OK, so it has been a very long time since my last post. I had intended to write the next episode some time in October, however, a certain incident occurred early in the month – the day after my birthday – and I haven’t been up to typing until now; and even now it is a bit difficult. The back story started with us going into town to get some bits and pieces and then walking home through the Gion area. As we were crossing one of the back streets, I didn’t notice a hole in the asphalt (I was looking for cars) and tripped over the edge of the hole. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to regain my balance (I was still not 100% well) and fell forward.

Trying to stop myself I extended my right arm and fell hard onto my right hand, breaking my shoulder in the process. I didn’t know I had broken it at the time, but I was in a lot of pain and I thought maybe I might have dislocated my shoulder. We caught a taxi home to try to work out where to go for medical assistance – it was late Saturday afternoon, but I had gone into shock by this time and wasn’t really with it. Our neighbour friend helped us find a local private hospital that had an emergency section which accepted walk-ins. Otherwise we would have had to call an ambulance and might have ended up across town.

They checked me in emergency and said I had dislocated my shoulder and wouldn’t take me. So, our friend again helped out by checking the electronic oracle and told us there was a clinic that accepted walk-ins which was reasonably close. I was able to have an X-ray there and was given the news that it was broken. The doctor said I could try to let it heal naturally, or go to consult a surgeon regarding surgical options. He gave me pain killers and made an appointment for me at our local hospital (also private). Two X-rays and a CATscan a few days later showed it was broken, and in more than one place, so I elected for surgery, along with a private room (thankfully).

Two weeks after the surgery, I was sent home and three days after being sent home I was re-admitted, with an infection which I got via the hospital. This time I had two wound irrigation surgeries – the first under local anaesthetic, which was abandoned halfway due to the pain I was experiencing, and the second under general anaesthetic – which was followed by three weeks of various intravenous antibiotics.

When I was finally allowed to go home, I went with more antibiotics and less of me – I had lost over 4kgs in weight thanks to the meals they were serving me. All food was prepared at the hospital, and, as with most Japanese food, everything was cooked using stock containing fish. My meals, as a result, basically consisted of rice, plain tofu, boiled vegetables and a little salad. I had never been served boiled cabbage prior to my stay there and I can vouch that I did try it, but…

Sigh

Anyway, I am home now, I was let out just in time to see some autumn colour, and I am enjoying eating a range of foods, though my stomach has shrunk a little so I am not eating as much these days. Apart from two very minimal showers while in hospital, which is almost certainly how I got the infection since the type of bacteria I had was a waterborne varietal, I didn’t have any showers for nearly two months. The other chapter of this occurrence is the ongoing rehabilitation, which started less than 24 hours after the first surgery. They are hopeful I will get back at least 90% of the movement of my shoulder, but it is a slow process.

Prior to me breaking myself, we were still having our summer break, until the beginning of September when the guests started arriving again. The last major expedition we went on during our summer break took us to a truly beautiful beach in Fukui prefecture, known as Wakasa Wada. It was around three hours of driving to get there, but well worth the effort, despite our car GPS trying to kill us on the way. We had opted for the fast route without toll roads, so the GPS picked a route that included a back road which appeared to be disused. It was one car wide (just), hugged the side of a mountain, was possibly a two way road and had no guard rails on the edge of the road (with a sheer drop to the bottom).

We had a friend with us, and were chatting away while driving, but the conversation gradually completely disappeared as it dawned on us the predicament we were in. I was terrified and found that I had moved right away from the door, in part so I couldn’t see down into the valley. Craig was driving very slowly and we were on that road for at least 30 minutes – the relief when we could see the end ahead was very palpable. After that experience, we stuck to the main roads, even when the GPS suggested at least two more small side roads. On the way back, our friend used Google to help us find a suitable route 😊.

Didn’t take any photos of ‘that’ road – didn’t even think of it…

But, the beach! Perfect in nearly every way. Lots of sand, a nice bay, a grouping of small islands close to shore, some with pine trees on them, water was not freezing cold and it stayed fairly shallow for quite a way out and with no seaweed. We hired a beach umbrella and just relaxed and enjoyed (all memory of our murderous GPS gone). We are planning to return there in summer this year, maybe even stay overnight, if we can find someone to cat-sit.

I realise I haven’t mentioned the weather, but, well, it’s winter now and it was summer when we went to the beach. There is one item of interest regarding the weather – for the first time we experienced what the Japanese call ‘guerilla rain’, which is a term mostly used in the Japanese media to describe a short, very localised downpour of over 100 mm in an hour and is caused by the unpredictable formation of cumulonimbus cloud. The name is a reference to the ambush nature of guerilla warfare, since they often occur on an otherwise sunny day, and cause flash flooding. Needless to say, it was very intense, with some flash flooding in the middle of town, luckily not where we are.

As you can imagine, we haven’t been doing very much since I got out of hospital, in part because Craig was working flat out while there were guests here, because I couldn’t really do much, and in part because I found it tiring to do too much. In the middle of December, we had some friends from Australia come to stay with us, which was lovely, and after they left we had one family stay with us as guests. Now that all our guests have left it means we have more time to relax, I can continue to work on my arm and time for an occasional outing. Apart from the walk to a local temple to see some Autumn colour after I was discharged, we have walked to town once to go to a doughnut shop that has some vegan options, in particular a custard doughnut that is worth a walk into town! On our way home from there, we walked through the Gion area, as we so often do and walked along my favourite street where we regularly see geiko and maiko.

On this day, we passed a group of three, then noticed a large group of Japanese people further along the road, with many cameras and phones evident. They were grouped around a doorway of a house that I have often heard shamisen being played when passing. Given that they were all there and clearly waiting for someone, we decided to wait with them. After around five minutes the door opened and a large, traditionally dressed man came out, then a geiko appeared who was fully dressed up, and then another. We think they were there as part of the end of year events in which geiko and maiko visit all their teachers and thank them for their training during the year, and we were lucky enough to be there at just the right time. Truly beautiful.

The last outing we took for 2025, was late on New Year’s Eve when we visited Chishakuin, the large Shingon temple near our home, to experience their New Year’s activities. We got there just before 10:45pm and there were a few others moving around (apart from the monks). By 11:10pm there were literally hundreds there, mostly to line up in the queue to ring the bell. I wasn’t going to be able to do much bell ringing, but we did want to see the other NYE rituals, which included some specific chanting and the lighting of a small bonfire. I wanted to do something special to see out 2025 – my annus horribilis 😊 – and see in 2026 in a positive way. It was cold, but felt good and, of course, we applauded when midnight passed. Let’s hope the year of the fire horse is a good one for us all.

L; 10:44 ——> R; 11:08

Happy New Year!

Cheers!!

A photo of me broken. They did a bone density scan while in hospital, and found my bones were in good order – so, I managed to break myself by throwing myself really hard onto the ground…

Prior to my first surgery, I had to remove all my rings. I managed to get all but one off, which was my mother’s eternity ring, which I had been wearing for around 20 years. We tried a jeweller, but they said they couldn’t cut it off and referred to a fire station. We went to one nearby, but just as we arrived, all the fire officers left the station to attend a fire. The remaining admin guy told me to come back a few hours later, which I did, but they were still out. I decided to walk home and on the way, fairly close to where we live, I found them all, and a whole lot more, attending a largish fire. In the end, one of the nurses at the hospital borrowed a ring cutter from elsewhere and between us we finally got it off. As it turns out, my hand was so swollen after the surgery, I very likely would have lost the finger!

The ukiyo-e in my first room at the hospital, which I really liked.

I was in hospital for Halloween – very depressing, indeed.

One of the very long tunnels north of us, and Hikonyan enjoying the drive.

