are generally hung above the front door, and are considered to bring good luck, prosperity and a long, healthy life. I wanted to get one for our new abode, because they really are part of the local landscape and a little bit of good luck for our business won’t go astray!

We wandered around the floats for a short while, bought a chimaki and then went into a store which specialises in yukata, kimono and obi. I wanted to buy a pre-tied obi and thought this shop may be a good bet. There is a local matsuri coming up where it is traditional to wear yukata for the occasion, and the last time I wore a yukata it was very difficult tying the obi, so I thought I’d take the easy way 😊. Anyway, I found what I wanted and while we were there Craig took the opportunity to look at what they had for men. We found one yukata which had bats on it – so, we just had to get it!!!

Coincidentally, as it happens, a few days later the nice lady who lives in the flats next door and who can speak some English came to our front door with a gift for us. One of her friends had been in the parade – one of the musicians playing flute in the front hoko float, and he had given her some things from the festival. These included a couple of chimaki. So, she decided to give us one of these chimaki for our minshuku front door. So now we have one above our minshuku front door and one on our private entrance door (there wasn’t any way to put it above the door).

 Our door

While it was a fruitful outing, it was hot, so we decided not to go to the first of the parades, instead choosing to sit in the air conditioned comfort of our home and watch it live on tv. It was very interesting seeing the parade this way because you actually got to see more of the whole procession, along with the rituals, and up close. I took some photos from tv, although while they do show some detail you can’t see from one place in the crowd, they are not as clear as being there.

The other benefit of watching the parade on tv was getting some of the history of the event, including some photos from the early 1900s. The floats have not changed much over time, just the landscape around the parades. My favourite photo is the one where you can see some boys viewing the parade from the absolute safety of a power pole and the wires…

The other outing was to a craft market which is held on the 15th of every month at the Chionji temple. There are handmade arts, crafts and foods sold from over 150 stalls, with most of the stalls run by the people who make the wares. There was a wide variety of items, although some classes of items were more common, such as jewellery and pottery. It was one of those places where it would be very easy to spend quite a bit of money…but due to the heat, we didn’t linger overly long; we used this first visit as more of a reccy. I really do love markets and Kyoto has a few very good ones.

(all photos sourced from the internet, our phones died too quickly in the heat)

After we left the market, we decided to find somewhere to sit down, have a drink and cool down. As it happens there is a falafel café in that area, so we thought we would try it out. The food was very nice, although it took quite a while for it to get to us. We had ordered falafel with baba ganoush and wondered if they had to make that on the spot, given it is not a well known food here. Anyway, we needed quite a bit of time to get our core temperatures down, so it wasn’t an issue.

Well, that’s it for this episode.

Cheers!

one of the rituals – presenting the papers for the float to a Shinto priest. The rope had to be undone and done up using a folded fan. I wonder how long they have to practice???

dancing on bitumen in 35C heat…hhhmmmm

one of the puppets on the floats being manipulated

the front of a boat shaped float which is the last float of the parade

examples of decorations for a yama float

One of my hydrangeas which seems to be enjoying the heat!? It has doubled in size in the last two weeks and looks like flowering again…

So, I start talking about rain and also the final (we hoped) aftershocks, and in response it seems the environment takes it as a challenge…

Hi all, I am writing a post now even though there isn’t that much to cover, mainly because we have had a few people asking if we are ok because they have heard of the recent floods here. Firstly, yes, we are fine, although we are starting to wonder if we really are being tested to see how we cope with as many natural forces as can be thrown at us.

The rain started on Monday, but really hit it’s straps on Thursday, with 171mm recorded in Kyoto. Late that night, just before midnight, we received a WhatsApp message from our builder’s interpreter that an evacuation order had been sent out for our area. In fact, it had been sent out for a large part of Higashiyama and Fushimi on our side of the hills and on the other side of the hills, including where the interpreter lives, ie a large part of the areas along the foothills in the east. The problem was that the recent earthquakes could have loosened the soil along the hills, then adding the rain on top of that was causing a very high risk of landslide.

Hard to think about evacuating in the middle of the night! Anyway, we did a general reccy, including checking whether any of our neighbours had made any moves, and came to the conclusion we would stay put. Part of our reasoning included the fact that the evacuation centre is around 100 metres away from our house (which we assumed must be safe enough otherwise they wouldn’t send us there), also there are about six buildings between us and the undeveloped, natural parts of the hills, including a two storey concrete built block of flats next door.

