What? It’s January? What happened to December?

Hello everyone and Happy New Year! Yes, I did miss the December episode and, to be honest, while we did go out and do things, there were virtually no photographs to put in the blog because either we did not do anything photo-worthy, or we couldn’t take photos, such as when we went to see Kodo (the Japanese taiko group). This concert, by the way, was fantastic – both visually and musically – but the only photo I have is of the concert hall pre performance.

A quick note on the weather; winter started very cold with many days of sub-10C maxima, including one of 4C – no real snow, though. Since the second half of December we have had mostly double digit maxima, including a couple of days in the mid-teens recently. So, since we are now halfway through January, it doesn’t look very likely we are going to get any snow this year, and certainly not any significant falls like we had on the 21^st of January last year.

Other happenings during December included our 33^rd anniversary (31 years married), a walk with our friend Nacho and his partner into town and then dinner at Engine Ramen to celebrate Winter Solstice (although the walk was meant to be along the Kyoto trail, but inclement weather prevented that), and we had a last minute xmas lunch with Rachel and Dave, which only happened because I was talking to Dave via electronic means and he didn’t have anything planned, so I thought it would be nice to invite him here. Then Craig suggested we should also invite Rachel since she was also alone. All of this organising happened the day before xmas day…

We had two bookings late in December, including a couple who were here for new year’s eve, which meant we didn’t do much in the way of celebrating new year on the night. We did, however, undertake the ritual visit to a shrine in the first week of January (hatsumode – although we didn’t go on one of the first three days of the year, but made it there on the fourth). At the shrine you pay your respects to the kami (deities) and ask for what you would like for the new year. We went to the Ebisu shrine (the business deity) and I asked for a good year for our business (unsurprisingly). After this, we went to Engine Ramen.

On our way to the shrine we also stopped by the Kyoto Ceramic Centre to get our new ceramic animal figurine for the year, this year’s being a rabbit. The animals are known as eto here, and ceramic figurines of the year’s eto are generally displayed in businesses as well as some homes. Most of the generally available figurines are white ceramic, often painted with red and other colour highlights. Last year we discovered a range of cubist-like figurines in the ceramic centre and are now collecting them each year.

On the 7^th of January, we went to see an exhibition at the MOMAK (modern art) gallery featuring works from the Museum Ludwig Cologne. Amazing exhibition with a huge range of 20^th century art, mostly collected by Peter and Irene Ludwig. Artists included Picasso, Kandinsky, Ernst, Malevich and Lichtenstein. Loved it. After this tour de force, we went to try a new restaurant (new to us, that is), Bali-Bali Indonesia. Good selection of food, some of which is vegan. Yum – and we have already been back there again 😊.

All of these copies came from the internet

Last week, the annual Ebisu festival was held and we have also made it a ritual to go to this every year, since it helps liven up January (which is normally cold and fairly uneventful) and we also have taken to buying a new shikishi from the lovely lady who runs a shop selling mainly shikishi and paraphernalia on the street where the festival is held. I was looking for one that was wintry, perhaps with pines and snow, but there wasn’t a suitable picture, so I ended up buying one with lovely purple iris. Not at all wintry, really. We also had our usual samosas at a stall which has been there every year, run by Indian people who live in Kobe now.

Prior to going to the festival, we went to an Andy Warhol exhibition at the Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art (long name…). A second exhibition visit with a week?! Well, during the recent Difficulties period, all galleries and museums were closed for quite a while, so with them open again and some exhibitions which we are interested in seeing, it’s a matter of carpe diem. I wasn’t exactly sure what was going to be there, I assumed there would be soup cans and boxes, but it was so much more than that. In fact, I think I enjoyed it even more than the Ludwig exhibition!

Last year we watched a documentary series about Andy, so we had learnt quite a bit about his life, but I wanted to see more of his art, and it also happened that he had come to Japan, twice (in 1956 and in 1974), which we didn’t know. So the exhibition gave us a chance to look at a chronology of his works and the Japanese curation also added a focus on his visits here. Amazingly, we were able to take photos of anything we wanted to, the only restriction was in relation to videos. So, we took quite a few photos.

One of the best parts of the exhibit was a room installation which had some of his silver cloud pillows floating around (there were fans) and the walls were used to project both photos and shapes and colours on them. This was fantastic fun and gave us an opportunity to interact with the works, making our own ‘art’ to photograph. Others were doing likewise. I enjoyed this as much as I have any Yayoi Kusama installations.

On the more business side of our lives, we are getting a lot (quite a lot) of bookings at the moment, mostly for late March and April. As of today, the first two weeks of April are pretty much a full house!!! One change we have made this year is to list ourselves on Booking.com, which I said we never would but we found that most of my main concerns we could work around. So, while most of our bookings are coming via our website, we are getting some from Booking.com. In fact, the longest booking now sitting on our books came via them – a 12 night stay starting late March!

Hopefully, all of this will help Immigration see us in a more positive light and they will renew our visas for three years when they come due this year.

That’s all for now. Burns night is coming up on the 25^th, so get out your clan colours!

Cheers!!!

Also traditional new year here – the Kabuki special January performances (and I still haven’t made it to one yet)

Inside the renovated art gallery

These two factories have always reminded me of a Jeffrey Smart painting, so just had to take it eventually…

…but then that set me on a sort of  industrial bent.

Still not sure what this means…

Things you see while walking

My latest effort (with acknowledgment to Craig for perspective)

Blossom!!!

Mum and the kids (who are now bigger than her). Zara is always on the move, so hard to get unblurred photos of her.

Recently we ‘inherited’ a cat tower (long story). The first shot is about one minute after Craig brought it in.

Interesting sake label at Engine Ramen

Well, better late than never?

Well, they say better late than never but I do have to apologise for my tardiness, it has just been a matter of timing. During late October and early November I was resting my foot as much as I could, so that I could do a lot more walking when our friends (Jenny & Paul) arrived later in November. It was difficult, especially when the weather was good, but necessary, really. I bought a good quality foot brace and wore it as much as possible, even at night sometimes if it was aching. Hence, there really wasn’t much to write about.