The morning view from the ward common room

Sunset from the hospital

The only Autumn colour I could see from the hospital

Prior to me breaking myself we went out to dinner, with drinks before and on the walk home we were lucky enough to be there when the bats woke up!

Our friends from Australia having breakfast

My last ikebana for a while

One of our resident wasps on the lemon tree

Our new cleaner has a really cool mini bike/scooter

A petting zoo at our local shopping mall…

Summer skies

Lucky them – I am still feeling some pain!

Our elegant child

…and her mother

Here I am back in front of the computer, ready to take the long journeys (again)! All of these epic journeys, except the last one, required the use of our car – and quite a bit of time.

Our first journey took us to the Japan Sea side of Kyoto prefecture, to a town (Miyazu) famous for the beach area known as Amanohashidate (which basically means heavenly bridge, or bridge to heaven). Amanohashidate itself is a sandbar which is 3.6km long, between 20 to 170m wide, is covered in thousands of pine trees and spans Miyazu Bay. It is renowned as one of the three scenic bay views in Japan. There is a viewing point very close to the sandbar, accessible by a cable car, or a chairlift, so that you can get the full impact of the ‘bridge’.

The drive there took over three hours, taking us through mountain ranges (sometimes literally, with one tunnel being over 3km long) and past the many small farm areas growing Kyoyasai (Kyoto grown vegetables) and rice. It really was a very scenic drive, and we saw many traditional houses which were still being lived in. What I did notice, though, is that most of the houses which would have had thatched roofs in the past, now have metal clad roofs. They are still amazing looking houses, none the less.

Once we arrived at Miyazu, we chose to take the chairlift up to the top of the viewing point to take in the full vista of the bay before we walked down to the beach area. Apart from the viewing area there was, in fact, a whole mini theme park up there, with ferris wheels, a merry-go-round, a mono-rail pedal train and various shops.

After looking around up there, we made our way to the sandbar. We were looking for a place to have lunch and a wee dip in the ocean. Luckily we found a small concrete table area, with a roof because, just like everywhere else where there is water, there are Kites and they really want to steal your food! So we ate, then headed to the water. Craig and Triscia went out into the deeper water (with the jellyfish) and I stayed close in – however I did sit down in the water 😊. Within an hour some weather started coming in, so we headed back home, but it was really nice to see a beach!

The next day, we set off for Muko city, which is a lot closer at around one hour’s drive, to visit a bamboo park which was not like the usually very crowded Arashiyama. The other attraction at this park is a Kofun burial mound (tumulus), in the shape of a keyhole, built early in the Kofun period, in the 4th century CE. We started by visiting the Rakusai Bamboo Park, which has a museum dedicated to all things bamboo and a garden with more than 100 varieties of bamboo planted. It was really interesting walking around the lovely garden, seeing all the different varieties, with my favourite being the Buddha’s Belly, and the best part is that we had the place to ourselves!!!

After we left the garden, we then walked along the Takenomichi (Bamboo Road), which is around 1.8km long and is lined with bamboo fences, in eight different designs. There were a few people walking along the road, and, as it is a road, there were some cars, but still lovely and quiet and plenty of people free photographs. The Kofun tumulus I mentioned is along this road, so we were able to walk there to view it. This one is around 95m long and is one of five in the Muko city area. Excavations of this tumulus found it had burial chambers in both the round section and the square end section, with the round end chamber being larger. Grave goods were found in both chambers, though there were signs of grave robbery.

Over 160,000 Kofun tumuli have been found in Japan, of varying shapes and sizes, with the largest being the keyhole shaped Daisen tumulus located in Osaka prefecture, in which the mound is approximately 500m long and 300m at its widest point, while the entire tomb area is 840m long, including three moats which enclose it.

Our third grand adventure took us to Fukui, to the land of dinosaurs – the Katsuyama Dinosaur Forest Park and the Fukui Dinosaur Museum. The drive to the Dinosaur Valley area took a bit longer than the drive to Amanohashidate, but it was worth it. The route took us along the western edge of Lake Biwa and into the mountainous area of Fukui Prefecture, where they have found skeletal remains of dinosaurs and some preserved eggs. So far, no-one has decided to try to bring any to life, although it felt a bit like they had in the forest 😊.

The museum was very good, with many skeletons on display, some dioramas and some full size displays, including dinosaurs with moving parts and making noises. There was also an animatronic T-Rex!!!  This amazing creation is over 7m tall and is unbelievably life-like. I’m not sure, but I think it might have had movement sensors in it, so that your movement was registered and it reacted to you. It could move in many ways and also could roar. As I was standing there, taking thousands of photos (slight exaggeration), it bent right down and looked directly at me, I think it even sort of sniffed me. After a shortish while I found myself talking to it 😊…

Eventually I pulled myself away, we continued wandering around this huge building, went into the shop (I only bought one dinosaur friend) and then headed toward the forest. Wow!! This is truly an amazing place. It appears as though they envisaged it as a place for children, but nearly everyone wandering around in the forest was an adult. It is hard to really describe it fully, but it is huge, has many realistic looking dinosaurs ‘wandering’ about with some being animatronic, there are sounds all around the path which heighten the realistic feel, and it is just fantastic. This park, including the museum is easily one of the best experiences I have had and, as I said before, definitely worth the long drive there and the entry fee.

The next day we took a shorter trip, around an hour and a half, to a small village called Kayabuki no Sato. It is a rural village nestled (I had to say that) in the mountains north of Kyoto which is composed mainly of old thatched houses and is being carefully maintained as a cultural heritage site The day we were there a group of workers were actually in the process of re-thatching one of the houses.

It is a very picturesque place where you can wander around amongst the houses and they have a few small cafes and shops where you can have a coffee and buy some mementos, along with a restaurant. There weren’t too many visitors there on the day we went, possibly because it was the middle of a very hot summer, but I did wonder how intrusive it would be if you lived there, especially during peak seasons.

Our final outing with Triscia took us to Kobe, to visit the Kobe Art Gallery. The exhibition displayed a large portion of the gallery’s permanent collection to coincide with the Osaka Expo, along with a special exhibition focusing on two Japanese artists who left Japan pre-WWII, one going to the US and the other to Europe. Interesting over-all, though I don’t recall it as richly as the Dinosaurs 😊.

That’s all for this episode – it was very eventful and enjoyable, and a wonderful way to spend 10 days in the middle of summer. It is still hot now – 38°C outside today – and we have had a number of thunderstorms since that time. Very tropical, but that’s for the next episode…

Cheers for now!

Lovely forest, but they said there were dinosaurs…?

Oh dear…

WTF is this?

There were lots of frogs at Kayabukui no Sato

Oh…

Summer bounty

When you don’t have enough people…

Oh…

Hello and welcome to my second blog of the year (and we’re already into August!). Following my last post we have done quite a bit, including a visit to our immigration lawyer, a few visits to the Vet and quite a few outings, of varying distances and activities undertaken. As a result of all this, there is quite a bit of ground to cover (literally) and many, many photos – too much for one post, so this post will be the first of two covering June and July.

After the last guests left in early June, we spent the first week or two getting our house in order, ie cleaning, washing, ironing, etc, then after that we started winding down. The weather, on the other hand, was doing the opposite, ie winding itself up into a hot, hot summer. The June rainy season wasn’t overly wet, though there were some moments of heavy rain, but it has been hot through this time, in an unrelenting kind of way. Recently we have had a couple of weeks with every day over 36° and every night at least 27°. Hot! So, we did venture out into the furnace a few times early on but held back a bit until our friend Triscia arrived here, in the second week of July.

