Hello all, here I m back at the keyboard (finally) to start recounting what we have been doing since last we spoke 😊. It is mid-summer here now and it is fairly hot, although not yet overly humid (a blessing). It seems the rainy season has now finished, sometime within the last two weeks, so now we need to water the garden beds regularly. All the days since the end of the rain have been over 30C, with most hovering between 33 and 37C.

Despite the heat and the rain, we have had quite a few guests throughout this period. Our guests seem to have coped admirably well with the heat (and the rain), though Rachel (our friend down the road) has had at least one guest suffer with heat stroke. Some guests are going out as normal but then coming in late in the afternoon for a rest and freshen up. We actually had one guest tell us that she didn’t expect it to be so hot and didn’t bring enough clothing to swap out the sweaty clothing (and, ironically, she used to live in Delhi).

As a result of the heat, we have been going out on excursions mostly in the late afternoon and into the evening. There were a couple of exceptions to this, one was a trip up to Ohara and Sanzenin to check the hydrangeas there, and the other was a walk into town on one of the slightly cooler days, when it was sub 30C (just). We drove up to Ohara partly to get some vegetable pickles from a producer up there and partly to see the hydrangeas since it was that time of year. We always love visiting this temple, and being in the mountains it is always slightly cooler, a bonus in summer. As it happened, though, the hydrangeas hadn’t reached their peak up there though it was still lovely.

After visiting there we decided to have lunch somewhere and had discovered there was a restaurant nearby that had some vegan dishes. One slight problem, though, there was a queue waiting for a table when we got there, so we gave up on that and headed off to the next valley over to go to Yoshuji at the base of Kurama-dera. We love to eat at Yoshuji, so we will take any excuse to go there!!

In lieu of a food photo…we ate too quickly!!!

After lunch we walked up the main road of the village to check a stone masonry yard, because we finally had enough money coming through the business to buy a stone lantern for the front yard. This was always the plan, but back in 2018 we couldn’t afford the $1,000+ price tag of a good quality stone piece. I knew there was at least one stone mason in Kurama that made the kind of lantern I really wanted, though as it turned out, we discovered later there are quite a few stone masons because the stone from the area is quite famous for its colour and fairly sought after.

The yard is up ahead

Anyway, at the yard I saw ‘The Lantern’, one that I loved, but the owner wasn’t there, so a man across the road said we had to ring him and there was a sign at the gate with his details. We also took a couple of photos of ‘The Lantern’ to help us describe it over the phone – well, for Takako describe it, since our Japanese just wouldn’t be anywhere near adequate for this transaction.

So, a few days later Takako called, described it and he gave us a price which we could afford – however, after a little more discussion, it turned out he had mistaken which lantern we were talking about. Just to clarify, we sent him the photo we had taken (after a few issues with the size of the photo and being able to send it via email) and he came back and said that this lantern would be double the price he had given us…! I said that unfortunately we couldn’t afford that much and Takako told him, though she kept talking to him, saying we were nice people and other things. Anyway, he agreed we could have ‘The Lantern’ for the original price!!! I was jumping up and down (as quietly as I could) while Takako tied up the details. A week later the mason delivered Kyou (as we are calling ’The Lantern’, because its shape looks like the kanji for Kyou, as in Kyoto). We ended up giving him ¥20,000 more than he had agreed to in part because he delivered it and he also helped us put it in place, along with some homemade bread rolls. Apparently he was thrilled we gave him that extra money, and the bread 😊.

One other big event for us in June was attending the debut drag performance of our Spanish friend Nacho. We had been trying to catch up with him but weren’t able to due to the huge influx of guests we had. So, early June I contacted him to try to organise something and he told me that he was going to be debuting at a drag show being held in the Mexican restaurant at the hotel he works at. I thought this would be a fantastic way to celebrate Pride Month and to show support for him, so we went along.

The hotel he works at is an amazing place, one of the more expensive places but quite alternative in design, and the restaurant lived up to this. There was a DJ and a dance floor as well as the stage. I felt like it was back in time when I used to go to the Mars Bar, with all the drag queens, the glitter and sequins, and the super high heels. Nacho was on early as Mari Consha, initially playing shamisen and singing, and then later doing two other performances. He was obviously nervous initially, but did really well in the end and was well received by the crowd. It was a fun night and I got to dance too, so fantastic all up.