We did, however, go to a vegan fair on the 12^th of November because we thought it was important to be seen and see others at events like this. As it happened, this event was a bit larger than the one in October and there were more people there that we knew. We also made some new contacts, which we will follow-up in the near future. It was a lovely day weather-wise and there was a much better range of food there, so, all-in-all very worthwhile.

Speaking of the weather, there isn’t overly much to say except it has been mostly in the mid teens up to 20C recently, and this Thursday, yes the first day of December, the expected maximum is 10C!!! A sudden hit of cold, still it is that time of year so it has to happen sooner or later. We have had the under floor heating on recently and the kittens (Zara and Akashi) have learnt the joys of lying on a warm floor.

We also took one longer walk before Jenny and Paul arrived, to test out my foot and to see how the Autumn colour was going. We walked past Tofukuji, one of the better Autumn colour vistas and on to Fushimi-Inari. The colour was right on schedule (our schedule, that is 😊) and my foot did pretty well, so a good walk!

One other thing to mention – we have had a few guests through since my last post, which has been fantastic. We are getting back into to the swing of the whole process of having guests here, and I have re-commenced my Ikebana practice. While mum and the kittens were still in the dining room I couldn’t have anything in the room that was breakable or slightly edible, so flowers were out. Now, with guests here, we are keeping them out unless we are in there ourselves. They are curious about the guests, and are having small peeks at them, but they are yet to be brave enough to say hello – which Zowie always wants to do.

While Jenny and Paul were here we did a lot of sightseeing and eating out. On the first day we went in to see Sanjusangendo, which I hadn’t been into for years. As it happened, there was a ceremony taking place in the garden area of the temple involving a bonfire, which was an added bonus. That night we went for a walk around the Kiyomizu dera area for the Autumn light-up, when the back streets are lined with lanterns and both Kiyomizu dera and Kodaiji are lit up for the Autumn colour. The plan was to have a look at them, but it was so crowded that we decided not to go into Kiyomiz, and the queue to get into Kodaiji had many hundreds of people waiting in it! So, we went to get some food and ended up at Engine Ramen, which is always a good thing, even though there was a bit of queue when we got there.

The next day we ended up going to lunch first, then walking the Philosopher’s Path and culminating at Eikando, the best place to see Autumn colour in Kyoto (in my humble opinion). Towards the end of the Path, we came across a man in an interesting hat sketching the canal. He had some previous sketches on display for sale, and they were fantastic. We both bought a print which, interestingly, turned out to be the same one, though it was hard to choose because they were all very good. Eikando was beautiful, as usual, and worth every yen of the entry fee – I’ll let the photos do the talking here…

Along the Path

The photographer’s face is hidden to protect her identity…😂

This is the man who makes the little leaf and flower boat that you drop into the canal. It seems he is always there!

The artist was just sitting there…

Eikando

How to follow this up the next day? We went to Kameoka and took the Hozugawa river boats back to Arashiyama. I think this was our third time in the boats, and I have to say it seems to have changed a bit since our last voyage before the pandemic. Perhaps they had some spare time during this period, because it seemed the route had changed slightly and there were a few more ‘rapids’ to pass through. The river had been slightly ‘engineered’ initially for the rides, so it is not unreasonable to change it subsequently, though it was a bit more ‘bumpy’ in spots, ie we hit a few more rocks than previously. It may be that the river was lower as well. Anyway, it was still enjoyable! After this we walked around a bit in Arashiyama and then had a late-ish lunch.

This is the first time we have ever seen a monkey down near the river!

They suggested we turn our cameras backwards…

Knowing that Wednesday was going to be rainy, we decided to take the train to Osaka and visit the castle. Interestingly, the displays inside the castle had also been added to, with more information about the history of the castle and another model showing the castle area as it was during Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s time. When we arrived back at the subway station near our home, I noticed there was a thunderstorm advisory. I mentioned this and also said that these warnings rarely come to anything…Challenge accepted by the weather gods, and as we were about halfway home from the station, there was a flash. The next flash was a bolt accompanied by thunder, ie it was a direct hit just down the road from us. We started walking faster and the rain intensified. We were still a few hundred metres from home when it really started pelting down. By the time we got home, even having had umbrellas, my jeans were wet nearly all the way up, my shoes were squelchy, my glasses were covered in water and my backpack was quite wet. So we went inside, dried off, changed clothes and drank whisky!

Following that episode, the next day was sunny and dry – thank goodness. Taking advantage of this, we went to Heian Jingu to wander around the lovely garden there, then followed this up with a visit to the Kyoto Craft Museum (where there had also been significant changes made). After, we took a lovely stroll along the canal road back towards the Gion area, checked out some antique stores and ended up at Menkui Kinya for lunch. While we had to wait in a queue here too, it again was worth it.

How often we find a wedding photos scene here!

On their last full day here, our friends opted to go to the antiques market held once a month at the Kitano Tenmangu shrine. It was crowded and there were as many stalls as there were pre-pandemic, so there was a huge amount of items for sale to look at. We all came away with some finds and then ended up on a very over-crowded bus headed to lunch and, subsequently, Nijojo.

We walked a lot, ate a lot (well for me, anyway) and drank some fine single malts and gin. Truly lovely and wonderful to have friends here in the flesh (so to speak). I should note that it was my actual six year anniversary of arriving here on the 25^th. So I am now into my 7^th year here. How time flies, especially when the world is enveloped in a pandemic.

Just to finish up, I thought I would leave you with some photos of the twin terrorists when they are sleeping, and yet another truly weird tv show titled “The wonderful world of living things! Amazing plant sensation.”…

Cheers!!!

I wanted to get an aerial view, but Craig didn’t think it was a good idea…

Faburous Falafel?

At the division point Craig became the 1 in charge, and we were The Others…

So, alcohol-free beer is actually alcohol?

Not sure what this is, maybe an alien lurking around?

Lovely canal turkey, who started following us until I took this photo

Part of a huge art work

Is this like hanging out the Kendo washing?

Having fun

Well hello there! I am coming to you from a somewhat changed Kyoto, indeed Japan, a place where tourists can come and go as they please. Yes, certain areas are becoming more crowded, but it is for the best. We currently have one guest for two nights, and we have a couple staying here next weekend for three nights. So it is already bringing us some business, which makes us happy.

