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!

Ah, the long hot summer, with a few typhoons thrown in for good measure! It has remained hot since last we spoke and it still hasn’t been overly humid, except when there are typhoons around – like yesterday. We have had quite a few guests staying with us and some of them have not really enjoyed the heat, especially on those days hovering close to 40C. In fact we had a couple of guests arrive for check-in last week looking very hot and decidedly flushed and flustered recently.

Yesterday we were to have had a full house, just in time for the first typhoon of the season to come close to us. I say were because two of the guests left a day early so that they could get to their next destination, since we knew the shinkansen in this region would be stopped for at least 24hrs. On Monday night we had some very heavy rain at times and the wind was quite gusty during the day yesterday, but not with the consistent fury we experienced when the typhoon passed directly over us in 2018. We ended up having around 125ml in the 24 hrs of Tuesday, and nearly 170ml from late Monday through to early this morning.

Being so busy with guests coming and going, we haven’t had overly much time to do anything other than our jobs (ie cleaning, serving, check-in and outs, shopping, etc) and this has been exacerbated by a couple of slight issues – Craig hurt his back and then I broke a toe (yes, again) on the last day of July. As a result, the only outings we have had in this period actually occurred in July, in fact I left them out of my last post because it was already quite long – lucky, otherwise I wouldn’t have had much to write about this time!

The first two outings happened on the same day, when we decided to visit a place we had been to before but had never explored overly thoroughly. Takako had been talking about her favourite temple and how she had taken a number of guests there, and it became an itch I had to scratch. When we set off for Nanzenji it was a hot day, so we decided to catch a bus rather than walk there, as we would normally do.

As it happened, when we passed Rachel’s machiyas on the way to the bus stop she was outside, so we said hello. While talking she mentioned that she had noticed a new café which served all vegan food. This café was located fairly near where we were headed, so we decided to check it out after visiting Nanzenji.

The temple was founded in 1291 and is another of the huge temples here, with a lot of land and many sub-temples. As with most, it has been added to and rebuilt over the years and one very interesting addition is a large aqueduct that runs through the grounds. The aqueduct was constructed during the Meiji period (1868-1912), extending from lake Biwa through to Kyoto, with the purpose of carrying goods and water to Kyoto in long narrow boats. It is an amazing construction, known as the Suirokaku Aqueduct, and was designed by Sakuro Tanabe with consideration for the scenery in the precincts it passes through. The arched abutments of the structure are made of bricks and granite.

From the temple grounds, you can climb up onto a section of the aqueduct, which is not only surrounded by greenery but also by having water running through it, it was lovely and cool up there. The other advantage of walking along the aqueduct is some very nice views over the temple and surrounds. We didn’t walk the entire length of the walking path on the day, but that just gives us another nice place to go to in Autumn! Truth is, I would have been perfectly happy to just sit up there with a picnic lunch and while away the time, but we didn’t have provisions with us. Next time…

After our wander in the lovely forested area, we had to set off out into the asphalt heat sink to walk over to the café for our investigation – it was, however, definitely worth it. Toriba Café is located in an old renovated machiya and is a very nice place to sit and enjoy the surrounds, along with very good coffee and food. It is on the slightly expensive side, but I thought it was good value. While we were waiting for our order, I decided to take some photos of the interior and a Japanese man with very good English came over and started telling me about the place. Turns out he was the owner – and he also owns another café in the Daimaru department store in Kyoto, along with another café, a burger joint and an izakaya in Tokyo, and all of them are vegan!

On the menu there are some sandwiches, including cucumber, ‘egg’ and ‘katsu’ varieties. Toriba san explained that he had some chefs working for him and when he opened his first eatery he told them that he wanted everything to be plant-based. They were a little flabbergasted and didn’t know how to start, so he bought a meat burger which he gave them and told them he wanted a plant-based version – which they did. He went on like this with other items, including an egg sandwich, which they replicated and I have to say, it is fantastic! It looks and tastes like the real thing (well, as I remember it). Absolutely amazing.

This brings me to the last outing; we went to a party!!! After our visit to Toriba, we started following him on Insta and a couple of weeks later he started putting up posts about an opening party, for the café. It was starting at the café at around lunchtime until about 7pm, then moving on to a nightclub from 8pm till late. It has been a long time since we had been to a party and it seemed appropriate for us to attend, as fellow vegan business owners (although not quite on the same scale as him!).

