August | 2021 | Addams in Kyoto

Hi all, and my apologies for being so late. We have had a few things on our plate recently and so I haven’t had enough time to sit down, edit the photos, gather my thoughts, write the text, then upload the post. This whole process usually takes at least a whole day, depending on the speed of our Wi-Fi connection.

Moving onto the narrative, firstly, it turns out that I was sadly rather too accurate in my predictions about the fifth wave here, with the daily numbers of The Virus sky rocketing around the country – Tokyo numbers are now above 5,000 per day (except for Sunday numbers, which are slightly lower), Osaka numbers are now above 2,000 per day, and the Kyoto numbers are between 400 – 500 per day, and most days are also ‘record highs’. This is thanks to the delta variant and poor management, and had very little to do with the Olympics being here, except maybe people having parties to watch the events.

Thankfully, the vaccine rollout is now back on track, with bookings re-commencing in Kyoto from 2 August. Both Craig and I have, as of Saturday, had our first jab, and we have appointments for the second dose in three weeks. This is very much a relief for us and, while I have a sore upper arm from the injection, it all went very smoothly. We both went to mass vaccination centres (in different places, as we just grabbed the earliest appointments we could get), and even though I had to wait for 30 minutes after the injection, having had a bad reaction to a flu vaccination once many years ago (this was my first vaccination since then), I was out within an hour.

In terms of the weather, most of this period has been hot, with the occasional rainy day – up until 11 August, that is. Since the 11^th, we have had a stationary cold/warm front sitting over most of Honshu. Yes, it has remained in position for over a week, and while there has been dragging rain across from China. Hence, we have had a lot of heavy rain, with one area having around 1.5metres of rain in a week! In the same time, Kyoto city had around 500ml, and I think we must have had more than that in our area, because one of the Japanese women we know sent a message to us last Sunday (15/8) asking us if we were ok.

The day before (Saturday 14/8) it was raining very heavily here, and we had five Level 4 emergency warnings during the day (Level 5 means evacuate, now), the first three of which consisted of the emergency bell sounds and a written warning (in Japanese, but we know basically what they mean), then the last two had the added fun of a voice telling us the whole warning. These warnings are sent to everyone who owns a smartphone registered in Japan, and somehow the warnings come out at full volume, even if your phone is turned down. You can hear the neighbours receiving them, if you open a window.

As is usual here, the warnings for our area were all about possible landslides and the evacuation centre for our area is fairly close to our home, so we haven’t been there as yet. If we lived closer to the hillside, this would be a different story. The heaviest rain recorded for Kyoto city was 42.5ml in one hour. I have to assume it was heavier where we are (which is in the foothills). On the Saturday the city had 127.5ml in the 24hr period. Interestingly, after all the heavy rain, we had two smallish earthquakes on Monday morning (one at 5am, which woke me up, and the next at 8am, both swayers and basically the same strength), which could’ve caused problems if they had been a bit stronger, given how much water was still in the soil.

How the river normally looks (top) and after some heavy rain – and this was on the Monday

The weekend before all the rain set in, we met up with two of our friends and some of their friends (seven of us in all), to celebrate Lilia’s birthday. She chose to meet up on the banks of the Kamo river, as she did last year, but with fewer people due to The Virus. It wasn’t quite as hot and humid as last year but there was lightning again, which I enjoyed (even without the thunder). It was again a united nations group, with representatives from Israel (the birthday girl and husband), Iran, Jamaica, Japan and Australia. We had fun and ate a lot of wonderful food (and also drank a reasonable amount of wine 😊).

The cloud which gave us the lightning display and a close visitor

Apart from our usual weekly supermarket trip, and a visit to Costco, which we visit at least once every two months, we have also had one major outing to visit a house with a large garden and museum, and we recently helped another foreign friend here move all her rescue cats to a new home. Tamarah is an American who lives with her partner here and lectures in ethics (mainly animal ethics to Veterinary students) at one of the universities in Osaka. Aside from this, she has taken it upon herself to help the street-cat population, mainly the colonies along the Kamo river nearby, by undertaking the ‘trap, neuter, release’ program.