Weather-wise, there has also been a sudden change, with the temperatures dropping from the low 30s into the mid to low 20s, with a few days peaking in the sub-20s. This means the colouring is beginning, starting with the Dogwood trees, and there is even a little colour starting on our Japanese maple. Hopefully it will happen fairly slowly, to give us time to enjoy it more. Anyway, it is nice not to have to use the air-cons for a while and to have the windows open.

Also, when the weather is pleasant, it just makes me feel like going for long walks and so we have taken two long walks. One of these was to go and lodge our room tax paperwork (yes, there is no on-line system, you literally have to fill out a piece of paper and either post it or deliver it personally to the office in town), and the other took us to a vegan festival at Okazaki park.

From our home to the room tax office it is about 4.3km, which takes around 50 minutes, and it was a lovely day. We zig zagged through shrines and along the famous Hanamikoji road, which we discovered, to our horror, has had asphalt laid on it. It used to be paved along its entirety, but not any more. Why? Who knows, but it has lost quite a lot of its charm in the process. After we had delivered our piece of paper, we went to Mumokuteki for lunch (a huge lunch at that), and then walked home (which helped me digest all that food 😊).

Yes it was red spider lily time…

Mine

Craig’s

Our other walk was a little shorter, given that Okazaki park is around 3.3km from home, although we did take a slight detour getting there to drop off some rice to a homeless man that Lilia (our Israeli friend who recently left Japan) used to give rice to fairly regularly. His name is Kasagawa-san, and he lives next to one of the canals near Okazaki park. Of course having given him one lot of rice, and knowing he has no income, I sort of feel like I have to continue to help him, especially with winter looming…

So, on to Okazaki park for the festival, though it was more a lunch fair with not overly many stalls and most of them just selling food for immediate consumption. Prior to The Virus, the festivals used to be quite large and there were a variety of stalls, still it was interesting to see what was available. We tried some Sudanese eggplant salad, which we had never had before (never even heard of before, really) and it was was very nice. Once we had finished trying various foods, we walked home along one of my favourite streets, the one that meanders along the side of a canal and is lined by willow trees, which I love.

Kakigori machine and the resultant matcha kakigori

Random shots…

I noticed the geiko, but I didn’t want to be too obvious, so a photo of Craig and others…

We did take one other walk into town, which is a shorter distance, but returned home by bus as I have recently hurt my foot and it had started to hurt a bit (ok, I was noticeably limping). While we were in town, we found a new sign which had been highlighted in a recent news story, which is aimed directly at taxi drivers who stop illegally to pick up and drop off fares at a particularly busy intersection. Basically, the sign is a double sided board with a window in it through which you can see the corner in question.

On one side it essentially says that the taxi you can see through the window is stopped illegally and that there is a taxi stand just one minute’s walk away. On the other side it has a pair of eyes and says “Driver-san, you are stopped illegally and everyone can see you”. The aim, of course is to shame the driver into not stopping there and to remind people to go to the taxi stand to hail taxis. Only in Kyoto 😊.

Speaking of only in Kyoto, there was another story in the same paper about a large bamboo shoot which had been placed on the footpath in the Gion area in substitution for a witches hat cone. The story goes that the owner restaurant where the bamboo shoot was placed had been given the shoot and decided to put it out front of the restaurant while the restaurant was being renovated. He even named the shoot – Takenokone – a mashup of the Japanese word for bamboo shoot (takeno) and the word cone, but using a k since there is no c in the Japanese language.

It stood there until it naturally shrivelled and died, at which point the owner put back the witches hat, placed the outer skin of the bamboo shoot on top of it and added a funerary style note which said “Takenokone-sama achieved great things while working admirably as the Takenokone, and was loved by many in its life,” as well as including a death poem. It also noted a posthumous name, which had been conveyed upon it, Mosoin Suzume Homare Asa Hori Takebayashi Koji, with the Takebayashi portion meaning ‘bamboo forest’. There was also a photo of Takenokone, which is traditional for death notices. The owner said he initially put the shoot on the footpath just to brighten up people’s days 😊.

During this last month, apart from taking some long walks, we have spent an unusual amount of time at two different Vet surgeries. The first visit was for the two female kittens to have their ‘special’ operation, which they were definitely not happy about. While the surgeries went well, the next day one of the girls, Akashi – the smallest of the kittens, was not well. She was sweating and shaking, so we packed her up and took her fairly hurriedly to our usual Vet surgery (we had been using a different Vet for all the visits for the mum and kids because he is used to dealing with street cats and is a lot cheaper than most other Vets (he kindly discounts the costs for people helping street cats).

The Vet we saw at our usual surgery said her symptoms were due to her being in pain and prescribed some painkillers, as well as some antibiotics, just in case. None of the other kittens, nor mum had experienced pain like this, and the streetcat Vet never offered painkillers, although the Vet we saw for Akashi said they always send cats home with enough painkillers for three days. I was definitely relieved by her diagnosis, because I was worried Akashi may be bleeding.

Ziggy also visited the Vet, twice. The first visit was his regular three monthly check for his urinary condition. In a turn of events this time the Vet discovered that Ziggy has become diabetic. So we are now injecting him with insulin twice daily. The other visit was another emergency visit, after I discovered him straining to urinate and the urine was bloody. Luckily the Vet who runs the surgery happened to be there, because he can speak some English, and he was able to let us know it was an infection which is fairly common in cats, especially during seasonal change.

He was shocked, though, to find out Ziggy was also now a diabetic and he asked us to return when both he and the usual Vet we see for Ziggy are there, to discuss Ziggy’s issues. Again, a relief in knowing it was not too bad, but it means we are giving him four tablets every night for ten days to deal with this.

In other cat news, Buchi has found a new home in Yokohama, which was quite bittersweet as we have become quite attached to all of them. It was also quite stressful as Buchi did not cope well with this move for the first few days, with him refusing to eat and drink for two days, and then mewling and eating only a little after that. We spent quite a bit of time messaging with the woman who took him…

We miss him

On a final, purely for interest, note the number of centenarians in Japan has now risen to over 90,000! When I first moved here, nearly six years ago, there were around 63,000. I wonder how much higher this will get?