On the day, we actually dressed up a bit (for the second time in two months 😊) and headed off to the café late in the afternoon. It turned out that most of the people there were friends and acquaintances from Tokyo – and most were uber cool. I was glad I had dressed up a bit. So, we drank coffee and had a sandwich, then later Craig had an espresso martini and I had a highball, which was made with a lightly peated single malt whisky. While we were sitting there Chisayo, the Japanese woman who has made it her mission to explain about vegans, vegetarians and those who like gluten-free food to as many of the restaurateurs, café and bar owners as she can get to, turned up. It was very nice to catch up with her again, although we do seem to run into each other fairly often. She told us she is currently busy finalising the creating of an interactive map of vegan and vegan option restaurants for tourists. She is an amazing woman and we were lucky enough to meet her early in our stay here.

At around 7pm everyone started leaving the café, so we headed off towards the nightclub. As there was a time gap to fill, and the nightclub was near the river, we went down to stand by the river and watched the bats come out as the sun set (that, too, was wonderful).

The bats were too small to capture

There was a rather hefty cover charge to get into the nightclub, though you did get one free drink inside. Thankfully there was also some food being served, which was supposed to be pizza but turned out to be essentially a pizza doorstop – though very tasty. Music-wise, there were three different DJ sets, the first played some pretty good music, overall, then the second set was Toriba san himself, with a friend, and it wasn’t quite to our taste, playing mostly modern Japanese music. The final DJ played House music, which he is apparently famous for, and he was good. We actually got up and danced for a while, which we haven’t had the chance to do anywhere here, other than when I did (by myself) at the drag show we went to. We had fun, but unfortunately we had to leave reasonably early because we had a guest and to give Ziggy his injection.

So, all in all an eventful time recently, and once my toe is better we’ll be back to going for walks and visiting more places.

Cheers for now!

Me being uber cool at Toriba Cafe…Craig too

Shapes engraved into a paved path at Nanzenji

The view from one of the shopping centres we visit regularly (NW, NE & E)

A giant meringue cloud peeking over our hills

Our friend, Rachel, has fostered a lovely Doberman

A butterfly visiting our yuzu tree

Mum can never really get far from the kids…

I thought my bed felt lumpy

Halloween has already started at Costco – wow!

Sigh

(It’s shiny because I had rubbed on anti inflammatory cream – carefully!)

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

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

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

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

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

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

The yard is up ahead

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers!

Matsuri diorama in a shop window

My latest efforts and close-ups

Field of red shiso and some jizo at Sanzenin

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

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

A very interesting bar entryway

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

Zara still dreams of being a swan…

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

Contemplation…

Visitors! Again!! How lucky have we been to be able to finally see so many of our friends from Australia? It really has been very nice to spend time with friends, not just messaging or video chatting (though, that is good too 😊).

Speaking of friends, we are lucky enough to meet some very nice people while they stay with us too, people that we stay in touch with after they leave, and that happened last month with two guests from Wales. They are currently on a long holiday exploring new places in the world, one having left their job and the other sold their business. They stayed with us for six nights, while they explored this part of the world, and they were a pleasure to have here.

Both enjoyed running, biking and walking, and they would get up early every morning and go for a long run, or do an exercise regime at a local park – most mornings it was a run. On their last night here they invited us out to have dinner with them, which was very nice. We went to Tanto, an okonomiyaki and teppanyaki restaurant with a separate vegan menu. We had a lovely time and shared some good food!

View out the window

Our Australian friends also stayed with us for six nights, arriving a few days after our Welsh friends left. Triscia was keen to see a traditional Japanese house while she was here and it happens that there is a house which belonged to a famous potter, Kanjiro Kawai, which has been kept as it was as a museum and which is very close to us. I had never been inside, though we had talked about going there, so it was also new to me.

It was really an amazing place, with most of the original furniture still in place, and the two kilns he used are still in situ, one a small item kiln and the other a huge, stepped kiln with eight chambers for larger pieces and firings. The large one was phenomenal, built on a slope at the back of the house, literally stepping up a small hill, called noborigama kiln (climbing kiln). Firings lasted up to 48 hours and consumed over 2,000 bundles of firewood, with the interior temperature reaching around 1,350C. His ceramics are very interesting, some being fairly ‘typical’ pieces, very utilitarian, the others being more artistic including some rather unusual pieces.

The following day we went to the Okazaki shrine, famous for all the effigies of rabbits. It is said that the Okazaki Shrine dates back to around 794CE and is one of four original shrines that were built in Heian-kyo (Kyoto), the new capital, to protect the emperor. It is not a large shrine but worth going to, to see all the rabbits 😊 – apparently there used to be a lot of rabbits living in the area, when it was first built.

After this we went to Heian Jingu to walk through the lovely garden there. Late May through to mid June is one of my favourite times of the year with my favourite plant, the iris, being in flower. It is also the time that water lilies come into flower, hence my naming of this time as the ‘Monet season’. While it was a little early for both, I wasn’t disappointed as some of the purple irises were in bloom and the water lily leaves were open, with some flowers dotted around amongst the leaves. Gorgeous.