Prior to her arrival, as mentioned above, we ventured out to go to Osaka to see our lawyer and organise our visa renewal. The good news is that we have been approved for a three year visa this time!!! Thank goodness 😊. In another administrative activity, we have also been working towards being approved for a modest mortgage loan, so that we can have a home to move back to when we return to Adelaide. I say modest, because lenders are not at all keen to give out loans to people who are living overseas and they also don’t like lending to self-employed people – a double whammy for us. In fact, the mortgage broker who has been helping us could only find one organisation willing to take us on, imposing both a risk fee and higher interest rate. Ah well, at least there was one.

As to the June Vet visits – we had our regular Ziggy appointment, which turned into two visits, but we tried a slightly higher insulin dosage and it has brought about a positive outcome for his diabetes, which is good. We also had to take Zowie for a couple of visits, an issue with his teeth, but all the test results were very positive, and he is back to eating normally. Craig also took our friend’s dog (a Doberman) for a couple of visits, for an ongoing issue and the final visit was an emergency run for a street cat.

We have a few street cats who visit our yard, and we leave food out for them every day. The unwell cat might have visited once before (we’re not sure) but somehow, when he was almost literally on his last legs, he made his way here. He was skin and bone and very weak, staggering in from the road, when I saw him. So, I grabbed a sachet of wet, paste style food, which we keep on hand for cats with significant dental issues, and took it out to him (he is an un-desexed male).

Thankfully he ate fairly well and finished it off. Craig then got one of our cat carriers and took out some cat treat Ciao Churu (cats love it), encouraged him into the carrier and immediately took him to the Vet. He also contacted some local cat rescuers we know, with one saying they would take him on once he had been to the Vet, been checked over and the Vet thought he might survive. The next day, they sent him off to Tokyo to a Vet they trust with street cats. This was rather harrowing, as he had to go via the Shinkansen and another train, and he was still very weak, but he made it, thankfully. He is now being looked after by a foster carer, and seems to be improving, overall. We were asked if we wanted to name him since he came to us for help, so I named him Rian, an Irish name meaning little king (I figured he had the luck of the Irish making it to our place in his condition). He is now looking a lot better, is around 3.6 kgs and soon he will have some surgery on his teeth and to de-sex him.

Rian – not well

Rian today

Other than these adventures, we also went to see a Yayoi Kusama exhibition and to a temple named Hokongo-in which I read about in the local paper, known for its garden and especially the lotus pond, which comes into flower early in July. The garden was designed in the 1100s and is designated as a Special National Site of Scenic Beauty.

Triscia arrived here on 11 July and we spent that day settling her in and giving her time to recover from the flight. The sightseeing schedule started the next day, with a local adventure, starting at Hakusa Sonso, which was the home built by the artist Hashimoto Kansetsu. He designed everything from the home, to the gardens and the art gallery in the back yard. It is a beautiful place, very serene, and it is particularly lovely in July when the giant lotus plants are in bloom. To be honest, his garden, to me, is better than the garden at Hokongo-in – just a personal preference.

After we spent some time there, we walked to the nearby Philosopher’s Path for a walk under the trees, in the heat, making our way to the temple Nanzen-ji, where the large, brick aqueduct is located – a good place to sit for a while to cool down a little.

Following that, we headed over to Heian Jingu shrine, which had set up some areas with many dome shaped glass wind-chimes, as a special Tanabata Festival display. Tanabata Festival celebrates the legend of the celestial lovers – Hikoboshi (based on the star Altair), a cowherd and Orihime (based on the star Vega), a cloth weaver. Though they are deeply in love, they are separated from one another throughout the year and can only meet on the 7th of July. The night of that date is when they are allowed to cross the Milky Way and to briefly reunite.

So, we went there to see the wind chimes and enjoy the lovely garden – but, something very special happened on this visit, I finally saw a Tanuki ‘in the flesh’. In fact, we saw four Tanukis, a mother and her three cubs!!! I cannot understate just how excited I was on seeing them. I have wanted to see a live Tanuki ever since the first time we came to Japan in 2007, and all I have ever seen is photos and the ubiquitous ceramic Tanuki effigies (of which we have three). Seeing them in the beautiful garden setting of Heian Jingu, comfortable, playful and looking so healthy was just bliss for me. Normally they are nocturnal creatures, but here they were, moving around and seemingly unconcerned about us.

After this fabulous visit to the garden, we went to Toriba Coffee for a drink, something to eat and to cool down – which was helped by having a lovely kakigori, a special summer shaved ice dessert, mine with mango topping. What a truly fantastic day this was.

The next day, we took Triscia into town to buy some items she wanted and to see the floats for the Gion Matsuri. Still hot, but the floats are always worth seeing.

This is a good point to end this post before we start the really big adventures!

Cheers for now!

When guys are working, there’s always that support crew…

The flowers of summer

Tonbo

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!

That one on the left!

The things people do when it snows…

What I do – 

Our neighbour’s wares drying in the sun

Year of the Snake

Things you see while walking around Kyoto

Things you see in a bar, or on a bus in Kyoto

Things you see in our garden

Magnolias in moonlight

Just a swan

Pet toys…??

Miro using my leg as a pillow

Me turning into one of the Fey Folk

So, the busiest year I have ever had in my life is coming to a close, but not before one more rush of guests – for new year. At times, in the middle of it, it felt like it was never going to end – every day would start by serving breakfast, then clean up and more clean up, then ironing and making up rooms, etc… As to xmas and new year celebrations – we had two guests here for xmas breakfast and two people checking that day, and we will have five guests here for NYE, with three rooms checking in on New Years Day! We did, however, have 11 guest-free days in December, during which we managed a few days doing no business related catch-up work, which was wonderful, especially as the Autumn colour was so late this year. In fact, so late that our little maple tree out the front still has about 50% of its bright red leaves still attached.

This was taken on the 18th!

This, of course, brings me to the weather. It remained warm well into November, hence the delay in the colouring of the trees.

The news channels have been saying that this year the timing of the colouring is very late and the that first snow fall on Fujisan is the latest ever recorded. All our guests who came here for Autumn during November basically missed out – there was a little colour right up until the last week, but nothing like the first half of December. The other interesting thing I noticed about the colour this year is how intense the colours were, like being on psychedelics! Even now, it is a bit warmer than usual. At a time when every day should be sub 10°C, around 50% of the days are between 10° and 13°C. Ironically, there have recently been some good snow falls on the western side of the country, so it should be a good ski season.

Just after my last posting, we had a friend stay with us for just under a week. We weren’t able to spend a huge amount of time with him, however, we did get one check-in free day where were able to go out (to Otagi Nenebutsuji) and we also managed to get out for a meal one night (to Saishuan Shiraki – yum). In relation to the latter, the owner asked me if I would mind reading something she had written for us to read, which turned out to be a request for help with a new venture she wants to undertake, because she has been finding the izakaya very hard physically more recently due to spine issues. We, of course, said we’d be happy to help, at which she hugged me! Japanese people generally do not make physical gestures like this, so I was surprised. We have made arrangements to meet up with her next month, so more to come on that.

During the last week of November, we took advantage of a check-in free day to head out in search of momiji (Autumn colour, essentially). I had wanted to find some places we had never been to before, so researched via a book we had bought for our guest library which lists Kyoto Autumn colour sites, and the electronic oracle. The first place we went to was Shinnyodo, about 30 minutes drive north of us, a Tendai Sect temple, established in 984CE. It isn’t a huge temple but it is known for its Autumn colour. It certainly lived up to its reputation on the internet and there weren’t many people there, so a win-win.

About a week and a half later we had another opportunity to get out, so I picked two temples from the book – Sekisanzenin an Rengeji. Founded in 888CE, Sekisanzenin is another Tendai sect temple and again north of us, just a bit further on by car. In Kyoto, there has long been a custom of visiting temples and shrines that enshrine the seven gods of good fortune, known as the “Miyako Shichifukujin,” to receive their protection. This temple enshrines Fukurokuju, one of these gods, who represents longevity and wisdom, and is also associated with wealth. He is usually depicted as a little, old man, with a very high dome shaped bald head.