The next day around 111 mm of rain fell, with the following day about 70mm. We did consider that the risk must be increasing as more heavy rain fell, so we checked with a nearby neighbour who speaks English about his thoughts re evacuating. He said he was a bit unsure too and would check with others. Later he replied indicating that one of the neighbours that had come to brunch with us had gone to the evacuation centre to check what was happening there and found that only 24 people had spent the night.

I have to say that if our home was right next to the natural areas, my decision making would have resulted in a different action. Ultimately, to date, nothing significant has happened here – we did find that part of the shrine at Tofukuji had collapsed, but that was quite minor. The story has been very different in other areas, particularly Hiroshima prefecture. Landslides seem to happen there every year, but it has been reported that this year has been the worst in decades. Overall, the death toll from landslides and flooding has reached over 100 people so far.

On Sunday we awoke to a lovely blue sky and felt much relieved. It also meant that we could finally go back to Tofukuji to see how the lotus pond was going. We decided not to walk the back way there, via the hills!! Interestingly, as soon as the rain stopped the hot and humid weather returned immediately. So, instead of walking and being drenched in rain (as we did one of the days because we had to get supplies, ie food and drink), we went back to walking puddles. On one of the wet days that we went out, we took a slight detour to see the Kamo river, because we had see it how t looked as it was very high on tv.

The shinkansen stationary on the bridge!

 From the internet

The water had risen so much it was over the walkways along the edge of the river, which are normally well above water level. One woman said that she had lived near the Kamo for over 30 years and had never seen it as high. The other river in Kyoto which had risen dramatically was the river that passes through the Arashiyama area. The footage on tv showed that the bridge there had been closed to both traffic and pedestrians, and in fact it had burst it’s banks within the popular tourist area.

 From the internet

After we came home from Tofukuji we pottered around the house, eat lunch and planted the nandina we had bought (because we had been told that it is a plant that is considered as somewhat of a ‘good neighbour’ plant). It is considered a lucky plant and is generally planted in the south west corner of the house. As we were cleaning up, there was a sudden loud rattling and rumbling noise…Yes, another earth tremor, eleven days after the last one, and after me saying they seemed to be over, it happened again. I only hope it doesn’t add to the likelihood of landslide in the next few days.

In relation to our Tofukuji visit, there were some flowers open – some past their best, some about to open and many, many more coming on. So, not quite the spectacle I had hoped for, but then I was most worried the massive amount of rain may have done significant damage. While we were taking photos a small blue Kingfisher flew threw and I was able to get a few shots of it, even though it was tiny. I also captured a tortoise and a couple of the dragonflies, so not too bad overall.

Well, that’s been our week; another testing time, but not unsurprising in a country that is fairly frequently beset by natural disasters.

Cheers for now!!!

Tiny mushrooms in the moss – my camera struggled to get them!

Hello all, tis me back at the keyboard again – a lot less shaken, although maybe still a bit stirred. It has now been around five days since the last aftershock (touch wood!), of which we ended up having around 11. There were two bigger ones, both unfortunately during the middle of the night. The first one I mentioned in my last post and happened on the night of the initial earthquake. The second happened over a week later – it was a different kind of quake, being more of a big shunt with some upward movement, rather like something very big had run into the front of our home. All the others were more ‘rattlers’.

I should also say that even though what I wrote last time sounded like Craig was doing an “every man for himself’” run for the back door, he wasn’t, he was just looking around to see what was happening and making sure there was a clear egress. We have all now settled down more, with the kids mostly back to normal (no more big saucer eyes), although they are more affectionate than usual, seeking out comfort. As for myself, I find that I am still a bit oversensitive to rumbles, which we get a lot of here from the trains going through the nearby tunnels.

 Zowie relaxes

Moving on, firstly to the weather, we are now firmly into the summer ‘walking puddle’ heat and humidity. We have had a few thunderstorms in the last week (which makes me happy) and we are getting quite a lot of rain. On some days we are having more than the average rainfall for the whole month of June in Adelaide! The interesting thing is that we have already had a few days over 35, which is somewhat unusual here this early in summer. Other indicators of summer; the dragonflies are out and about and today we heard the first cicadas of the season.