Next day we visited Ryoan-ji, famous for the rock garden and then an art gallery I had been wanting to go to for a long time – ever since I saw the outside of the building. Another place that we just hadn’t got around to…

The garden area around Ryoan-ji is filled with cedar trees and other plantings and it has a large pond, which was filled with water lilies (Monet season 😊) and is a very relaxing, peaceful area for a stroll. Apart from the rock garden itself, the temple building has some fusuma (sliding doors) which have amazing dragons painted on them. It seems a literal translation of ryoan is peaceful dragon.

The art gallery we visited (which is just down the road from Ryoan-ji) is named Insho-Domoto Museum of Fine Arts. When I first saw the building, apart from my mouth falling open all I could say was “Wow”. I loved it. So, why it has taken so long for me to get there I don’t know, but I finally did and it lived up to my expectations, and more. The entire building, both exterior and interior was designed by the artist Insho Domoto to house his works and was built in 1966. After his death it was donated to Kyoto prefecture, in total. His artworks are based on his philosophy – “The true tradition is to break with tradition and create new art” – hence his paintings constantly covered new subject matter and used different styles, without staying in a specific style. I look forward to returning to see more of his works.

The weather, as expected for this time of year, has gradually been warming up and we have had a reasonable amount of rain. So far it hasn’t been too humid, but that too will come. The rainy days are a little difficult for our guests, of course, but June is generally known as the rainy season time. Interestingly, we have continued to get bookings for this time, although we did block out around a week’s worth of time off, for a little RNR. During this time we took the opportunity to go to another garden which we have been to before but it definitely has the Monet season beauty I love, with many irises and water lilies, along with many hydrangeas. The garden I am talking about is at Umenomiya-taisha shrine – quite a long bus ride away, but definitely worth it.

We walked through from the entrance to the exit, then walked back again (hence the huge number of photos – there are many more…), it truly is wonderful. Maybe that’s why the cranes return every year to nest there??? After soaking up all that floral beauty we walked over to the Arashiyama area and had lunch at Musubi café. The food is good and they have vegan desserts (which we always take away because the food fills us up!!!), what more could you want?

On the way home we walked through Chishakuin temple, just to soak up a bit more hydrangea beauty. Better to walk through there to get home than up a street 😊.

Well, that’s it for now. We are currently awaiting our visa renewals – fingers crossed for a three year renewal…

Cheers!

Two of my arrangements (top) and one by Triscia

Craig and Triscia

A ceramic and a wood carving by Kanjiro Kawai

How to tell if your cat may be taking drugs…

Sitting on two boxes of insulin syringes (L) – later (R)

What the hell is a Caterpy Lion???

Is it just me, or do these look very unappetising?

Spring and Monet season

Don’t be Koi… 🙂

The only iris I caught in our garden

Irises not from our garden

Varied shapes and colours of hydrangeas (and there are many more at Umenomiya-taisha)

Me out hunting irises in Monet season

Visitors! In amongst all the guests we have been hosting, along came some friends from Australia who we have not seen in the flesh (as it were) for a long time 😊.

Yes, tis me again (finally) bringing you another episode of life in post-pandemic Kyoto. More specifically, life for two ryokan operators – and I finally feel I can legitimately call us that now that we are getting a fairly consistent stream of guests staying with us. The really full-on rush has passed, along with the blossom, though as I said we are consistently having people pass through. They are a mix of people from Booking.com and our own website and more of them are staying for at least three nights, which is much more comfortable. We have noticed that many of the people booking for longer stays through B.com (my abbreviation) are from Germany, with some from France and a few other countries in Europe.

Most of the one night stays have now passed, with only one more to come now, which is great. While I am still doing a lot of ironing, with quite a few six hour days coming after breakfast service, I don’t feel quite as pushed for time. Weather-wise, it has been overall very pleasant, with no need for air-cons or under floor heating and the windows are open as often as possible, though there have been some very wet days. More days like that to come soon, no doubt.

Back to our friends – they arrived mid-April, with Steven arriving first and staying seven nights and the two others arriving a few days later and staying four. On the first day Steven was here we took a lovely stroll in the sunshine and visited a Samurai museum (which turned out to just be a display of a few replicas), tried to visit a sake brewery (which was closed) but generally just enjoyed being outside.

The next day we went to Kennin-ji temple, mainly to see the peonies they have in bloom and because we hadn’t visited for a long time. Kennin-ji was founded in 1202 CE and claims to be the oldest Zen temple in Kyoto. It is located in the Gion area on a large block of land (which would be very valuable indeed) and, as with so many temples, it has been re-built on a number of occasions, including after damage caused during the 13^th century Onin wars. The peonies were gorgeous (of course) and the whole temple enclave is very pleasant to walk around. They also had an exhibition of fusuma doors created by Japanese artist Toba Mika, which are covered in dyed fabric showing scenery from Vietnam. They were really beautiful and very peaceful in feeling.