The man writing my goshuin

This temple was absolutely one of the best I have been to in a number of ways; very few people there, surrounded by forest, the staff were very friendly and the colour was stunning. It is now in my top ten to visit. The second temple we visited that day, Rengeji, also a Tendai sect temple, was built in the current location in 1662CE, though it appears it may have existed elsewhere prior to this, was destroyed during the Onin Wars and then rebuilt later at this location. It is small, but has a nicely designed garden and viewing room. Again, there were few people there, but there were so many restrictions about what you could or couldn’t do and where you could or couldn’t go (conveyed by a very officious person), it wasn’t a place I would return to.

After all that – the sublime to the uncomfortable – we decided to go somewhere for a nice lunch; Café Ren, and that was good 😊.

We did visit one more temple to view the gorgeous trees a few days later, Chishakuin, our local Shingon temple, a place we often walk through on the way home, because it is a lovely temple, the staff and monks are very friendly and the atmosphere is very calm. The colour there was also amazing, very intense, and even though it is relatively a smaller stand of trees than many others, it was gorgeous.

Around late October I received a letter from the superannuation fund I am with asking me to complete a form essentially to prove I was still alive. It had taken 15 days to get here from Australia and they wanted it returned, fully completed within 15 days! The main problem was that it had to be witnessed by someone acceptable to the Australian government, and the only place I could find someone suitable was at an Australian consulate, the closest of which is in Osaka. Needless to say, as we were flat out working seven days a week and travelling to Osaka and back would take a large part of one day, this just wasn’t going to happen in time.

So, I contacted the fund agency and they gave me an extension of time to complete my task and said I could send a scanned copy via email, and so on 10 December (with the deadline looming in five days) Craig and I set off for Osaka for my appointment at the consulate (you had to have an appointment), me with passport in hand. After proving I was still, in fact, alive and having it witnessed, we then went to the kitchen street in the Dotonbori area for some items for the business and after had a very nice, lateish lunch. Subsequently, I sent off the fully completed and suitably witnessed form and will continue to receive my super pension 😊.

The massive atrium of the building where the consulate office is (on the 16th floor)

The final non-work or shopping outings we undertook all took place on one day, our anniversary (35 yrs together, 33 yrs married). In the afternoon we went to a performance of Kodo (the taiko troupe) which was, as usual, fantastic (and, as usual, made me want to play). Later that day we went out to dinner at our local vegan restaurant, Silverbacks (always good) and then walked down the road to a bar named Windmill, a place I had been wanting to go for literally years – a beer and sake bar where they play British rock from the 60s and 70s. Turns out the place is run by a man who used to be a solicitor, can speak quite good English and has a passion for music of the period (and not just British). We had a fun time there and will return when we can!

We were in the 3rd row

One final little story; during our December break, I had a list of things I wanted to get through (which I achieved 😊), that included tidying up our garden. As we were picking up all the dropped leaves on the ground (fig, magnolia, bamboo, etc) a small blue and red bird started hanging around – a blue rock thrush. We had seen it before and it had seen us, so we knew it lived nearby. Anyway, it was coming very close to us and was obviously looking for small insects, etc as we were moving the leaves around. Connecting with nature…

Well, we hope you all have a wonderful new year and I look forward to having more time to get out, take lots of photos and then write about it next year!

Cheers for now!

???!!!

Noticed this vehicle up ahead – turns out it had a canon on the front!

Down and down to the subway

Full moon on our anniversary

and I thought they were enemies!

Mother (l) & daughter (r)

Zowie enjoying the winter bed topper

Me employing camouflage techniques

I’m baaack! It’s been a while (again), but this year has been very full on, so far, and is about to be so again from tomorrow. This week, however, we have had a ‘no guests’ week, which we really needed for our mental health after nearly four months with no time off. Yes, it has been groundhog day since I last sent out a post, and from time to time it felt like we were prisoners in our own home, with lots of wardens passing through.

What was most surprising during this time, is how many people came here through summer – and it was a long, hot summer. Apparently we had over 100 consecutive days over 34C, which is a record. Even now, in mid-October, most days are still in the high 20s. The building water usage has been through the roof, with our water bills so high the meter reader had to call the first large amount in to get approval to give it to us –  our guests have been showering and bathing morning and night to cool down.

Which brings me to the long staying guest I mentioned last time. He and his wife were here for nine nights, initially, and on the last full day they were meant to be here they came in early, as his wife was not feeling well. We assumed she had heat stroke, as she was being sick and was very red in the face, she also said she had stomach cramps. Turns out the stomach cramps were actually severe pain and later that night Scott took her to a hospital – luckily – because she was taken in for emergency surgery within the hour for a perforated intestine. She ended up having one metre of her small intestine removed, the result of damage from Crohn’s disease. If they had flown out the next day (which they were due to do) and it happened during the flight, it may not have turned out so well. Scott ended up staying here with us for most of our two week holiday, while his wife recovered in hospital.

While we did a lot of catch-up work during our holiday in June, we did manage to get out a few times – I took Craig to the ‘secret’ bamboo forest, we went to the local fire festival at Chishakuin and we took Takako up to Kurama-dera, had lunch at Yoshuji (yum) and then went to Kamigamo shrine.

The day of the fire festival was hot and windy, not the best conditions for starting a large bonfire and it did get very hot when the fire was fully alight, so much so that I put my mask on to try to keep my face from feeling like it was going to melt. It was actually cooler with the mask on. The head monk of the sect was there, and I was sure he had to be at least 150yrs old – they carried him on a palanquin in the beginning, then helped him walk from the hall to the fire area. We were well and truly immersed in the sacred smoke during the ceremony, had our bags blessed by the monks using the smoke and then I had an extra blessing from a monk who waved special paper over my head (also my face) which is used for cleansing away bad energy.

I closed my eyes and held my breath after this photo as we were fully engulfed…

I stopped taking photos after this point because I was worried the heat might affect my phone!

Takako was very keen to go to Kurama-dera and also try the restaurant there, so we took her with us, and I also thought it would be good to go to Kamigamo shrine as we had never been there and Takako knows a bit about it. It was a lovely place, one of the oldest shrines in Kyoto, having existed here prior to Heian (now Kyoto) becoming the capital. It was founded in 698CE, is in fact one of the oldest shrines in Japan and is one of the UNESCO World Heritage sites in Kyoto. Near the inner entrance to the shrine a large straw ring, known as an o-harae, was set up as part of a twice yearly purification ritual. The idea is to walk through the circle in a particular way and it will cleanse the mind and body of impurities. We, of course, all walked the path as per the diagram.

Kurama-dera

After all this cleansing, I must be really pure! 😊

July is Gion Matsuri month and during this time we ritually go into town to buy a new chimaki for both of our entrance doors. This year we made sure we went in during the afternoon, so as not to get caught in the massive crowds of people at night like we did last year. As we were walking around to see if there were any stalls selling chopsticks, we came across one of the giant floats being pulled along by a huge number of people who were just there to look at the floats. Once that float was in place, the one behind it was then prepared for the same thing, ie onlookers pulling it into position. I said to Craig I would so love to do that, but there were already many people lining up, so gave up on that idea. There were people spread out along the rope lines organising the process and giving instructions to those participating. Anyway, they started moving forward and then one of the organisers beckoned to me to join in – I hesitated for a millisecond and then jumped in! Then he also called Craig over and there we were, helping to pull the float along!!! Once we were in place he asked for Craig’s phone and took some (ok multiple) photos of us. Unfortunately he didn’t include the actual float in the pictures, but it was one of the smaller floats that happened to be in the shape of the larger floats, just a little smaller. Yes, I was very excited about this – for days 😊.