 Dragonfly lands near me

One very positive aspect of the climate here is that plants grow very fast. We have managed to plant out quite a few vegetables and herbs, along with my fledgling hydrangea collection (two plants). Our first crop was sugar snap peas, which were lovely and we were able to use them to feed friends when they stayed earlier this year. Now we are cropping greens of various kinds, along with mint, thyme and shiso (perilla). The broken case that was left behind by one of our friends is working a treat as a veggie patch (thanks Jenny!!) and we have some large pots, some of which we brought from Adelaide (our pottery neighbours have been very interested in them – you don’t get many very large pots like them here). Last night Craig brought in some figs from the tree in the wall and this morning he brought in the first two cucumbers from our plant!

The other ‘hot’ topic is, of course, the #*$@&! Hotel licence. A few of you, dear readers, did ask what was happening about the licence, since I didn’t mention it last time. Well, I have to say it was somewhat deliberate, what with the seismic activities causing some tension, I didn’t want to raise my blood pressure even more by consciously thinking about it! Anyway (gritting teeth), previously we had had our not so BIG meeting with the neighbours and we had met with a commercial waste collector and we thought that we had fully satisfied everything we needed to for the final application. Not so.

We received an email on the Saturday night of the following week, saying we needed to have an actual contract signed with the waste collection company (even though we had been told providing the name of the company would be enough) and then we had to provide details of conversations with our near neighbours (within a 10 metre radius of our property, in all directions) and what their opinions of our business plans were (positive, complaints or no real opinion). As you can imagine, receiving this went down like a lead balloon, especially as we could do nothing to organise the preparation and signing of a contract until Monday morning, at the earliest. I think I went to around 200 over 150!!!!

On the Wednesday, we had the very nice woman and her small tip truck back here again, this time to formalise our agreement in a contract. Once that was completed, we walked around with Takako to try to talk to those close neighbours we hadn’t met or seen. The interesting thing was finding that someone actually did live in the house near our back yard, when we had never seen anyone go into or come out of the house. A youngish and very pallid man answered the door and didn’t really want to interact with us, however Takako managed to pique his interest enough, as he closed the door, that he came outside to see where our house was. Apparently he didn’t realise it was there, or what we were planning (which he didn’t really seem to care about). He appeared to me to be one of the increasing number of people, particularly young men here, who essentially cut themselves off from the world and remain a recluse in their own home – he wouldn’t give us his name. He really was very pale, with almost translucent white skin.

So, having done all this, we duly sent off an email with all the details needed and waited. And waited. We finally received an email some days later indicating the scrivener was going to submit the application as soon as possible, after he returned to Kyoto (from Tokyo). Late last week we finally received an email saying that the application had been submitted and that someone from the regulatory authority would be visiting our minshuku on the following Monday. Also, we had to put up a number of signs in each of the rooms and the ‘common’ area, which were written in English, Chinese and Korean, explaining how not to be a bad guest.

Obviously these signs had been created with Airbnb style accommodation in mind, because they referred to cooking and turning off gas stoves, not drying your clothes on heaters and appropriately disposing of your rubbish, etc. I’d be interested to see if the Four Seasons or the Hyatt have these signs up! Anyway, we did as we were told and yesterday a woman arrived on a pushbike (again – do all public servants have to use pushbikes to do their jobs???? especially in 35 degree heat with over 80% humidity!). She spent most of her time here measuring windows, doors, entryways etc in the rooms, other entryways and the size of our reception counter (there is a minimum size requirement…), to check the plans provided were accurate.

She then asked us if we knew any yakuza (!!!!) and we had to fill out a form with our names, DOB, and what position we held in the company (boss 😊), which Takako kindly did for us as I am very slow at writing kanji. We also had to provide two copies of our booking terms and conditions in English and two copies of instructions of how to get here from the railway station, in English. After all of this, she said we would get our approval in around 42 days…☹. The scrivener said this was fast and seemed pleased. I tried to look pleased.