After the others arrived the next day, we took a walk up to the Kiyomizu-dera area, then went to Engine Ramen for dinner (waiting for around 40 minutes in a queue to get in).

The following day we went to Fushimi Inari, walked up and over the mountain and came back via the forest at the back of the mountain. A fantastic hike, all up, and we even stopped at a small shrine near the mountain to check it out, after an older Japanese woman showed us that the gate into the lower area of the shrine is not locked and hence we could climb down into the lower area. It turned out to be an amazing space, with a created waterfall, that could be used for shugendou purposes. Shugendou literally means “the path of training and testing” or “the way to spiritual power through discipline”, and the practitioners undertake trials such as standing under a waterfall dressed only in a loincloth while chanting (not sure if women partake in these trials). Freezing cold…

The last two days were spent visiting the Kyoto Botanical Gardens and the Toji Market, which was very large and very crowded but a great place to look for antiques and local handcrafts.

We were all asked to step back off the path, then this procession came through (the really important monk is the one in purple)

I bought a lovely vase from this man, who is the maker

After visiting the gardens, we also took our friends to see something I had always been curious about, but hadn’t got around to doing – visiting a temple where the ceiling has been made from old floorboards from Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s castle, Fushimi Castle also known as Momoyama Castle. The temple we went to visit, Genko-an, is close to the gardens and seemed to be an interesting place other than just for the ceiling.

The reason these boards were taken from the castle is that a very bloody battle had been fought there in 1600 and the floorboards had become deeply stained with the blood of the samurai and soldiers who had died there. There seem to be many different versions of what exactly happened at the castle, how many men died there and why the floorboards ended up as ceiling boards, but they are known as chitenjo (literally blood ceiling, although the Genko-an website in English calls theirs the crimson ceiling).

The temple itself isn’t overly large, but it is very picturesque. There is a lovely garden at the back of the temple, and it can be seen from the main hall through two unusual windows which are side-by-side, One is round and the other square. These are known as the “satori no mado” and “mayoi no mado” respectively. “Satori no mado” or Window of Realisation (satori is a Japanese Buddhist term for awakening) is round, which is meant to symbolise Zen maturity, completeness and enlightenment, while “mayoi no mado” or Window of Delusion (mayoi is a Japanese Buddhist term for inability to reach enlightenment) is square, and meant to symbolise confusion, ignorance, and immaturity, or the life of samsara, ie a life of human suffering.

Interestingly, above these windows (and indeed the whole ceiling of the main hall) are the stained floorboards. There were at least three clear footprints on the ceiling, along with one handprint and some other unusual shapes (one looked somewhat like the side of a face) that I saw, but what really shook me was the gradual realisation that all of the boards were stained – it was a fairly large hall and hence quite a large expanse of ceiling. After that, I stopped looking. At the time I didn’t know that there were three other temples which had also been the recipients of the floorboards, so I have to assume that the number of men who died was quite a bit larger than the ten that one website claims.

One thing I didn’t mention above; as we were making our way home after our walk around Fushimi Inari, we came up to a T-junction in the backstreets near our home where the minor road approaching the larger road has a fairly steep downward slope. I was at the front of the four of us (Craig was at home waiting for a check-in), and noticed a small but extremely overloaded truck (carrying large beams of wood) approaching the corner at what was clearly too high speed. I ran as far off the road as I could and I think I called out “look out” or something like that, as the truck came towards the corner. As it rounded the corner it swerved over to our side of the road and ended up on two wheels (I thought I was done for…and likely the others too), but somehow he dragged it back but then it swerved to the other side of the road and ended up on two wheels. As we all spun to watch it, I thought it was gone for sure this time. Unbelievably he managed to drag it back, only for the same thing to happen again, although this time it wasn’t as extreme and the next time it thudded down on all four wheels, just in time to take a curve in the road. Adrenalin! We couldn’t believe no-one was hurt. Thankfully there were no other cars nearby, especially coming around that curve in the opposite direction, as it is a blind curve and they wouldn’t have know until it was too late.

In the next episode: visitors arrive from Australia!!

Cheers!

Dessert! Made with beans and agar jelly

The weird flower from above, with Craig’s hand for size comparison and the side view

Petal!!!

...and speaking of flowers, some of my arrangements, and including my new vase below

A bit of whimsy…

Zara dreaming of Swan Lake

Mum and the kids

Hi all, I have finally had some free time to edit photos and sit down to begin writing. It has been a very intense time since my last post and I am grateful to have this time before next week, during which we will again have a full house. Interestingly it is also Golden Week next week, so I am not sure if the foreign guests we have coming are aware of this, or it is just coincidental. What it means for them is that it will be difficult to catch any trains which travel inter prefecture, especially the shinkansen, without having reserved seats.