The first float pulled into place and us looking very excited (though not the man behind us, it seems!!). Our float was a bit bigger than the first one.

One other outing during summer took us to see the irises at Heian Jingu. We had a day without check-ins at the time and took the opportunity. I do love irises. As it happened, it turned out it was the one day of the year when entry to the gardens is free, which was an extra, unexpected bonus. Yes, it was beautiful.

Earlier this month, as a treat for my birthday, we took advantage of another check-in free day to go to an exhibition held for the 140^th anniversary of the birth of the artist Ishizaki Koyo. I hadn’t heard of him before, but he was particularly known for his bird and flower paintings. I very much liked his flower paintings, though I prefer Jakuchu Ito’s bird paintings. There was, however, one painting of flying ducks which was from the perspective of being up there with them, which was amazing. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take a photo of that one.

After the exhibition we went to a bar for a drink and then to a Vietnamese restaurant for dinner. We hadn’t been there before, but it was very good, and we will definitely be going again!

Two other notable events during this period were saying goodbye to our friend Nacho, who was returning to Spain. We made a special paella for him as a parting feast. The other is that we finally had our stalag inspired barbed-wire fence renovated. The reward for all our hard work!

The barbed wire comes down…

et voila!

The one thing we have had to make sure we are able to do when busy is go shopping, though there have been some weeks where it has been very tricky getting away from here. Sometimes the Aeon Mall near the station where we shop has special events in the open area next to the supermarket, including some performances. During August they had an exhibition of Japanese performance calligraphy, which usually has a team combining some dance and painting calligraphy on giant sheets, all set to music. We have seen shows about the school competitions of this performance art, so it was fun watching it live. Interestingly, the song the team I watched had chosen was a modern American song, in English and compete with swearing! Nobody but me flinched at the lyrics (not offended but wondering what the elderly Japanese would think of it), so presumably no-one knew…

On a final note, while this week has been spent mostly playing catch-up, I did make sure we took one day to get outside and take a walk in nature. We decided to climb part of the Kyoto trail up behind Kiyomizu-dera and walked along the trail to the area where Heian Jingu is. After a matcha latte and cake (there was nothing savoury to eat), we returned home via my favourite canal system. Having not done much walking or hiking for a while, the fairly long uphill climb to the top of the mountain was hard work, but worth it. A very nice 12km round trip!

We came down from the mountain trail just in time to be stopped at an intersection by what appeared to be a festival procession for Tengu, complete with very long swords and pikes.

Cheers for now!

We managed to get out for one kakigori and one of these amazing (and fairly expensive) ice-cream experiences – but look at my face…

Some of my creations

including the smallest ever Ikebana

Water views

Straw & bamboo dragon

We decided against this option!

A cicada landed on our window – I have never had a chance to photograph a live cicada up close before

What is this vortex in the sky? Reminds me of biblical paintings at the Light exhibition. I think there was a dragon in there – not sure, though.

Sunset

This butterfly flew from plant to plant as I photographed them (it followed me). I felt truly blessed.

Not sure what this was for – some kind of trial

Also not sure

Had to add something for Halloween!!!

Hello to you all! You may not remember me – I am the one who used to write to you all pretty much on a monthly basis, recounting the activities and adventures we have been undertaking here, in Kyoto-land. Well, I can now tell you that we have been unbelievably busy business-wise, starting from the day after Craig returned from Australia (18 February). We have not had a ‘guest-free’ day since that time, and we won’t until 18 June. During this period, we have had an average of eight guests per night. The only way we are getting any time off from the 18th is that we blocked the bookings for two weeks – otherwise it is likely it would just continue on and on, with no break.

Bookings are building up for the rest of this year (and into the Spring period next year!) and we are already booked out for a number of nights in Autumn. During this stretch have had an interesting passing parade of guests from around the world, with many from the UK, US, Australia and Germany, but we have had some guests from most of the countries in Europe, and we have also had some return guests.

Fun facts about our guests:

• Three honeymooning couples stayed here;
• Three couples became engaged while staying here; and
• One of the guests who stayed here turned out to be my second cousin once removed from England!

Weather-wise, it has continued to be a different year from average, although, despite predictions of an early blossom season this year, a sudden cold snap a few weeks before the predicted blooming slowed it right down and it ended up happening in the ‘normal’ range. Sad for those who booked for an early timeslot based on predictions but a relief for those who had booked many months prior based on the ‘normal’ time frame. Of course, we have only really seen the weather from a ‘through the window’ perspective. We did manage to get out for a walk into town (mainly for shopping) once, and we made a special effort to get out to a very special event once!!! All the other outside forays were to go shopping, for ourselves and for the business.

Prior to the great influx, Craig spent just under three weeks in Adelaide visiting his family, particularly his mother who had required hospitalisation. He also managed to catch up with a few friends too, which was lovely. While he was there, I had a friend stay here with me for a week, which was also lovely. During that week I went on many quests, including finding a new bamboo forest fairly nearby, visiting two art galleries for specific exhibitions and attending an Ikebana class!

We are now calling the close-by bamboo forest, the ‘secret bamboo forest’, so that it won’t become like Arashiyama with thousands of tourists flocking there. It was an amazing place, with virtually no-one else around and a lot more natural than Arashiyama has become. I think that we only saw a part of the forest, that it is much bigger, so more exploration is to be had – perhaps in June!!!

The first gallery we went to was in Osaka, and the exhibition we viewed was a selection of paintings by Japanese women, dating from the late 1800s into the 1900s. It was nice to see works by women, looking at their views of life in Osaka and really good to see works exclusively by women, especially given it is rare to see any artworks from that period by women.

The other exhibition we went to see was a fibre art display, showcasing the work of Kobayashi Masakazu, who was active in this sphere in the 70s, 80s and 90s. There were some other pieces displayed which were mainly by artists working with him, or whose works were influenced by him. It was marvellous seeing so many pieces of fibre art in one dedicated exhibition.

For our Ikebana class, we went to Rokkakudo (Chohoji) temple, which is believed to have been founded by Shotoku Taishi (Prince Regent Shotoku). The temple is understood to be the birthplace of ikebana and successive generations of the Ikenobo school headmasters have served as head monks of this temple. The style of ikebana taught here is somewhat different to the style I had been using and the particular variety we were shown was called ‘free form’.

Demonstration arrangement

My arrangement

The creative process and swans

We both enjoyed the class, making our own arrangements after the teacher demonstrated the style for us, and we were able to take the resulting arrangements home with us. We also found out that there was an ikebana shop upstairs from where we were, so had to go there to see what was available – the range of items was huge, and it was hard to limit myself…!

After our floral arranging fun, we went to a nearby shop which sells both plants and vegan ice-creams made to look like bouquets. Expensive ice-creams but look incredible and taste great 😊.

Yum!!!

Interruption!!!…I started this post on 13 May and never had time to finish it. So, here I am over a month later finally taking time to complete it and send it out. There was a time in the middle of all the guests where it started feeling like groundhog day and, to be honest, I suspect if I passed by any of them in the street I wouldn’t recognise them – barring a few standouts. Anyway, we are sort of having a holiday now (and I say that because we still have one guest who has been here for over 20 nights now, but that’s a story for next time).