We had two outings during this period, one was back to Tofukuji to see if the lotus flowers had opened yet and the other was to a temple at Ohara, which is about 45 minutes drive outside of the city, in the mountains. The lotus pond at Tofukuji is very large and occupies the area in front of the large Sanmon gate of the temple. We know that it is a fairly small window during which the lotus are open and I was very keen to see the pond when they were in full bloom. Alas, it was not to be – there was, in fact, one solitary lotus flower open, so I took a photo of that and we are now trying to decide when to return. Hopefully the rain will subside enough later this week, once typhoon number 7 has passed. I only hope that the very heavy rain (rain that periodically stops) due over the next three days won’t damage the flowers. There were a few lotus open on the plants in large pots placed around the temple site, so I did get a few shots of those.

Our other outing required a longish drive out along the river and into the mountainous area of Ohara. What a beautiful area it is; lush and green and rather idyllic, except it gets very cold in winter, with quite a bit of snow. The temple itself is located on the side of a hill and involves a reasonable amount of uphill and stair climbing, but it is definitely worth it. As with most Buddhist temples, there is an intricately designed contemplation garden, which is one of the best ‘green’ gardens I’ve seen and there is a very large wooded area, with part of it being a moss garden, with a pond and waterfall and the other part a huge hydrangea garden. Yes, another one.

This garden, however, is on a massive scale and having the hydrangeas in amongst the trees along with other plants is wonderful. It was another hot and humid day, even out there in the mountains, nonetheless, we absolutely loved it. There also were some quirky things there, like the stone carved heads appearing to pop out of the ground and small statues of monks and other people lining some of the pathways. In some of the areas I could just imagine the fey folk dwelling in amongst the trees and shrubs.

One of the roads leading to the temple was lined with small shops selling local wares and foodstuffs, which was a pleasure to walk along. Had I had some spare cash (something in short supply at the moment) there were many things that would have sorely tempted me. As it was we did buy a few small items, including a handkerchief sized piece of towelling, which is very useful during the mushi mushi months (walking puddle time). We are looking forward to returning to Sanzen-in and seeing it at other times of the year, particularly autumn.

Where are we going to go next? Who knows, but looks like we’ll have some time on our hands for a while!

Cheers

 Advanced Moss Studio?

 Oh, so we don’t float?

 Cairn building in Japan

 Tanuki family

 Golf playing Tanuki

Well, here I am sitting in front of the keyboard again, shaken, and somewhat stirred. Yes, I suppose it was going to happen sooner or later and it happened this morning just before 8am…an earthquake. It was centred around 30kms away from here and was quite shallow, which meant that, even though it wasn’t overly strong on the richter scale (5.5), the movement was strong. Luckily I had just finished my morning cup of tea, so my caffeine levels were up and I was able to get moving quite fast!!

My first thought was to get the cats to safety (because I knew Craig was already moving towards the back door), which for Serena and Ziggy wasn’t too difficult, since they are used to having harnesses on and their leads are set up outside (although Ziggy was somewhat panicked and hard to hold on to). Zowie was another issue – while we have a cat carrier, it was upstairs, in a locked cupboard. Thankfully it wasn’t too serious or too long, so it didn’t become an issue. We also realised we were underprepared for such an event and will have to put together an emergency box, just in case.

The house rode it out quite well and I noticed just before the shaking stopped the whole house moved underneath me which was unnerving but showed the rubber footing worked. The light in the kitchen was swinging freely and it could have meant that other things might have moved as much and taken a tumble, but not much did. All pictures remained on the walls, with some a little skewed; Gamera and another of my figurines took a tumble off the speakers; the fan took a fall; the metal cat in the window of the staircase area took a tumble; and the light fitting in room 1 was left askew.

We found out that our upper kitchen cupboards have a special locking device to stop them from opening in the event of an earthquake (discovered when we couldn’t open them after it had all finished…) and the gas automatically turns off at the meter box if an earthquake is over 5 in magnitude (which I found out when I went to have a shower an hour later and there was no hot water). Very much a learning experience. I also learned that the worst thing was not knowing how strong it was going to get and how long it would go (I suspect it was around 15 seconds). After it stopped, it was then a case of – was that a precursor…?

Moving backwards in time to the happier times of the week, we had some of our neighbours over for a brunch on Sunday, 10 June. There is no concept of brunch here, so it took a while to explain it, but they did enjoy the meal – a vegan brunch, of course. Before we ate, we showed them around the minshuku part of our home, which they really liked. They asked if we would have Japanese guests if they wanted to stay – which has been asked before and we have, of course, answered in the affirmative.