That’s all for now

Cheers

Ah, the month (+) of Halloween

Also, it is my birthday month

A fabulous fresh fig feast and pumpkin spice cupcake

Help me!!!!

Please?

This is what happens when two guys try to create their own marketing…and their product? Vegetable pickles

This year’s big mama winner

Bikes, trucks, dinosaurs…

The sky’s on fire!

More cloud photos

There has to be some flower photos

One thing I forgot to mention, we have discovered a tempura and udon restaurant (Menkui Kinya) which has a vegan section of the menu. Vegan tempura – yum! Our second visit, and we will return.

Right from the start of this post, I have one thing to say:

HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!

Ok, got that off my chest 😊. This is, of course, my reaction to last Friday’s announcement of the reopening of the borders – finally. Two and a half years (approximately) have passed during which we just waited and waited and sighed and hoped. Then it happened, and within hours we had our first enquiry (about our cancellation policy) which led to a booking later that same day. We celebrated.

So, on the day after my birthday, tourists will be able to enter the country without a visa, without being in a travel group and staying where they like. How wonderful, and just in time for the lovely Autumn weather and colour.

Which brings me straight to the weather – which has now become much more comfortable. The very hot and humid weather continued up until the middle of last week, thanks to the efforts of a few typhoons. Essentially, if they head in our direction, they push hot tropical air before them. Now that they have passed, the temperature has dropped down to a very nice high 20s/low 30s. We have had the windows open over the last few days, which is most pleasant, and we can now start venturing out more, which I intend to do from next week.

As to what we have been doing with ourselves over the last month (aside from waiting, sighing and hoping😊), well a significant part of it has been centred around our friends Lilia and Yuval, who are now back in Israel. One thing that Lilia had been asking about over the last few months was whether we would consider hosting another vegan meet-up here, which we had decided to do, but with the Covid numbers being high over the last few months, we were not keen to have too many people here at once. As I mentioned last time, we did do a mini version for Isi and a few friends prior to her departure.

So, as the Covid numbers had started to decline and the date of their departure was getting closer, we decided to have the meet-up on the weekend before they left. What we didn’t realise was that the following week included two public holidays, on the Monday and Friday, so a lot of people had made holiday plans. On the night we ended up with eight diners, not all of whom were vegans – in fact it was a 50/50 group, with half being vegans. Still, it went down very well, and we all had a lot of fun.

 Six savoury dishes and one sweet dish – Street food!

In the following week, Lilia and Yuval came to stay with us for two nights prior to their departure. We suggested that they could stay here, so that they could pack up all their belongings and clean out the flat they were living in and have somewhere to sleep. It also gave us time to spend with them and say goodbye, and they could relax a little after tying up all the loose ends. As their flight out of Kansai wasn’t until 11:30pm, we had time to go out on their last day here and meet up with two other friends of theirs. We ended up at the Starbucks near Kiyomizu-dera, which is the only Starbucks to be established in a traditional Kyoto Machiya house.

Machiya are traditional wooden townhouses that were popular with Kyoto merchants and craftspeople until just before WWII. They are usually two storey buildings, often contain an enclosed courtyard garden and the interior is traditional Japanese, with tatami mat floors, minimal decoration, exposed wooden beams and sliding shoji or fusuma doors between the rooms. Usually, the materials used in a machiya are exclusively organic. The Starbucks has retained a lot of the traditional features of the machiya, including tatami flooring in some areas, where you sit on large cushions (zabuton) around small, low tables. It was a very pleasant place to sit for a few hours, eating, drinking tea and coffee and laughing.

Prior to the meet-up, we spent an evening with Lilia and Yuval, doing something that is very typically Kyoto – full moon viewing (tsukimi). The September full moon is known as the harvest moon and is celebrated widely in Kyoto. Many temples and shrines were having tsukimi event, and we chose to go to the Yasaka shrine event as it is close to us. We met up in the Gion beforehand and went to a restaurant in the area that has a special vegan menu, which includes okonomiyaki (basically a Japanese style savoury pancake), yakisoba (a noodle dish), teppanyaki and few other dishes.

The restaurant, named Tanto, appears to be run entirely by women, is very atmospheric and in a great position in the Gion, next to one of the canals. The tables are almost completely taken up by a hot plate, on which you partially cook and then serve the food. It was nice, though the food wasn’t as good as at other places we have been to.

After dinner we went to the shrine to watch the proceedings, which took place on the central stage area. The first hour, or so, of the ceremony was entirely religious in nature, with musicians playing mostly wind instruments in the background. They have a very unusual sound, which I love, and it is very typically Japanese style. The priests each had their parts to perform and, as happens in Shinto ceremonies, each of the directions were acknowledged, at which the watching crowd in that direction bowed. This happened a number of times.

During this period the moon started to rise over the hills, which added to the whole atmosphere. After the religious rites were completed, two dancers came onto the stage, dressed in amazing orange outfits. Their movements were very precise and stylised. Dance is often a part of Shinto ceremonies. Following this a group of Koto players took the stage and played a few songs. Watching the movement of the players is as much a part of the whole performance as the lovely music they produce. Then, drums were set up on stage. Taiko! Yes, it has been a while since I have seen a taiko performance, and it was wonderful to watch, though it did make me miss playing…

At the end of the ceremonies, they handed out the grasses they had as decorations, for which there was quite a jostle, as they are considered good luck having been used in proceedings. Lilia grabbed one for me, but in the process of pulling it in, she managed to stab me in the stomach with the stalk…! Anyway, here it is.

There are two other experiences to mention before I sign off – one relating to Japanese bureaucracy and the other involving a long drive. I have mentioned previously the sometimes onerous bureaucracy here, and it is an ongoing process. What we didn’t realise is that someone from the Kyoto hotels section is supposed to visit us once a year, to check up that we are following the rules. Somehow, this sort of slipped during the last two years, but they finally caught up with us. So a woman came to visit us, and luckily she could speak a little English.