Anyway, returning to the spring rush, after my last post, for around three weeks, we had only two days where there were no room turnarounds, ie check-out at around 10am and check-in at around 2pm. This is a fairly intense process of stripping, cleaning and re-setting – very physical and has to be done fast. It also produces a lot of washing to be done and subsequent ironing. As we have no dryer it all has to hang outside, so, if it rains that can cause delays (which it did…). As a person who has studiously avoided ironing all my life (mainly by buying clothing that does not require ironing, especially linen), I suddenly found myself doing a LOT of ironing. On one day I did over 6 hours of ironing!!!

What all of this caused was a major shortage of sheets, quilt covers and pillowcases. There were times when I was ironing pillowcases straight out of the washing machine, though it wasn’t possible for the larger items, so Craig was ironing after dinner while we watched tv. Our washing machines, along with the dishwasher, were running flat out to keep up with all the cleaning and we also had to buy a new iron at one point, as the old one was struggling.

The other side of the workload was, of course, providing breakfasts every morning for a lot of people. This required a lot of shopping and prep work, most of which was carried out by Craig. All in all, it was quite tiring and made me think that we should put a stop to one night stays (because they caused a lot of the more intense work), which we have now done on Booking.com. Many of the one-nighters were also not vegan or vegetarian and were causing some issues. Having said that, a few of the non-veg crowd were very nice, including an older French man who spoke very limited English but went to the trouble of writing a thankyou note in English to give us before he left.

One other major issue with having room turnarounds day in and day out is that we were unable to go out to do any personal shopping on those days. All in all, a learning experience and we are now better prepared for any future peak times and have adjusted the information and settings on Booking.com to try to improve our situation. The flip side is that we did have some lovely people staying here, one of whom was not vegan but who chose to stay with us because we have the rainbow flag on our home page. So, we also provided a place for her to stay where she felt accepted and comfortable 😊.

Weather-wise, it was warmer earlier than usual in March which actually brought the blossom on earlier than it would normally open. In fact, I believe it was the earliest blooming since records began to be kept of these things (ie, quite a long time ago). We have also had a bit more rain than usual which didn’t help keeping the blossom on the trees. As a result of all of this many people who had booked to stay in Kyoto specifically for blossom viewing were a little disappointed, and there were a lot of people in Kyoto, comparable to the crowds in 2019 (ie pre the ‘difficulties’).

During the time when we were flat out, the blossom came and went but we did manage to get out on the two available days to do some hanami (blossom viewing). Knowing we would have a little time, I tried to find somewhere reasonably close that we had never been to before and found a small shrine – Rokusonno jinja – which had a small collection of trees. It was about a 45 minute walk from home, but near the Aeon Mall where we do a lot of our shopping, so we were able to combine the two into a nice (longish) walk.

The shrine was first established on the site in 963, however the main building was rebuilt in the early 1700s, as it had been damaged due to various conflicts previously. After visiting the shrine, we walked to the mall via Toji temple, finding a really interesting building behind the temple which appears to be a school associated with the temple. It is a very grand, rather monumental looking building, somewhat reminiscent of Egyptian design.

As usual, we also got photos of the local blossom trees.

The other outing was a walk into to town, via Kiyamachi dori, one of my favourite streets in Kyoto, also to do some shopping for the business. It was a lovely sunny day, the blossom was gorgeous and the crowds were heaving. It felt really good to be out in the sun and walking. Neither of us have had time to undertake our usual exercise regime since mid to late March, so I needed to stretch out my legs with a nice long walk!

On a side note, our kittens – Zara and Akashi – turned 1 year old on the 12^th of April. They are both larger than their mum but still very active (in a kitten-like way), and when they are really worked up they run, jump and fly over the furniture, at which time it is better to be out of their way. Sometimes they start up just after dinner, at around 9:30pm, when tired guest house operators need their rest… Also, our wisteria plant has bloomed properly for the first time.

That’s all for now.

In the next episode: visitors arrive from Australia!

Cheers!

We had a new visitor recently – a very large, full-tailed version of Tahlia.

The tiniest iron of them all!

Our wisteria!

The lovely, local, port wine magnolia

Just lazing around

Watching them watch us!