When we sat down to actually eat, the two women started picking up the chopstick rests (fish we had bought in Japan years ago) and looking them over. Turns out they were actually made by them!!! Three of our four guests work in the pottery behind our home (relatives of the owner, who live onsite) and they had fired them and hand painted them. They even found a slight defect on one of the fish, which was so small we had never noticed it. They seemed somewhat perturbed by this as they go through a very strict quality control before sale. Anyway, it seems we had bought homing fish, determined to return to where they came from 😊. We also had one other set of rests which they identified as theirs as well.

 Homing fish?

On Friday we went to the first of two festivals we attended this week. Known as the Aoba Matsuri, it was held at the large Buddhist temple closest to our home. It is held on the 15^th of June to commemorate the founder of Shingon Buddhism, Kōbō Daishi (Kukai, who I have previously mentioned), and to celebrate the return of those who have just finished weeks of shugendō training on Mt. Ōmine in Nara. Shugendō means ‘the way to spiritual power through discipline’ and involves the monks undertaking rituals of courage and hardship in nature to develop themselves, such as climbing overhanging rocks using only a chain, or dangling head first over a 60 metre cliff! If only I could be a part of that, because I so love to hang over the edges of cliffs, etc…

 Bonfire covered early on

The actual ceremony was slightly different to what we expected, which may have been due to the heavy rain that had been falling early in the day, but it was still great, with the culmination of all the rites being the lighting of a bonfire. The procession to the area where the fire was lit involved the head monk walking with his assistants past all of the monks who had been through shugendō, who were lining the way and blowing into conch shell trumpets. These trumpets were blown so as to hit three separate notes and were quite loud.

Prior to lighting the fire there were some Buddhist rites, undertaken by the head monk, and then some other rites involving a long handled axe, a small sword, some wooden blocks and a bow and arrows. The latter was knocked and shot at each of the four corners of the clearing (literally – arrows which had small rubber balls on the tips were actually shot off). Then the fire was lit, with much ceremony. I don’t know what was actually on the inside of the bonfire – the outside was covered in green pine cuttings – but it took off and became very hot with lots of smoke very quickly. They were both fanning the fire, with very large fans, and throwing water on it, perhaps to make sure it kept going long enough.

Once it was fully ablaze they threw on wooden blocks with wishes written on them and then the monks came over to the crowd and asked for items to take to the fire. I had no idea what they were going to do until one man handed over his carry bag and his hat, which they took over to the fire. My first thought was that it was something the man wanted thrown on the holy fire, but it turned out that the monk just waved it around in front of the fire while chanting. After that, everyone started handing over their bags, along with both Craig and I. So, we have now had our respective bags blessed by the monks using the holy fire (hopefully this will help move our licence application along!). It really was a spectacle and definitely worth going to – in fact I would go again if the opportunity arises.

On Sunday just past, we went to the Ajisai (Hydrangea) Matsuri at Fujinomori Jinja. The shrine has two large gardens filled with hydrangeas, which were beautiful to see, but the main reason we went there was because the taiko group we were considering joining was going to perform (it is their home shrine). (OMG, as I’m writing this a small aftershock just happened…)

Ok, so I’m back at the keyboard. I decided to give up following that aftershock yesterday, it was getting late and I decided to have a cooling (relaxing) beverage and check on the kids. It had been around 8½ hrs between the quakes, so the kids had relaxed and then when the aftershock happened it set them off again. Overnight we had five more aftershocks with the biggest at around 12:30 am. This one got us out of bed. Anyway, apart from Godzilla and one of his mates falling off the speakers, everything was ok, however this really scared the kids and Zowie went under the couch, where he stayed for the next 10 hours. Now, even the sound and rumble of the trains going through the tunnels is scaring him. Unfortunately, the aftermath of the first quake was four dead and a fair amount of damage. All of the people were killed by something falling on them, either a wall or a bookcase.

Returning to the matsuri, the first performance of the day was a Bugaku dance, which involves very slow and precise movements. To me, it is somewhat reminiscent of the movements in Noh performances. The dancers wear intricate traditional Buddhist costumes, which usually include equally beautiful masks. After this, there was a demonstration of traditional sword making, using a hand pumped bellows and fire pit – hard work!