The main focus was on our reception area, checking we still had it (of course, it’s part of the building) and what we tell our guests when we register them (don’t litter, don’t smoke in the streets near houses, be quiet/don’t yell, etc) which we always do because our licence can be revoked if there are complaints. She was a very nice person, and it was all over in about five minutes!

The drive, on the other hand, took just under two hours (one way). I had been wanting to visit an Ikea store here, just to see what it was like (basically exactly the same as in Adelaide) and to look for a few things which we needed, so the long drive was part of the adventure. The nearest store for us is in Osaka, down in the port area, and the drive involved expressways and toll roads (unless we wanted the journey to take at least an hour longer), but as a one-off visit, we thought it was worth it.

We entered Ikea into our GPS, and set off on our adventure. For a long while it was fairly straight forward, then we hit Osaka, and then it got very complicated. On ramps, off ramps, some very close together and hard to tell which one was the right one to take, and sometimes the on ramp took us onto a four laned road and we immediately had to cross the four lanes to get to the off ramp! A number of times we were driving in circles – literally. For a while it was quite stressful trying to navigate, even with the GPS, but we made it.

We also had to cross some interesting bridges. One had an entry and exit that were literally corkscrews – you went up three levels to get to the bridge, and then had to go down three levels on the other side. The other bridge scared me. It is a very long box girder, beam bridge, ie a simple structure where the road sits on beams, with no upper support. This one happens to be the longest of it’s type in Japan. It is very high above the river it crosses and the entry and exit sections are fairly steep (we went up behind a truck which was moving very slowly because it was so steep).

View from above

When we were moving it seemed reasonably ok, though the height of the bridge combined with a fairly low barrier wall was a bit unnerving (what is it like when it is windy?). The problems set in when we got to the other side, which was backed up thanks to some traffic lights. When we stopped (and we were still quite high up above the river and buildings below), I could feel the bridge moving – vibrating up and down, somewhat like an earthquake, and not small movements. I kept thinking “how old is this bridge?”, “how is the structure now?”. I wanted to get out of the car and literally run down to the ground level, but there wasn’t anywhere to run, it was all road on our side. Every change of the lights we edged further down, then stopped. Suffice it to say I never want to go on that bridge again. I have read since that it also moves laterally when it is windy…

At the beginning…

Shots from the internet

This is the section we were stuck on for quite a while

(also a shot from the internet)

Cheers!

Shots of a Red Helen which had clearly had a significant run-in with a bird, and another lovely swallow-tail butterfly

More clouds of summer

Extra shots from the Kiyomizu area

Halloween at Petmo

A Halloween Geiko?

Halloween Chupa Chups

Which one to choose?

The kids growing up – they found the range hood…

Our water lily flowered!

Walking up a hill!!!

Dear all, I apologise for my tardiness – I have no excuse except for the fact that we haven’t been doing overly much in the outside world; which brings me to the weather! It has been totemo mushi atsui (very hot and humid) since my last post, with most days being over 34C, and very humid. There also continues to be a lot of rain – in fact most days have been overcast, often with rain, and sometimes thunder and lightning though, interestingly, you don’t always get both. Many times you can hear the thunder but not see the lightning.

Interestingly, one night there was a lot of lightning, and it was quite bright because I was able to see the flashes through the curtains (it was well after midnight), but I didn’t hear any thunder. It also happened to be the final night of the Obon celebrations, when the daimonji fires are lit on the mountainsides around Kyoto to send off the spirits of the deceased who have come to visit their families during Obon. This year was the first year since 2019 that the event has not been either scaled down (where the fires were kept low) or cancelled due to The Virus.

We had planned to go to a local high school to view the fires from the roof of the school, which we have done previously, but it was raining that night and there was a thunderstorm forecast – although, as I have mentioned before, they often promise but it rarely eventuates. This night, however, there was indeed a thunderstorm (later), just not much in the way of thunder here. My theory is that it was the spirits saying thankyou for the fires, after the previous two years of little or none 😊. The following night we had another thunderstorm, including the full force of the thunder and some very heavy rain – between 1 and 2am we had over 36mm in a 20 minute period. It was very loud.

Despite us not having any ‘big’ outings, where we go somewhere just for interest and to take numerous photos, it has been an eventful period. Firstly, unexpectedly, we have had five bookings, with only one of those being made well in advance. We got one booking a week in advance, for the end of July to early August, which meant we were going to have to move mum and her kids out of the ‘feline nursery’ and into our area. We knew this was going to happen sooner, or later, so had made vague plans, but suddenly it was on!

We planned to fully move them out the night before (a Friday night), but then we got a booking on the Tuesday, for the next night…!!!! Action stations! It happened that this booking was for a couple who Craig knew from swimming in Adelaide, so it was a surprise in many ways. The woman is Japanese and she had finally been able to come to Japan to visit her parents, and while here they came to visit us for one night, which was nice.

Following the second booking (one guest, two nights), we got another booking for a couple (one night) a week later. After this we had the planned booking, which was for a woman who is going to be leading vegan tours in Japan (attached to a US company) who wanted to visit us and check our facility with the view of tour groups possibly staying here. It turned out she was originally from Melbourne and had been living in Japan for 19 years, another surprise. We had a good night chatting with her and hopefully something will come of it.

In the final surprise, we got a booking yesterday morning, one guest for two nights, starting last night! Again, action stations! So, all in all, it has been the best month we have had since March 2020. Now all we need is the borders being re-opened…please?

We know!

I mentioned we had to move our newest family members into our area – so now we have seven cats living with us! The kittens are nearly 20 weeks old now and are just as energetic as ever, though now they are quite a bit bigger and move around a lot faster…which means the potential for things we don’t want to happen has increased. We are closing them into the ‘spare room’ (or walk-in wardrobe/pantry/store room) at night, because we thought it would be the best way we could get sleep, and they are free to roam in our area during the day.