The Ikebana critic at work

My latest efforts – the first one ended up looking a little like a flower alien, and the second came about because one of the kitten terrorists stole two of the front flowers…

A new dahlia for the garden

It’s a crows life…

Whew, and it has started! This applies both to the sakura season and to our busy time. It started slowly last week, with one guest arriving on Monday (who is staying with us for 15 nights!), and then we had arrivals on Friday and Saturday, which meant all of the rooms were occupied. Each of the rooms was only occupied by one guest, but each room still has to be set up and then later cleaned whether there is one or two guests. By next Wednesday we will be back to our one guest for breakfast, but we have another two guests arriving that day, then on Friday the real rush begins. So, we have had a slightly lighter start to prepare us, which is helpful!. All of the singles (except our long termer) booked via Booking.com, and only one of the four is a veggie person, so it will be interesting to see what the others say about us in reviews…

On to a slightly more routine topic – the weather. It has been a mix of warm and sunny, often in the low 20s, and cool and overcast/wet days recently, though we did have one more day of snow before the end of February. The sunny days are glorious and make for perfect sightseeing weather. Which we have done a little of recently, thanks to the first guests we had staying here in March.

Just a little snow

The two guests in question first sent us an email in January, asking a few questions about Kyoto, getting here and the availability of food. We often get queries like these, and not just from those who intend to stay with us. Anyway, there was quite a bit of back and forward, and in the end they said that though they usually like to spoil themselves and stay in 4-star+ accommodation, they were so happy with the service and advice we had given them, they had decided to stay with us! We, of course, were a little nervous at this prospect, since we are not a Western style accommodation, having tatami flooring and futon beds. Definitely not high end, more traditional Japanese style.

Based on the above and the fact they had a few issues getting from the airport to Tokyo and getting train tickets, we decided to pick them up from the station. As it turned out, they did have some issues getting from the train to the exit where the pick-up area is. I had gone with Craig to the station so I could go to the exit and keep an eye out for them. As I was standing there, about 10 minutes after they should have been out, a Japanese woman with a baby and pram, approached me and via Google translator asked me “who are you waiting for at 3:30pm?”. As you can imagine, I was both incredulous and bemused that someone would know I was waiting for anybody there at that exact time, especially since there were literally hundreds of people coming and going. So, I said who and that they were Americans, and she rushed off. Before I had a chance to gather myself and go after her, she had disappeared into the crowd.

Some time later, I saw a tall man and a smaller blond woman who, from a distance, looked very like the photo our guests had sent us. I also noticed the Japanese woman with pram nearby. It turns out they had been going in circles (due to some misdirection) and nearly falling over on the escalator to top it off. At some point this woman had become involved in proceedings. Needless to say, we were all relieved to see each other!!! That night we made them dinner (as they had requested) and they insisted we eat with them. After that  we were like old friends. On their first day we made some suggestions about things to do in the nearby area, and gave them directions, including a map. Later we found out they had got lost and didn’t find many of the places we had talked to them about.

From then on, we became their personal tour guides. Luckily we had no other guests 😊. We took them out of the city to a large temple, Sanzen-in, famous for it’s moss gardens (among other things) and then to one of my favourite temples, Kurama-dera, stopping for lunch at a favourite restaurant, Yoshuji, for lunch. That night we went into town to go to a shop that has interesting Japanese style clothing and have dinner, neither of which went exactly to plan. We tried to get into four restaurants that serve vegan food and all were either closed, booked out or there was a long queue waiting outside. In the end we decided to go to an old favourite, Engine Ramen and, yes, there was a longish queue waiting outside there too, but we stuck it out.

Snow on the ground still

We took the cable car

Before and after at Yoshuji

After around 40 minutes we were finally seated and they loved the ramen (thankfully). They decided to tell one of the staff (who happens to be one of the owners and knows us from previous visits) that it was Craig’s birthday, resulting in a free drink for him, a sample tasting of another sake for all of us, a sample plate of gyoza (which they are going to re-introduce on the menu) and a small bowl of vegan ice-cream (which was amazing). It seems the ice-cream is also going to be added to the menu. After all this, they sang Happy Birthday. It ended up being a fantastic night.

The next day we took them to Kinkakuji, which we hadn’t been to for quite a few years (it looked amazing, having recently had the gold leaf renewed), and then to Kitano Tenmangu to see the plum blossom. This too we hadn’t done for a while and discovered they had built a viewing platform, at tree top height, which was a real highlight. After this, Craig dropped us off at a vegan restaurant, Café Ren, which was just about to close but they kindly allowed us to have lunch. Craig had to return home to do some prep for next morning’s breakfast. After we ordered our guests decided to get some take-away for Craig, which Craig enjoyed later. That night we cooked them another pre-arranged dinner, their last dinner here.

What’s in the box?

A vegan take on eel… I just had to try it, and it was nice!

