Year 9 in Kyoto – episode 1

Hello!!! Yes, I am still alive and kicking, though there were times earlier this year when I didn’t feel very alive and kicking…

Just after new year, and the day before a group of friends from Australia arrived to stay with us, I came down with the flu. Timing. We had closed off bookings for the week they stayed here with us, and we were really looking forward to catching up and having some fun with them. On the first full day they were here, however, Craig took them all in the car across to Arashiyama and I stayed home to rest, with the hope that I would be up to enjoying their time here.

Little did we know that one member of their party had also caught a flu virus while in Tokyo or Osaka before coming here (and he had no idea too) and, unfortunately, the next day they started to get sick – like dominoes. All but the youngest member of the group eventually came down with the flu, as did Craig. Apparently there were three variants roaming around Japan at that time, including my old friend H1N1, and the numbers of people catching the flu were triple what would normally be the case for that time of year.

As Craig wasn’t 100%, I dosed myself up with cold & flu medication from the following day and did my best as tour guide for those who were up to it. It wasn’t quite what we had all hoped for, but everyone did have at least one outing. After they left us they went to one of the country’s many snow resorts but, unfortunately, they didn’t get as much skiing in as they had hoped for.

The problem was that I just didn’t get better – although all the flu symptoms disappeared, I was just not well. I was constantly tired and slightly dizzy, did not have very good balance and it just felt like the air had become more dense and gravity had increased. Along with this, it was like my head was full of fog, I couldn’t think straight and my memory wasn’t working well. Everything was an effort – I would have a shower and then have to rest for a while, etc. Some days were better than others, but still, I wasn’t recovering.

After a few weeks of this I decided to check on the electronic oracle for any clues as to how I could help myself. I found Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Long Covid both had similar symptoms (though I hadn’t had Covid, of course). It seems there is no consensus in the medical community about the causes of these syndromes, but the view is, increasingly, that it is an inflammatory response to viral infections. Based on this, I decided to try dosing myself with anti-inflammatories since there was no actual recommended recovery course of action – well, it couldn’t hurt, right?

Anyway, after a few days of this I started improving a bit, so kept on with it. A month later, I was feeling ok on most days. At this point, I thought I should try reducing the dosage – mistake. On the second day of this regime, I was back to resting after my shower, etc. So, long story short, three months later, I have now reduced the dosage to once a day, although I accidentally forgot to take them one day last week and the next day was not so good, hence I am maintaining my current dosage for a while. As a consequence of all this, and given spring is peak season for us, we haven’t been doing much, and it is also the reason I haven’t written a post in a very long time.

Moving on to the weather and the blossom. As I mentioned last time, winter had been warmer than usual and this continued up until early March, when it suddenly cooled down. All the predictions prior to this cooling about the blossom opening were for a very early blooming, but that didn’t happen. The plum blossom started opening early, but not all of it, so that went on for weeks and then, in early April, the main cherry blossoming started (the early blooming variety had started in late March).

We did have a few days of snow during winter,as usual, with one fairly heavy snowy day and then, on the 19^th of March (the day before equinox), it snowed!! We are now into May, and it is now just starting to warm up into the high 20s, which is the usual temperature range for May. We have, however, had a reasonable amount of rain through spring (not so usual), which might augur well for Autumn – hopefully.

In January, as I mentioned above, we had our friends here for just under a week and did manage to undertake a few outings, though I didn’t take many photos, I was mostly focussed on keeping going and forgot about that, so here is most of what I took in January:

Yes, I found an effects button on my phone…

Early in February, we met up with one of our taiko mates and a work colleague of his to take them to Arashiyama. As it happens, this day was the day of the heavy snow fall, and the snow kept falling on and off all day. It was the first time we had ever seen the bamboo forest in snow, and it was beautiful. This day I took a lot of photos (I had dosed myself up on cold & flu medication…).

Setting off

Five minutes later – where did the Tower go? After this the white hit us, snowing fairly heavily…

On the 25^th of February, we went to Osaka to see New Order play – I had bought tickets many months previously, and they weren’t cheap, so I had to make the effort. The concert was amazing; they were tight and the visuals were fantastic – Bernard Sumner is 69 yrs old! I had danced to Blue Monday many (many) times at nightclubs during the 80s, and I finally got to do so to a live version (yes, again on medication). The other thing I really liked is the entire encore set consisted of Joy Division songs – the screen had Joy Division Forever written on it and a photo of Ian Curtis. As the songs went on, it gradually zoomed in on Ian’s face until, at the end, there were just his eyes…

We also went to an art exhibition during the month, which was based around light and visited a new vegan izakaya. I was feeling almost stir crazy and an article in the local paper said the exhibition was very good – I found parts were, and there were other parts which were, well, almost clunky. The izakaya was definitely a good experience.

March and April mostly consisted of us looking after many guests, though we did have a few outings. A very important outing was to to Izakaya Nijia – a fully vegan izakaya – to celebrate Craig’a 55th birthday. We tried to get there early enough not to have to wait too long, but failed. we arrived at 5pm, for a 5:30pm opening but, unfortunately, we were numbers eight and nine in the queue, and the bar only seats seven…

Some of the multitude courses and nihonshu, of course!

Last year I mentioned having been approached by the Japanese owner of an izakaya (a different one) who was planning on shutting it and opening a bar in the Gion area and was asking for assistance in this endeavour. Early in March the renovations to the bar she is now working out of were mostly finished and she wanted to get some people in for a photo session. We went there and had a good time, oh, and many photos of us all were taken.

Later in March, she sent out a half price coupon to the participants and we finally had one night we could make it there to take her up on it, which was nice. Afterwards we went to Bali Bali for dinner, since that was nearby and we were still hungry.

What you might see walking home via the Gion

…and passing through Chishakuin

We had two other recreational outings in April, one to a vegan festival, where we were treated like minor vegan celebrities 😊and the other was a walk with a friend who has returned to Japan to work at the Expo. We had lunch at Silverbacks and then walked over to Fushimi Inari.

Arriving

Well, that’s it, for the first four months of the year. Once we are through this month, we are taking three months off!!! Yes, we booked out June/July/August a while back, for a number of reasons, including the need for a break which I am really looking forward to. We have some plans to do some more sightseeing, further afield and I will remember to take photos 😊.

Cheers for now!