Initially I was tidying the room each day, and each morning I would open the door to this. Now I only tidy if clothes are pulled down, etc

As always Zara leads the way with exploring, and she has recently taken to climbing the curtains to get on top of cupboards. So, they are also learning about the word ‘no’ and, in the worst case scenario, about ‘The Enforcer’, which is a water spray bottle. Buchi is rather more a bulldozer than the others, so he has experienced The Enforcer a couple of times now, though he is still a little confused about where the water is coming from 😂. Speaking of Buchi, he recently went to have his ‘special operation’ and, though he was quieter than usual the day after the op, he has returned to full destructo force since. He is now the largest of the three kittens, just a little bigger than Zara and nearly as big as mum. The interesting thing is his paws are big, he looks rather like he has a pair of adult size boots on, so we expect that he may grow quite a bit larger than mum 🙄.

Cute when they’re sleeping…

I have mentioned previously that we have a few foreign friends here, most of whom are students here on limited duration visas. We have recently started to really learn what this means, ie unless they go onto further study, or find employment, here they will be leaving Japan. Earlier this month we held a farewell dinner for one of these people, Isi, a young woman from Scotland who was here for five years completing courses, and now she has moved on to The Netherlands, to further her studies. We were going to have a special vegan meet-up dinner before she left, but with the recent significant rise in the Covid numbers, we decided to do a mini version, for her closest friends.

In the end, because it was Obon time, amongst other things, while we offered to cook for eight people, there were only four, including Isi. The theme we chose for the meet-up was Street Foods of the World, so we decided to go ahead with this anyway, and we still hope to do a full meet-up sometime soon – people have been asking us to do so, as soon as possible. We will miss having Isi here, but thanks to social media we can easily remain in contact.

I have also mentioned a young Israeli couple who we had become friends with, Lilia and Yuval, and who we have spent quite a bit of time with. Lilia recently completed her PhD and hence was looking for work. Unfortunately for them, and us, she was not able to find suitable work in Japan, and has decided to accept a position in Israel. So, next month they, too, will be leaving Japan.

Earlier this month, we went out for an afternoon catch-up to celebrate Lilia’s birthday, at a lovely café in Maruyama Park. It was a hot day, but not raining, so we walked there and decided to have kakigōri, which is a traditional Japanese summer sweet made of shaved ice covered with a flavouring syrup. The ice used is often taken from natural springs, then tempered to achieve the perfect quality for shaving. It is also often served with flavoured mochi balls and fruit jellies, which traditionally are made without gelatine, though these days we have to check when ordering. I had a lemon kakigōri and Craig had a coffee syrup serving. The lemon kakigōri was amazing, with lots of fresh lemon used in the syrup – it was both cooling and refreshing with a zing 😊.

The hanging sign indicates kakigōri served

Two days ago we caught up with Takako, who we haven’t seen much during The Virus time, and we enjoyed the kakigōri so much that we decided to meet her at that café. Unfortunately, they were closed for a ‘special day off after Obon’, so Takako suggested we go to another nearby café, as they serve kakigōri too. It was in a beautiful old building and, while they didn’t have a lemon version, they had a matcha version and a mango one. Not as spectacular as the lemon in flavour, but very nice nonetheless. The matcha version was served with matcha agar jellies, mochi balls and anko (sweet red bean paste made from adzuki beans).

The kakigōri machine

We have also recently taken advantage of the warm evenings (when it’s not raining) to go out and try a restaurant we had never been to and to visit my favourite ramen place, which has finally re-opened! In both cases we were told about them and, as you can imagine, I was very excited when I heard about Engine Ramen. The first restaurant is an udon and tempura bar, which has a small vegan section of the menu. Finding vegan tempura in Japan is difficult because so many use egg in the batter these days, so we decided to try the tempura set and it was very good. We’ll be going back soon to try their udon noodles, which they make onsite.

As to Engine Ramen, I wanted to go immediately I heard it had re-opened, but we had to wait for nearly two weeks because of weather, days closed and guests, and Lilia and Yuval said they wanted to go and try the ramen. They have re-opened in a much smaller venue, essentially a bar and one table, and the menu is smaller because the kitchen is smaller and they don’t have an area for frying, BUT the spicy ramen was as good as ever. In fact, he told us he had ‘tweaked’ it slightly to make it creamier, which it was. We will be going back again, and again, and…

(l) The plain vegan ramen, (r) The spicy vegan ramen

I forgot to take a photo before I started eating, I was so keen, so had to borrowed Lilia and Yuval’s bowls

One other slight incident to report before I sign off, Craig managed to throw himself over the handle bars of his bike onto the road on his way home from gym a few weeks ago. This resulted from sweaty hands, slightly slippery hand grips and him trying to grab the handle bar after slipping and accidentally grabbing the hand brake, which brought the bike to a very sudden halt. Luckily no other vehicles were involved. He came away very battered and bruised, though not much blood, and he still can’t straighten his left arm and his left hand isn’t working well either. He had x-rays on the day, but there were no broken bones. He will be wearing bike gloves in future, when he can actually ride again.

Cheers for now

The hills behind Maruyama Park – another overcast day

A crack in the sky, but no hand…

The eyes!!! They look angry

I call this the clouds of summer series

Another hole cover

That robot, again

A good luck statue. You have to touch it

Saw this in a car – do SAPOL have a mascot😂

These are made to help you teach your pets about the solar system — I think?

Display in the mall

The never ending tunnel…

Well it seemed that way

This is not a sheep

The man above was buying outfits for his dog. The stand with mirror is there so you can try them on and see both sides…

(They’re a bit blurry because I didn’t want to be too obvious)

The 900+ yr old Camphor tree

Flowers of summer 😁

Beautiful bowl and mini garden arrangement

More flowers

Our baby lotus plant

Craig in summer attire

Mum playing, then the kids steal her toy, with athletic spin by Akashi

Mum gets it back – briefly

Once upon a time, there was a slightly older female who moved to a new country, with her husband, to start a business. Things began slowly but steadily, and it looked like things were going in the right direction. Then, something very unexpected happened (very unexpected) – the world turned upside down and most of the countries closed their gates, so they could keep out anyone who didn’t live there. One country, in particular, decided to keep their gates closed, even while other countries started to slowly re-open their gates; a little at a time. Fast forward two and a half years, and the slightly older female, and her husband, were still waiting for their business to have the opportunity to restart. Such is life.