We did enjoy looking after them, though a little exhausting. They paid for everything, including some money for petrol, on top of staying in the big room. They told us that this was their first stop on a nine-week holiday, a sort of spiritual journey with Joe taking his relatively new wife to places he had been to in the past (he was in Japan in the 1970s conducting tennis clinics) and to some new places. They really were lovely people and they have invited us to visit them in Texas (a number of times throughout their stay). Not sure how (six cats), or when that could happen…

Before I sign-off, there are just two things more to mention – the first being the great missing shoe mystery. Yes, one of my outside/garden shoes mysteriously disappeared late in February. These shoes are my winter outside shoes, which have fairly thick rubber soles and are lined with fur (fake, of course). Very comfortable, very warm, quite heavy (the rubber) and had only been worn a few times. We have looked around the garden, but there is no sign of it. So, who is the culprit, where did it go and what was the purpose??? Bedding? We have no idea.

The second item is something I saw on-line here a while ago – T-rex racing. People dress in T-rex costumes and undertake a series of races, to find the fastest of them all, and to have a lot of fun. It looks hilarious to watch. I imagine it happens elsewhere in the world, but it definitely is the kind of whimsy Japanese people love.

That’s all for now.

Cheers!

My latest Ikebana attempt

Our magnolia’s first flowering

That kokeshi doll turns up again!

Can’t resist some more jizou…

How you protect trees from damage via snowfall

Signs – don’t those entrails sound good? What’s a Croossing? And who knew t-shirts had that power?

Corners – it’s another opportunity to decorate

Sunset

After sunset – and the power of three!

Hi all, it’s that time again, so here I am reflecting on the past month and just how accurate my weather predictions turn out to be. The answer to that is, well, rubbish. I have to say, though, that I did make a bit of a bet with our neighbour friend when she was complaining that there hadn’t been any snow and she really wanted some snow, that if I said that there wasn’t likely to be any snow, then almost certainly there would be. To take this further, if I said that there definitely wouldn’t be any significant snow, you had better prepare your snow shovels.

Et voila, we not only had quite a few days of snow, but there was a fairly heavy fall on the first night it started snowing. Thankyou very much Helen! The snow started falling on the 24^th of January and kept going most of the night, so that we had quite a build up by the morning (over 15cm). Usually by the end of the day most of the snow has melted and that is that, however, it was so cold that this did not occur (though there was a little melt) and on top of this it kept snowing on and off for the next few days.

The 24th

From my tablet (didn’t photograph too well…) early on the 25th showing the temperature outside

Early morning through the closed window on the 25th

The 25th

Our guest’s footprints from the night before on the 25th

Our street the night before and around lunchtime on the 25th

26th

27th

28th

As snow newbies, our experience of what it is like to have snow for a few days and the actual consequences of this was quite minimal. What actually happened over these days is that there would be a little bit of melt, then re-freezing, which meant that there was a gradual build up of ice in places, especially on the roofs. On the 27^th Craig and I were in the dining room, cleaning up after breakfast service when we suddenly heard a rumble and then a very loud noise, including a banging sound – some of the snow and ice from the front of our roof had fallen down and landed on the carport (as well as the ground). The carport shook quite a bit, and it scared the $#@% out of us.

After the first fall

After the third fall, near our entrance

At first we didn’t realise exactly what had happened, then it dawned on us, the snow on the roof. About 10 minutes later it happened again – the movement of the carport both times was very concerning, but it came through ok. At this point we thought we should try to assess how much was still up there and whether there was any risk of something bad happening. The good news was that it appeared most, if not all of the snow from the front of the roof had now fallen down (so no more hits to the carport). The not so good news was that there was a hell of a lot more up there on the west side of the roof, and none of the snow had yet left the roof on the east side.

The signs were around that it was gradually slipping off, but we just didn’t notice at first

Over the next few days it all gradually came down, although there was another reasonable size fall of snow on the night of the 27^th and it continued off and on through the 28^th. So, every now and then you would hear a whoomp and another pile of snow and ice would hit the ground (scared the hell out of the cats!). Essentially it meant we had to be very careful if we went outside, because it would not be a good thing to have that much snow and ice fall on you. The other issue was that our roof slightly overhangs the big shed next door to us, and it isn’t the strongest of structures, especially since the typhoon went through five years ago (they haven’t done any repairs…), so we just crossed our fingers about that, because there was nothing we could really do about it.

There were many pieces of ice like this (at least 5mm thick). It just kept coming down!

Tanuki was blinded and Pan in snow costume

We have had some more snow here recently, though not as much, and the weather has been seesawing between sub-zero and into the teens since the first fall. We even had one day of 17C recently – though when we went out on Thursday night it was cold, cold enough that even my ears felt it.

During January we had quite a few guests coming and going, which was a surprise given it’s winter, though most pleasant. While all of the snow was happening, we had a few guests staying with us, which was interesting for us and them. February has been very quiet guest-wise, with only one guest staying here, so far. This is giving us time to make necessary preparations for the upcoming spring peak period. At the moment we are basically full for at least three weeks starting on the 24^th of March. Hopefully we will continue to have guests coming through regularly, though I have to admit it’s nice to have the occasional small gaps 😊.