Unfortunately we couldn’t get any photos of Mari and, yes, the last photo shows two guys wearing only white undies and small angel wings dancing…

Speaking of performances, we had a guest stay with us recently who is an Associate Professor at a Swedish university of Japanese studies, including culture and music, particularly focusing on the shakuhachi. He actually lived in Japan for 20 years and during that time he studied under a shakuhachi master and eventually received an honorary name of Jinmei. He also studied music with a focus on the shakuhachi at Tokyo University.

A photo of our guest taken from the internet playing the shakuhachi

Though he isn’t vegan, he chose to stay with us because of our location near Tofukuji temple, where he was meeting with the head monk in relation to his studies. He also went on to visit two other temples in other places in Japan and performed a couple of concerts in Tokyo, along with another person who was playing a shamisen. While he was here, he asked if it would be ok to practice a couple of songs that he was playing in the concert which he wanted to do extra work on in our dining room. Did we mind??? It was a lovely half hour interlude being able to hear an expert playing his instrument and some wonderful, evocative music.

The final two excursions mentioned above involved going into town to firstly see the floats for the Gion Matsuri being built in situ on the streets and then to go to one of the Yoi nights, mainly to buy two new chimaki for our business and home entrances. Yes, July is Gion Matsuri month, when the giant wooden floats grace the streets of the city centre. The festival has been held annually since around the year 1000CE, though with a few gaps, including WWII and the recent pandemic. It originally started in the late 800s following an epidemic when the Emperor ordered activities be held to appease the gods of disease, but was only undertaken sporadically, as necessary, until the annual event started. Formally, it is a Shinto festival out of Yasaka shrine and there are many formal ceremonies held during the festival, but it is best known for its two Yamaboko processions of floats, which take place on July 17 and 24. Funnily enough, even though this is one of the biggest and most famous of all the festivals held in Japan, virtually none of our guests had any idea it was on!!

There are two different types of floats, the smaller Yama floats (about 6m tall and up to 1,600kgs) which carry deities within, of which there are 24, and the larger Hoko floats (about 27m tall and 11 tonnes), which recall the naginata (Japanese pole blades) which were used in the original purification ceremony, of which there are ten. They are constructed mainly of wood and rope, no nails are used, and covered with huge tapestries. The Hoko are pulled around the streets using long ropes with between 30 and 40 men pulling them. On the three nights leading up to the processions, there are huge street parties known as Yoi, with food and alcohol stalls and other stalls selling assorted Japanese items, and the main streets where the floats are located are closed to traffic.

The first time we went in it was most pleasant, we walked in to town and then went to Engine Ramen (well, we were in town…) and then we wandered around first viewing some of the floats then we decided to go and try out a bar at Ace Hotel (where Nacho works), which was nice. After this we walked back home, through the Gion area, along one of my favourite streets there where I have seen many geiko and maiko in the past, with the vague hope of seeing some more. As luck would have it, we ended up walking behind three women, two maiko and one geiko, and one of the maiko was very dressed up, looking like she might have been out on her first formal event. Further down the street a crowd of Japanese people were standing in a group on the road, a few with cameras. They appeared to be waiting for these three to return, which was confirmed when they started clapping as the three neared them. It was all very lovely.

The geiko is on the left, with a maiko in the middle and the very dressed up maiko on the right, likely on her first professional outing

The second time we went in we expected there would be a lot of people attending the Yoi parties, but that night it was wall to wall people. I have no idea how many people were actually there, but my guess would be over 300,000, perhaps closer to 400,000 (or higher?). You just had to go with the flow of people, which was slow and inexorable. As we were locked into the movement, I did think vaguely of those festivals where panic suddenly swept through the crowd and people were hurt, however, we just had to had those chimaki and once we were in there, we were there. We managed to buy the chimaki and then had to get out of the crowd, which took a while. An experience, but I think I will try to go in earlier next time!

Well, that’s it for now – Kyou is happily sitting out the front under the Japanese maple, the chimaki are above both doors and the weather is going to be 35+C for the foreseeable future.

Cheers!

Matsuri diorama in a shop window

My latest efforts and close-ups

Field of red shiso and some jizo at Sanzenin

It was getting darker as we were walking, so I looked up to check the clouds and there it was, the dragon cloud!!! (Dragons bring rain…)

A fur friend display at Mumokuteki (l) and my newest fur friend (r)

A very interesting bar entryway

Hydrangeas from Sanzenin (top) and Chishakuin, which just keep on blooming

Zara still dreams of being a swan…

Miro checks outside her house, with Zowie on the deck below, Zara above and Akashi on top of the cupboard

Contemplation…