Summertime, and the living is mushi mushi (very humid). It seems that despite the fact the weather bureau said the rainy season had ended late last month, the weather gods weren’t listening. So the weather for the last few weeks has been mostly low to mid 30s and very humid, overcast and with rain falling on the majority of days. On those few sunny days it has been hot.

In anticipation of the hot humid weather, we bought a blow-up pool a while back, and it really has come into its own now – although, the rain has restricted its usage somewhat. While I knew it was at least two metres wide, I didn’t really think about how big that was and, in fact, it turns out it nearly fills up the open area of our small backyard. Also, we didn’t realise just how sloped the area was, so we have a shallow end and a deeper end. Still, having found my bathers and overcome the shock of putting them on again (after around six years), sitting (and lying) in our little pool has been most pleasant.

Apart from the relaxing moments in the pool, we have been quite busy looking after our new daughter and grandchildren. They are now just over three months old, and have become little creatures of chaos and destruction. On the day they turned 10 weeks old, Zara (aka Dora the explorer), decided it was time to find out what was on the other side of the dining room pass. She had seen mum go up and over and, as she has a way of doing, she studied the objective and worked out how it could be conquered.

The morning I discovered they were able to jump onto the table – a full roll of kitchen paper… What fun!

Once Zara had found the way, the other two (Buchi and Akashi) followed her lead and also made it to the counter. Given the floor on the other side is much lower than the dining room floor (and all other ground floor rooms), she then had to find a way down. At this point I decided that, in the interests of their safety and mindful of their determination, it was better if I made it easier for them. What this meant is that every time we went into the ‘big’ kitchen, we had to be careful when opening the door, walking around and making sure they didn’t get through the door into our area. We also realised that we had to clear all breakables and dangerous objects from benches, since they quickly learned how to jump up to higher places.

Of course, trying to keep them limited to the dining room and kitchen didn’t last long, because once they got this far Tahlia decided it was time they were more fully integrated into the family, ie meeting the other fur children and having access to our living area. It is quite obvious where the kittens get their determination from, and also obvious that we were essentially powerless to stop them. So now they are confined to the dining room/kitchen area at night (food is a great motivator), and then we let them into our area during the day – except when I am doing my exercise/ballet sessions. A grand battement to the head or body would not be good for any of them.

Buchi vs Zowie – even though Zowie is three times his size

Akashi and her lightning bolt tail!

Nothing is safe

Our beds are comfortable!!!

Other than having the agents of chaos and destruction in our area (Craig calls them the little terrorists), we were finally able to get Tahlia to the Vet to have her de-sexed, and we also took the little ones to have their second vaccination. Yes, many visits to the Vet and there are still more to come, as we will have to take the grandchildren to have their ‘special’ operations in a few weeks. While undertaking these long drives, I have amused myself by taking some photos out of the car window – there are some very interesting things to see when you really look.

Note the fluffy slip ons…

Keeping birds off your crops

Hairmake POLISH?

We haven’t been doing overly much in terms of going out, aside from shopping trips, simply because it has been raining a lot, and if it’s not raining, the sunny days have been very hot (walking puddle weather). We did visit our local temple (Chishakuin) to see the hydrangeas, however, because that is always worth the effort, and it’s close. This time we were there late in the day, so the light was nice and the hydrangea area was out of the sun.

The other main outing we had was last Friday evening, to see the Gion Matsuri festivities. It has been two years since the actual processions have been held, due to The Virus, so this year it is being celebrated to the full extent. The first of the two processions happens on the 17^th of July, and the second on the 24^th. On the three nights leading up to the processions, there is a huge multiple street party held, called yoiyama, where the whole central area of Kyoto is cordoned off to traffic, all the floats are parked out in the streets and there are many stalls set up on the streets selling float paraphernalia, food and alcohol – lots of alcohol.

Many thousands of people make their way to this area, with many dressed in traditional Japanese summer clothing – mainly yukata. We had never been to one of these nights, and since we hadn’t been out at night for months, when our friend down the road suggested we go on one of the nights, we said yes without hesitation. Friday night was the only night when there wasn’t likely to be much rain, so we chose that night.

We also decided to have dinner in town for a real treat, although it took three goes to find a place that was open and staying open until after 7pm. After dinner, out in the streets, it was extremely crowded, and most of the people were quite young. I don’t recall seeing many people over 40, except the police and security guards, who were in place to direct the flow of pedestrians in an orderly manner.

There were some clearly intoxicated young people – ok, quite a few – and we were only there till around 9pm. Rubbish stations were set up in the main food stall areas, which had people staffing them to ensure rubbish and recyclables went into the right bins, but I imagine the streets would have been quite messy at the end of the night! The first big party in over two years and they were clearly doing their utmost to enjoy it 😊.

Cheers for now

Motherhood

The floats were all covered in case of rain

Wildlife in our yard

View of Pan from the pool

This robot chased us around the supermarket

Herons staying cool in the river

This heron went back to its usual spot after the restaurant was knocked down and rebuilt!

Clouds of summer

Jewels of rain

Some of the many types of hydrangeas

Water Hyacinth – gorgeous

G’day all! Hope you’re all well and not shivering too much. We, on the other hand are now into summer, although it hasn’t been overly warm here as yet. The warmest day we have had so far is 30C, which isn’t what I’d call hot, especially as it wasn’t a humid day. Today it is overcast, a little humid and in the high 20s. There is a thunderstorm advisory out but as I’ve mentioned before, they often don’t come to anything. The good thing about having warm weather is that we can keep the windows open, and we don’t need any air-conditioning.

The only slight problem with having the windows at the moment is that Tahlia has gone on heat…Yes, just after we had made an appointment to have her de-sexed, since the kittens are mostly weaned now (they’re over nine weeks old now!), she went on heat. Alas, that was two and a half weeks ago and we have had to cancel two appointments for the op so far. Anyway, we took the kittens to the Vet last week and left Tahlia at home. They had their first vaccination shot and a quick check, while Tahlia fretted at home. We made another appointment for Tahlia this week, but have had to again postpone the operation.