If necessary, she keeps some of them, such as kittens in need and those cats who are unwell. She had been looking to find a new place to keep them, as she was only renting space up until now (a warehouse which has no air-conditioning), and finally found an old home in the suburb on the other side of the mountain range behind us which she could afford and then had it renovated to make it into an amazing cat sanctuary. We offered to help with the move, since we don’t have much in the way of cash to help support her, but we do have time since we have no guests.

So, we spent two days (during the time it was raining, but before it got really heavy), moving around twenty six cats and all the associated accoutrements, such as cages, cat trays, bowls, blankets, marble slabs (used for the cats to sleep on, to help keep them cooler), towels, toys, scratching posts, etc. We will be moving more cats up until the end of September, since part of the reason for this move is that she is going to try to trap all the remaining cats in the Kamo colonies so that she doesn’t have to go out every day to feed them, which she does late at night so as to avoid the mostly old men cat haters who have tried to hurt her, and the cats, many times.

As it happens, the rain was good cover to move the cats in, away from prying neighbours eyes…

For our major outing we decided to visit the old residence of a famous artist, who we found out about via Instagram. His name is Hashimoto Kansetsu (1883 – 1945), and he was the son of an artist, born in Kobe but mainly lived in Kyoto. The residence is named Hakusansonso (白沙村荘), but I couldn’t find out why he named it that. He believed that painting and creating gardens were the same, and in fact he designed the house and garden, and all the other buildings within his 1 hectare property. He also designed a gallery to display both his works and his collections, however, WWII put an end to that, and in the end the gallery wasn’t constructed until 2014.

Some of Kansetsu’s paintings

The garden is beautiful, with many different ‘zones’ connected by paths and gateways, and there are many old stone items he collected spread around the spaces. We had no idea exactly what to expect, except we knew it had been a home, but it definitely exceeded our expectations. We were lucky enough to be there in time to see the lotus pond in flower, too 😊. Unfortunately the gallery didn’t have as many of his works as I had hoped for, but it was still lovely to walk around. We were the only people viewing the garden and the gallery, which also made it seem more intimate, and the two staff members in the gallery were very attentive and helpful, with one speaking a little English.

Me crossing a bridge pointing out something important!

The Zonkoro – painting studio

Kansetsu and friends used to sit on this giant slab of stone to drink tea, or sake…

There are a few final things to mention before I finish up for this post:–

Apart from being high summer (and usually walking puddle time), July is also Gion Matsuri month, however, as with last year, the festival and parades were scaled back due to The Virus. In fact, the only evidence of the matsuri was the construction of a few of the smaller floats in a back street near the centre of the city, where they also had some of the usual matsuri items for sale. Here’s hoping that the full matsuri will go ahead next year!

While on our way to the vaccine centre that Craig had his shot at, we passed a shrine which was dedicated to wild boars. As I am a boar (I’m sure you all know that…), I decided to visit the shrine on our way back from the centre. Known as Goō Jinja, it was built to enshrine Wake no Kiyomaro (733–799), who was a trusted advisor to Emperor Kanmu and was committed to trying to keep politics and Buddhism separate. He was eventually sent into exile by a Buddhist monk who wanted to be the next emperor, through his influence with the Empress, but who Wake no Kiyomaro said couldn’t be an emperor. The monk had the sinews of Kiyomaro’s legs cut, and only the protection of a powerful clan saved him from being killed by the monk instead of his going into exile.

The next year a new Emperor came to the throne and sent the monk into exile and recalled Kiyomaro from exile, making him a governor. Interestingly, he was the person who convinced the emperor to make Heian-kyo the site of the new capital, now known as Kyoto. As to why the shrine is dedicated to boars, it is said that Kiyomaro was saved and protected by 300 wild boars until the end of his journey into exile. It’s an amazing shrine, with a huge collection of boars of all shapes and sizes, carved from wood, cast in metal and made of ceramic.

The last item for mention is a ‘Close Encounter of the Animal Kind’ – only one animal this time, though. I was mid-way through my ballet at home class, facing towards the backyard at my couch-barre, when I saw a Japanese weasel run across the open area behind the fence – or should I say bound. Unfortunately it was gone before I could reach a camera, but it was very beautiful, covered in bright orange brown fur.

That’s all for now – lets hope I have better news on The Virus front next time. At least both Craig and I will be fully vaccinated by then (well, unless we have to get a booster, but that is still being debated).

Cheers!