Now, onto the very special event – The Night of the 100 Yokai! (in English, yokai roughly translates as demons or monsters), which is part of Japanese folklore. In the folklore this mainly refers to a parade through the streets of Japan at night involving many yokai, which is sometimes an orderly procession and other times a riot. Yokai often have animal-like features (such as the kappa, which are depicted as appearing similar to a turtle, and the tengu, commonly depicted with wings), but may also be humanoid in appearance. Some yokai resemble inanimate objects (such as hammers or other items which have been left abandoned), while others have no discernible shape at all, or may be ghosts. They are typically described as having spiritual or supernatural abilities, with shapeshifting being the most common trait associated with them. In relation to behaviour, yokai run the gamut from mischievous and murderous, to benign and protective.

The parade we went to first started in 2005 in a shopping street in the northwest area of Kyoto. At that time the local shop owners all created their own small yokai to stand out the front of their shops, which are still there today. Between 2005 and 2020 a special costumed yokai parade was held once a year but was discontinued during the pandemic. This year a special effort was made to resurrect the parade, and so we just had to go 😊.

We couldn’t stay out too long, since we had guests staying here, but it was most definitely worth going to see. There was a celebratory, fun atmosphere to the event as the yokai paraded along the street (there was also the occasional scream of a young child as one of the yokai passed them – hehehe). Once they had all passed through, we started making our way back to the car and then we were stopped by police to clear the road again, as the yokai were returning the other way along the street. So, we got to see them again! Fantastic.

Once more – with scary feelings…

Cheers for now!!!

Zara in destructive mode

Post class arrangement

Tiny frog sculptures!

We had some lovely walks in beautiful weather

Outside of our own yard this is about as much as we saw of spring

Luckily we have quite a few flowering plants at home

We snuck out quickly to see this glorious creature

Saw this one while shopping…

???

Do I look big in this box?

Enjoying time with a friend

Akemashite Omedetou!!! A little late, but hey. I hope everyone had a lovely New Year’s Eve and that this year is going well for you, so far. We are currently having a much-needed break, and although we had two guests in late January, our time off will amount to nearly six weeks. Having said that, we spent a large part of the first three weeks off doing catch-up, much needed and makes me feel much more on top of things now, so we can more fully relax. We have some guests booked in for later this month and come March, the proverbial substance will really hit the fan.

Today is Setsubun, the day before the traditional beginning of spring in the old calendar of Japan. Later today I will perform the mamemaki (bean throwing) ritual, which is meant to cleanse any ‘evil spirits’, which bring mis-fortune and bad luck, out of the house. Subsequently, I then have to eat some of the remaining beans, one for every year of your life (to date) plus one for the coming year, to help bring in the luck. That’s a lot of beans…

Oni – evil spirit!

Weather-wise, it has mostly remained warmer than usual, and I’ve noticed that the average temperature each week has been at least 1.5°above the usual average for the same time period. We have also been having a lot of overcast days, which is equally unusual. As a consequence of this, the forecast peak cherry blossom time is a lot earlier than usual – again. For Kyoto they are estimating 23 March as the peak. To check whether this was likely, we stopped in at Chishakuin to see how the plum blossom trees were going on the 22^nd of January and were amazed to see some already open!!! Another consequence of the warmer-than-usual weather is very little snow, with only two nights where enough fell that we could see it early the next morning – but only a few centimetres.

Going back in time to December, we had a lovely day with a family friend I have known since I was very young and her grandson. We went to Nara, then came back to Kyoto to visit Kinkakuji and Nijojo. Thankfully it was a sunny day, though it was cold. It really is wonderful to catch up with friends and share some of the beauty and history of Japan with them.

Just before xmas day, there was an influx of guests and as a result we didn’t have the time to do any cooking for a xmas meal. Instead, when we went out to pay some bills (it’s not a public holiday here), we stopped at Silverback’s on our return journey for a late lunch/early dinner, which was very nice.

Similarly, we weren’t able to go out on New Year’s Eve or go to a temple for the midnight bell ringing, as we had a full house and we had to be up early for breakfast service on New Year’s Day. January 1^st was a memorable day for us, as at 16:10 that day there was an earthquake here. It was around magnitude 4.2 and a real swayer. I was standing at the sink rinsing out a bottle when it started. A strange sensation which I didn’t realise was an earthquake at first, but I had to grab onto the sink to stop myself from moving. Then I realised what was happening and turned around to see our light over the breakfast bar swinging back and forth. Craig came in and said the paintings on the walls were swinging around, too. I knew as I felt it that there was a large quake somewhere else and was not at all surprised to find out it was centred on Noto Peninsula, as there have been literally hundreds of smaller quakes in that area over the last two years, almost daily.

What did surprise me was how strong the quake was here in Kyoto, which is around 290kms away. I found out that what I call a swayer earthquake, is in fact a ‘long-period’ earthquake, which is characterised by a longer duration of time for the earthquake wave to travel back and forth compared to what happens during an ordinary quake. So, a long-period quake feels like the ground is swaying, whereas an ordinary quake shakes things around, what I call a rattler. For me, I much prefer the ‘feel’ of a swayer because it feels much more gentle and there is less noise. What I have discovered, however, is that swayers are actually much more dangerous, and the effects travel further – hence why we felt it, and so strongly, here. It is particularly much more dangerous for tall buildings, as it can cause higher up storeys to sway very significantly. Sadly, it has caused a huge amount of damage in the Noto area.

A 6-storey building laying down

A couple of weeks later, we finally had time to take a trip to Osaka to see an exhibition which we had free tickets for. The exhibition was called Light and consisted of paintings and other works from the Tate gallery. The Tate curator working on this exhibition, as it was travelling around Japan, stayed with us during October while she was working on the Osaka installation at Nakanoshima Gallery. The exhibition opened late October and finished on 14 January and we managed to get there on the 13^th!!! Interestingly, there were a lot of people there, even on the second to last day. It was an fascinating exhibition, with some amazing works, and the focus on the use of light in each.

One of the paintings showing the theme very well

One other event to highlight is Burns Night, which we did have time to cook for – vegan haggis, tatties and neeps (Japanese turnips) served with whisky sauce, and a dram or two of single malt…bliss. Interestingly, Burns day was one of the two days where there was snow on the ground in the morning, and it snowed on the same day last year! Slangevar to Rabbie.

Well, that’s all for now. Craig is currently in the warmer climes of Adelaide and I am sitting here rugged up. I am continuing with various chores that need doing but have been left because they were not urgent, but thankfully I finished the ironing a couple of weeks ago. It took about five days to get through and my hand is now grateful for the break 😊. My main chore now, though, is looking after the six masters of the house – and they are hard task masters. Zowie is insisting on me waking up at 6:30, as per our usual working routine – I have pleaded with him for a slight sleep in, but…

My masters like the winter mattress topper

Supervising breakfast service

Cheers for now!

Rather unusual xmas decorations in one if the malls

Interior of the hotel where my friend and her family stayed

I do love some of the signs here

Interesting fashion statements – those pants!

Will Craig become dinner?

This is how a winter’s day should look

Year of the dragon

Heard about an amazing vegan dessert – had t check it out. YUM!!!

Just thinking…

Think pink!

Snuggling. Look at the size difference!

What’s that inside it’s chest???!!!

Welcome to the Bumper Xmas Edition (aka I Haven’t Had Any Time Over The Last Three Months To Spend Producing A Post) Post.

The last three months have been crazy! We haven’t had one day without guests up until the 16^th of this month. In fact, for most of the time we had at least four rooms occupied and very few days where we didn’t have at least one checkin. After a while, every morning I felt like it was Groundhog Day, ie all days started to feel the same. It got to the point where we were calling any day where there were no checkins a ‘light’ day – and there were few of those.

We had some interesting times during this period, such as when we found a large hornet, known in the US as ‘murder hornets’, in our bedroom. After a slight panic, Craig managed to get it out with deft use of the shoji on the window.