Moving on to other things that we have been doing; on the 25^th of January we again celebrated Burns Night. This time, rather than substituting haggis chips for the main menu item, I actually bit the bullet and made a vegan haggis. It turns out that the Scots are becoming quite flexible about this and at many of the festivities they are offering both the traditional (offal) version and a veg version (vegetarian or vegan). This being the case, it was easy to find recipes and I chose one from a website of a Scottish cook. He also provided a recipe for a whisky cream to go with the haggis and vegetables (no neeps here, though). It was all very tasty and I look forward to trying it again next year!!

The essentials – plaid, whisky and haggis

We did go a bit heavy on the whisky cream!!!

The next major event of the year, after Burns Night, is Setsubun, which is the day before the beginning of spring in the old lunar Japanese calendar. This is the day a number of rituals are performed and traditions are upheld all aimed at driving away any bad fortunes and evil spirits from the previous year, to start afresh for the year to come. We have been performing some of the rituals each year, such as throwing soy beans out of the main doors and shouting Devils out! Fortune in! (in Japanese of course). The remainder of the roasted soy beans are divided between us based on our age +1, which we then eat. Soy beans traditionally were believed to have sacred power, hence throwing them outside to get rid of evil spirits and eating them for good health.

We also went to Heian Jingu to watch the festivities and after went to a Japanese style bar (izakaya) for dinner, which had been recommended by one of our guests. An izakaya is a relaxed place to go to drink and have some food, usually consisting of fried meat items. The place we went to is called Saishuan, which essentially is a mash up of Japanese words for vegetables (or food), alcohol and a retreat. It was a lovely place, very neat and clean and run by a woman who was a real character, and could speak some English. She had a section on the menu for vegan dishes and they were very good. We had a fun night, with good food, sake, beer and good company. The customers present ended up being pretty even in numbers Japanese and tourists – and us. I look forward to going there again!!!

The izakaya hidden down a lane!

Ready

One other ‘big’ outing we had was a visit to the Hosomi art gallery, which is a private gallery based around the extensive collection of a wealthy industrialist from Osaka, Hosomi Ryo (1901-1979). They hold regular exhibitions at the gallery, rather than having a permanent exhibition. It is a great place to visit to see traditional Japanese paintings and crafts, and I particularly like the fact there are many Jakuchu works in the collection – one of my favourite Japanese artists. This time they had one of his paintings of a rooster in the exhibition, so I was able to get a print in the form of a shikishi, which is currently holding pride of place in the entry area of our ryokan.

After we left the gallery, we dropped in to a restaurant called Zirael, run by a Russian woman and her Japanese/Taiwanese husband. We had met them last year at one of the vegan festivals and wanted to visit their establishment, not least because they have piroshki on the menu 😊. When we got there we discovered that Anna had given birth to their first child just two weeks before, so her husband was holding the fort until she is able to return to work (and he was only making one dish for sale each day – not piroshki…). Anyway, he was very, very excited to see us, in fact he was nearly doing a jig around the kitchen 😊. He kept looking at us every now and then as he was preparing our lunch and giggling (literally). We also discovered that they had found a new place to live, a bigger place, and it just happens to be in the same area we live in! So, we will be catching up with them in the nearish future.

We have also visited one other restaurant close to us, which serves vegan Korean style food, in an effort to make sure we have a fairly good knowledge of what is around so that we can tell our guests about them. Most guests ask us for recommendations, so we are trying to get to as many places as possible (money permitting), especially since the landscape has changed quite a bit since ‘the difficulties’ began. We are also keeping an eye on the plum blossom to make sure we know where it is up to – luckily the temple near us (Chishakuin) has a good collection of plum trees so we can just drop by fairly quickly to have a look – and take photos!

Before I sign off, I have some sad news; the homeless man we have been giving regular food packages to has disappeared. All of his worldly items are gone from the place he has always inhabited and there is no sign of him nearby. The last time I dropped off a package, his bike wasn’t there, but most of his bedding was, although it was very dishevelled, as though he had left it suddenly. This was just after the heavy snow, so we don’t know if something has happened to him, or he has just found somewhere else to sleep. We went back after leaving the package, to check on him, and that’s when we found everything was gone. We have been back twice since, but there has been no sign of him.

So, that’s where we’re up to. Lots to come!

Cheers

Vale Burt Bacharach – thankyou for leaving us with the legacy of your music.

More snow photos!

Interesting things you see when walking around

Interesting things you see when out shopping. Don’t all shopping malls have pipe organs???

Sign for a trunk room (ie storage space)

Re-jigged ikebana – saving bits for re-use, hence saving money!

When you bring your Hellebore inside for winter and it decides to flower!

Our Camelia flowered a while ago