Next, there was a Kemari ball game, the object of which is to keep a ball off the ground, with players kicking it so it stays in the air. They call out to let each other know who is going to kick it next, although that doesn’t always work! This game harks back to the middle of the 7^th century CE. The players here appeared to be Shinto priests (I recognised some of them) and they were wearing their traditional clothing, which appeared at times to make it a bit harder! It looked like fun, somewhat physical and it was fun to watch.

Finally, the taiko group played. We knew the songs they played from having been to a few of their rehearsals. It was a warm day and you could see they were getting quite hot – it was outside, although they were on a raised dais with a roof. Interestingly, despite my wish to play taiko here, seeing them perform made me realise that I would prefer to be with a group that had either a larger repertoire, or that changed what they played each year – and funnily enough, I realised I do enjoy a certain amount of improvisation!!!!

…and on that beat, it’s cheers for now!

 Me trying to blend in…

 Lotus flowers very soon!

Following my offer of assistance a glove arrives!!

A statue without pants (><)

Hi all, here I am again! While I haven’t got a huge amount to talk about right now, I thought I’d report back on the BIG meeting and our rubbish situation.

Firstly, the weather continues to remain warm, with the occasional day where the rain ‘periodically stops’. We also now have the first typhoon for the season heading towards us, although it is technically number 5 for the season. It appears it is going to weaken quite a bit before it sweeps up the east coast, so may not impact us much at all.

Now, onto the report, after that brief interlude. What a fizzer!!!! Of the possible 60 households in our community group, we had just two people attend the meeting – the chair of the community group and our neighbour from across the road! Having printed 30 copies of ye olde rules of the minshuku and the booking confirmation email (which has some details in it that we added about not making too much noise when arriving here after hours) and bought enough drinks and paper cups for 50 people, and being told about a terrible situation a few years ago when a minpaku was closed down due to complaints from our neighbours, it really was almost comical – except it was very serious.

Anyway, we stuck to the assigned agenda and went through our introductions (even though we had met both people before), gave answers for all of the questions posed by the chair in the meeting with our scrivener and, lastly, asked for any further questions (which turned out to be more comments than questions). On our side of the room there were six people, on the other, just the two. In any case, it seems the approval was (implicitly) given for us to go ahead with the application – we just hope the authorities don’t quibble over the lack of participants!

The last item we had to deal with before the fully completed hotel licence application could be lodged with the authorities was the issue of our rubbish. The new rules require all establishments to have a contract in place with a duly registered rubbish collector, so as not to unduly burden the local rubbish collection. To be honest, we suspect this is more about adding hurdles to those who have been advertising via Airbnb than anything else.

Nevertheless, after a few refusals due to the size of trucks vs the size of our road, Takako found a company that seemed suitable. So, on Wednesday just past, a very nice woman came to our humble abode to discuss the possibility of her company taking our rubbish. She was, in fact, the owner of the company and arrived in a very small tip truck (slightly bigger than a Tonka truck). We liked her immediately and decided she was a perfect fit for us, not just our road.

So we have now found the final piece to our puzzle, turns out it was on the bridge over the Kamo river on the way to where we buy our pet supplies…

(sorry, when we saw this piece of puzzle on the ground this week, it was such an obvious fit… )

Moving right along, as far as we know the application has now been submitted. We have been told it could take up to two months instead of the usual one month, but we are hoping that the big glut of applications is now clearing, since the deadline for those operating through Airbnb to be legally licenced is 15 June. If they continue to operate outside the system after that time they can be fined and quite a significant amount, I might add.

On that note, we saw an article in The Japan Times the other day which said that around 80% of listings for Japan have disappeared as Airbnb prepares to implement the new rules which require all listings to be appropriately licenced. Apparently the numbers have dropped from approximately 62,000 to about 13,000. On checking the listings for Kyoto today, there are now just over 300. We can only hope this will help boost our numbers, when we finally have a licence.

That’s all for now, but there will be a lot more next time as we have two festivals to attend this week, which I am looking forward to. Also, we are having some of our neighbours over for brunch tomorrow (a new concept here), which should be fun. These are the people we met during the Kiln Matsuri who were keen to try our cooking and who also helped us with some information for our hotel licence.

It’s hydrangea (ajisai in Japanese) time here now, so here’s a few parting shots…!

Cheers!!!

PS: A few people asked about the insect in my last post; it’s a Japanese Giant Hornet, it is venomous and around 40 people die each year after being stung…

When you have no land for lawn, you put it where you can!