Photos from the internet

We also had one incident where we weren’t home when two guests arrived for checkin. To start this tale, I need to mention that I managed to damage one of my large toes three days prior to their arrival…I was carrying a load of bedding and bathroom requirements for two people to a room in preparation for a checkin. Perhaps I was moving a little too rapidly up the stairs, especially since I couldn’t see past the pile of linen, etc and caught the edge of one of the stairs with my left foot. To prevent myself from falling, I slammed my right foot on the next step up, but did so a bit too vigorously and too far forward, connecting with the riser quite hard. I heard a cracking sound and my first thought was “oh no, I’ve damaged the stairs”. Actually, I had cracked the bone at the tip of my large toe – sigh.

Ouch!

Anyway, the guests were due to checkin around 5pm and we needed to go shopping both for ourselves and the business. We figured we had about three hours, with half an hour safety margin. Of course, it was the weekend and it was raining, which meant that the mall was likely to be busy, but we thought it would be fine. We got there and there was a shortish queue to get into the carpark, but we kept going. What we didn’t realise was that a new parking payment system had just been installed, which fundamentally changed the dynamics of the carpark…

We started to get concerned when we went a short way inside the building and we stopped moving – the carparking area consists of four floors of parks, starting on the 5th floor and we were still on the ground level. It took at least 20 minutes to get to the rooftop level (all the other floors were full) and there were only a few parks left. The supermarket wasn’t too busy as most of the people were there for the cinemas, games arcade and food hall. We moved as fast as we could, with me hobbling as quickly as I could and made it back to the rooftop at about 3:45pm – we should have been able to make it home easily.

After 45 minutes had passed and we had moved approximately 20 metres from our parking spot, still on the roof, I decided to try to get home by taxi. Craig suggested the train station taxi rank, as the mall is close to the station. I set off down the escalators and outside into the rain, trying to move reasonably quickly. As I approached the taxi rank I could see there was a huge queue waiting – I estimated at least 300 people – so, I turned around to head for the nearest main road in a homeward direction, and so started the inaugural 600m hobbling dash with an increased difficulty factor of rain. As I limped along, I wondered how ridiculous I must have looked, dripping wet and hobbling as fast as I could (and in pain). I finally reached the main road and after a while a vacant taxi came along. As usual, the taxi driver had difficulties trying to navigate to our place meaning I had to cover the last 30 metres on foot and arrived 20 minutes after our guests were due. Luckily one of our other guests was here and had already let them in, so they were happily ensconced in the dining room. Meanwhile, Craig was stuck on the rooftop for over two hours and arrived home well after 6pm.

Speaking of the weather, it has been unusually warm here over the last three months, with max temperatures staying above 20C until 9 November and in the teens until yesterday, with the first sub 10C max for the season. This has meant the Autumnal colour stayed with us until just recently, which was a bonus for all our guests who stayed here into December. Luckily we were able to get out twice to see some colour on the two ‘light’ days we had available.

In late November, we offered to take two of our guests to a temple they wanted to go to which was a long way to go via public transport. I had been interested in going to another temple which was nearby, so we took them there and then went to the other temple after. Takako had mentioned the first temple, Kosanji, and the other temple was named Otagi Nenbutsuji. Kosanji turned out to be largely destroyed, though the grounds were filled with huge cedar trees and there was some nice colour in amongst it. The real stand-out was the second temple – it was truly amazing, with over 1,200 small statues in the grounds. After visiting Kosanji we drove along a private road which is very scenic, so it was a lovely excursion all in all.

Otagi was built in the Higashiyama area in 770CE, but was washed away during a flooding of the Kamogawa river. Subsequently it was re-built in the Arashiyama area. Further misfortunes befell the temple and it was moved again, then in 1955 a new head monk was appointed, who also happened to be an accomplished sculptor of statues. After another rebuild, he decided to request visitors to the temple carve statues, under his guidance, of Buddha’s disciples. This occurred between 1981 and 1991, with the result that they are an amazing array of very different styles and shapes, including one standing on its head!

To top it off, there was a full rainbow on the way home – very unusual in Kyoto

Our other ‘colour seeking’ visit happened earlier this month when we went to Enkoji. I wanted to find somewhere we hadn’t been to see the momiji, and this one did not disappoint. Not as extensive as some other temples, such as my favourite, Eikando, but still a magical experience.

I haven’t mentioned the visit of Craig’s youngest sister, her husband and youngest son, who has just turned 11. It was very busy for the two weeks they were here, in October, so we couldn’t spend overly much time with them, but we did have dinners with them and got out twice. Craig was thrilled to have them here – it had been well over six years since he had seen any of his family in person.

We also caught up with a friend from Adelaide who I used to work in the same department with, and her mother. Unfortunately it had to be a fairly quick catch up due to time constraints, but it was really lovely to spend some time with them.

There have been two other ‘major’ events in the past three months – my birthday and our anniversary (34 years together, 32 years married). As I mentioned in my last post, I had made a reservation to go to an izakaya for my birthday, Saishuan Shiraki. We had a wonderful night with six other customers there, all foreign tourists, and one of them was celebrating her birthday on that night, too. Miho, the owner and cook, is a very friendly and funny host and somehow she found out it was my birthday (Craig), so I ended up with a birthday hat on my head, which I duly passed on when we found out there was another birthday person at the bar.

We tried…

A couple of the multitude dishes served for our set menu (oh. and me after being ‘hatted’)

For our anniversary we ended up going to a pizza bar in Osaka, which was great though it was a three hour round trip to get there. This actually came about because we didn’t get around to doing anything about organising a night out until all suitable options here in Kyoto had already been booked out. Truth is I was glad we went in the end, not just because we could eat pizza not made by us, but also because the main cook there makes all the vegan cheeses and faux meats, which we had discovered previously and were interested in buying but hadn’t been able to find a way to pay for. Seng has said she will try to find another way for us to pay, such as Paypal, which they don’t normally use. Fingers crossed.

On the good news front, apart from us being very busy and getting very good reviews from all but about three of our guests* (who were not vegan, and one was a cat hater as well!) two new cafes have recently opened very close to us which are vegan!!! Interestingly neither had any idea we were here and one of them had never heard of Happy Cow, the go to place for vegans and vegetarians to find restaurants. The first café, called Ku-kai, has a very small menu (but it does include carrot cake 😊) while the other, called Silver Back’s Café, has a fairly extensive menu, including nachos and pho, along with a number of desserts. We went there on Sunday, the food was good and the owner was a very jovial man. Fantastic, because there hasn’t been much for our vegan guests that is nearby. That is now remedied – hopefully they’ll prosper.

What an amazing year it has been, extraordinarily busy and very tiring at times. We learnt some things and have changed a few things to take some of the pressure off us and ensure potential guests are clear about our house rules (it’s interesting how many people book, receive our message containing said rules and then cancel). It looks like it may be another busy year in 2024, with the late March/early April blossom time already booked out, and we still keep getting messages asking about availability – “we tried to book but couldn’t…”

Well, I’ll leave it there for now. We both hope everyone has a wonderful year end and an even better new year!

Cheers

*           having said that, we are sitting on 9.6 out of 10 on Booking.com, 4.9 out of 5 on Google reviews and 5 out of 5 on Happy Cow, which we are happy about 😊

A selection of the individual statues, including the ‘Easter Island’ head, a vampire (?), Zaphod Beeblebrox, and what appears to be a statue “restored” by an elderly Spanish woman. It appears one of the disciples may have played tennis, while another was a boxer?! All of the statues had a name inscribed on the back, presumably the creator.

Pulling faces on my birthday – before we went to the bar…

Sunsets

We had never seen the doors open and the lights on revealing the Buddha at Chisakuin before

The Evans have an interesting coat of arms!

A skirt made of liquid metal!

At the station

At the mall

Poster at a department store

We bought the kids a toy to keep them occupied while we were busy

Tahlia strikes various poses

Testing our phone cameras – photos taken in the dark

My phone doing weird things to light sources – the eye in the sky?

For the enthusiasts/nerds

Our little tree turns red

Pink flowers

Halloween out and at home

Free ride station

Where’s Craig gone?

Me striking various poses

…and here it is getting close to the end of September and I haven’t got around to sending out a post. Well, I am about to rectify that situation, though I have to fit it in and around our work. After a few days of full house, the last of a group of guests left late last week and then we had one day to gather ourselves together in preparation for the Autumn onslaught, which will last until the end of November. After that we have a few guests up to the middle of December, but with odd days here and there free.

We have bought up fast food supplies (and by that I mean food that is quick and easy to prepare) for ourselves, and been to Costco to buy bulk supplies for the business. In amongst this ‘onslaught’, it is also my birthday and this year I will go out to dinner, though it won’t be on the actual day as we have lots of ins and outs around the actual day. In preparation I have already made a reservation to make sure it can happen.

One task we had to get onto was finding a new sake for the guest fridge – we have apple juice, beer and sake in the fridge, in part to give each guest one complimentary drink after check-in and to have some drinks available to buy if they want something. The sake we had been buying in little cartons had disappeared from Costco shelves, so we decided to go the sake brewing district in Fushimi ward. After a brief electronic oracle search, we decided to try one from Kizakura brewery, the brewery with a Kappa museum we have been to before, as they had some small bottles of sake at the right price point.

We had booked out a small holiday for ourselves in early September (if we don’t do this, we don’t get time off) and chose one day to set off for Kizakura Kappa Country! They have a lovely courtyard at the brewery and a shop full of their brands, so we picked one, bought it and sat outside to sample. It was still quite hot outside, but there was a table under a gorgeous large tree, thankfully. Anyway, we liked it and went in to buy a carton but they didn’t have one available, so we bought six and they said they would have a carton available the following week, which we duly collected. Turns out a group of four who stayed here with us last week really liked it and drank about eight of them, so we had to go back to buy more!

Onto the weather it has remained fairly warm, with the run of 35+ days continuing until the 5^th of this month. Since then most days have been around 32 – 33C, but more humid, and we even had some days back up to 35C. There has been a bit of rain around, but often in sudden heavy falls which end quickly. There aren’t any typhoons on the horizon, at the moment, and it appears we may ne moving into a period of low 30s / high 20s from now on.

We made the most of our ten days off, getting out and about, including eating out a few times. Our first outing was with Takako, who had found out that the only film version of Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji) made in Japan had been resurrected and some English subtitles added. The story was written in the early 11th century by the noblewoman, poet, and lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu. This story is widely acknowledged as the world’s first novel. The film we saw was made in 1951 on 35mm film, and the character of Genji was played by a famous Kabuki actor. As a consequence, Genji wasn’t quite as attractive as he was written to be and was quite effeminate. Having not read the story I’m not sure exactly what Genji is like in the book, but in the film the actor played the part somewhat like he was playing a female role in Kabuki.

In the story Genji has numerous affairs and moves between these women at will, with many knowing he is seeing numerous others, and so the film consisted of him bedding many women. Sometimes it seemed he just took them without their consent, he had at least two children (one to his first wife and one to one of the Emperor’s concubines), he kidnapped a teenage girl and took her to live at his house (he brought her up to be like the woman he really loved, then when she was old enough…) and finally had to leave Kyoto in fear of his life (for having had an affair with the Emperor’s concubine), etc. I really did enjoy it, though some parts were a little comical, but it was very interesting seeing how these people lived and dressed (and presumably accepted multiple affairs), since it appears that Murasaki based the story on her life at court. Prior to seeing the film, which ran for just over two hours, we went to a nearby café which was actually a hair and beauty salon with a small room where food was served!

The next day we finally went to see the ceramics exhibition that I had been waiting for so long to see. It mainly showcased a group of potters in Kyoto who lived very close to where we live and who eschewed the traditional style of Kyoyaki (Kyoto-ware ceramics) making their own very avant garde style of pottery. They called themselves the Sodeisha group. The group was founded by Yagi Kazuo, Kano Tetsuo, Yamada Hikaru, Matsui Yoshisuke, and Suzuki Osamu in 1948. Yagi Kazuo was the father-in-law of the woman from gym who befriended me a while back, and her husband has also become a potter.

It was fairly expensive to get in to see the exhibition but it was more than worth the money. It was incredible, with 183 exhibits with a few that you could take photos of; interestingly most of these were created by Yagi. Some of the early exhibits showed more traditional works of Kyoyaki, for context, and it was clear that the Sodeisha group leant heavily on all the research and skill of those who came before them here. The majority of the exhibits came from different art galleries within Japan and around the world. By the way, Sodeisha means ‘crawling through mud’ 😊.

After the exhibition we walked back to the Gion area to have dinner at Bali Bali. We arrived at the Gion area before the restaurant opening time so ended up going to a nearby izakaya and had a drink. It was an interesting place and had some food items which were vegan, including some which they smoked in their own smoker. Something to keep in mind for another day!

One unexpected outing was taking a friend and her fiancé to Sanzen-in up at Ohara. It was unexpected because up until recently Mika had been living in England. Out of the blue she sent us a message via Instagram saying they were moving to Kyoto for at least two years and she would like to meet up with us. It was a lovely surprise, as we hadn’t seen her in the flesh (as it were) since we were studying Japanese in Adelaide. She had won a grant to live in Adelaide for a year to study English and teaching a language and our Japanese teacher acted like a mentor every year for recipients, so we met her at our classes and became friends.

It was lovely to see her again, after ten years, and to meet her fiancé whom she met while studying in England (he is French). For something a bit different for them we took them for the drive up to Ohara, walked through Sanzen-in, then drove over to Kurama and had lunch at Yoshuji. A lovely way to spend a day😊.

One final outing to mention is my exciting trip to renew my driver’s licence. Last time I had to go out to the driving centre and go through the whole process, including a two hour lecture on road safety. Not the most exciting way to spend half a day – in fact, many people actually fell asleep during the lecture (not me, the seating was too uncomfortable, but the Japanese are masters at micro-sleeping anywhere!). This time, because we have both had our licences for five years and not had any ‘incidents’, we are classed as ‘model drivers’, and our reward is being able to renew at a venue near Kyoto station and a much shorter lecture; only 30 minutes!!! The process still requires waiting in queues for different parts of the process, but it only took about two hours all up. Fabulous.

Well, that’s it for now – I’ll try to get the next one out closer to the middle of next month…

Cheers

This gets me every time – does it mean we have to worship the Regular Route?

We finally found out (thanks to Mika) that these effigies are to acknowledge people who have given donations to the temple (Sanzen-in). The names are under the little statues.

Summer is the time of dance festivals (in the heat!). This is one we caught on TV

Speaking of Summer, we finally had a kakigori, the really yummy lemon one

Also speaking of Summer – the clouds continue to fascinate me!

…and the final speaking of Summer photos – one day out walking we came across a swarm of Dragonflies, about 3m off the ground and flying in a tight, fairly stationary (ie in the same spot) group. I took many photos trying to get them, but in the end only managed to get a single individual in two photos (top two). When we got home, there was another swarm of the same type of Dragonflies in the carpark across the road from our home. Again I tried, this time I only got one photo. The question is, what were they doing and why?

These two buildings are across the road from each other in the brewer district, and somehow they work well together.

Photos from our walk to the Gion

Near Momak (art gallery) workers were putting things up in the trees in the park, we had to find out what they were!

White spider lily

Kyo all light up!