The look on Tahli’s face…

Buchi

Yami

Zara

Akashi

Having a cat on heat in your home is not a fun thing. She is very loud in her yowling at times, and she is harassing the boys (Ziggy and Zowie), despite their not having the ‘ability’ to help her out. They are not taking this overly well, with Ziggy hiding in the bathroom on his towel bed on the second shelf in there, and Zowie is moving around from high place to high place, as much as possible. Thankfully, when she is locked away with the kittens at night, in the dining room, we can’t hear her overly much. The other news with our grandchildren is that Tamarah, our friend who is helping us to find homes for the kittens, has taken one of them (Yami, though she’s now named Derf (Fred backwards), a name chosen by Tamarah’s father who recently passed away) to add to her feline family at home. Apparently she is settling in well.

During this last month we went hunting (twice), the kind of hunt vegans go on with our target this time being irises! I truly love irises, and I love nothing better than going out and shooting them – especially at close range 😊. Many of you will know that irises are my favourite flower, so it is a wonderful thing to be able to go to gardens and parks where there are mass plantings of irises. I tend to walk around mesmerised, with my mouth hanging open, or a stupid smile on my face. This year I found two more places to visit that we hadn’t been to before (actually I found three, but I have saved one for next year!!!).

The first of our hunting trips took us to Yamashina again, through the very long Inari tunnel (nearly 2.5km long through the mountain range) and out to Kajū temple – also known as Kanshu-ji. This temple was originally founded in 900CE, by Emperor Daigo to honour his deceased mother who lived a large part of her life in the area. It is a Shingon temple and is the head of the Yamashina school of the sect. The temple was actually destroyed in 1470 as a result of the Onin war, however, in 1682 it was rebuilt thanks to a combined effort of the imperial household and the Tokugawa clan.

It is not an overly large temple, despite it owning vast areas of Yamashina in the past, but it is a particularly nice place to visit, with a number of interesting features. These include an unusual stone lantern which was donated to the temple in the 17^th century and is surrounded by a dwarf Japanese garden juniper, estimated to be 750 years old. The lantern has a large and sloping roof that is distinctive enough to have earned it the designation of a “Kajū-ji-style lantern”.

Also unusual because it has lawned areas

The most notable feature, though, is the large pond which has a small island in the middle with a large stand of trees – suitable for birds to nest in. The pond is planted with irises, lotus and water lilies, and also has koi, turtles and frogs living in it, but it is most well known amongst the locals as a good place for water bird watching. When you walk along the narrow path towards the pond and then out into the open pond area, you are struck, yet again, by the ‘Monet’ like appearance of the pond. I say yet again because we have been to a few places which have had that look about them.

Apart from a small wedding party, there only for the photographs, and a couple of other people, it was very quiet, very tranquil (occasionally interrupted by a strident bullfrog and bird song 😊). Next to the pond was a small arbour, covered by a wisteria, with a bench in it – a beautiful place to sit and ponder the serenity and beauty of nature (except the bullfrog which made me jump 😊).

The nests and a zoom lens…

The other hunting ground I located thanks to a mention of it on the local news. Though I didn’t hear them mention the name of the place, it wasn’t hard to find thanks to the electronic oracle. It was at the Shirokita park in Osaka, where they have created an entire space dedicated to irises – hundreds of iris plants. The area is walled off and you have to pay to get in, but at ¥200 it is ridiculously cheap. Not only have they created some ponds planted out with the multitude iris plants, but they have also created other little landscaped spaces, and they have set up some small spaces with single pots of irises especially for close up photographs.

When I walked around the corner to the open flower area, after going through the initial entry space, my mouth did drop open and I did become mesmerised. As I walked around, taking hundreds of photographs (literally) I felt like I had arrived at a fabulous ball, I was completely underdressed, and all I could do was look at all those who were beautifully dressed  – all those amazing ball gowns. I know, sounds OTT, but I really did feel like that. It was sort of hard to know where to look first. We spent over an hour in there, and it wasn’t that big an area. Bliss.

One other outing we had was to a vegan meet-up picnic, on the banks of the Kamo river. It was a nice day, around 26C and sunny, if somewhat windy, and spending the afternoon amongst like minded people from all corners of the earth – though this time there were quite a few Americans – was most pleasant.  There were about a dozen of us and there was even one American who had recently become an Australian citizen after living in Melbourne for five years. He said he became an Australian mainly because of the health system! Can’t blame him, really.

US, France, Japan, Malaysia

Malaysia, US, Scotland (that’s her natural hair colour…)

Before I sign off, just a couple of smallish items, the first being a Close Encounter Of The Animal Kind with a Convolvulus Hawk-moth. The wingspan of the moth is between 80 and 105mm, though it was hard to tell how large this one was because it didn’t stop flapping its wings. It was, however, very large and shocked Craig when it fell out of the washing he had just brought in from the clothes hanging area outside. It didn’t try to get away, or even move very much, so I wonder if it had just come out of the chrysalis?

On Craig’s hand

The other item relates to Japanese life, in a way. We were in town, walking to the bus stop to catch a bus home, when a guy (I think it was a male) road past on a motorbike fully clad in a spiderman outfit (yes, head to toe), and his bike appeared to be completely covered in stickers – it was hard to tell, because it happened so quickly, and it was one of the WTF moments when all you wanted was a camera… So, you’ll just have to imagine it for yourselves.

That’s all for now – it’s been fairly quiet sitting out here in the front office…

Cheers

The Shirokita park mascot

Possibly the best toilet block ever

Fully mosaic tiled…

Concrete bridge as art…

Craig as art?

Irises in our backyard

Not irises

Japanese life…(ok, setup, I rarely fall asleep on a train)

Konnichiwa, hello, guten tag and bonjour! Here we all are, nearly half way through the year and for us, on the business front, not much has changed. Still waiting for the borders to re-open, still hoping we’ll get through this. We have, of course had something of a distraction recently, with our young family group in the dining room, watching their progress, keeping the food up to mum, cleaning (as best we can), and adjusting the living quarters without upsetting mum too much (which I have a few times).

The balcony addition

Partial view of the tent

Mum watches, on the ready to ‘go for me’ if I make any more changes

Certainly we have needed this distraction because, apart from not having any guests, the weather has been rather drab recently – many grey days, with rain on many of them. It is May now, my favourite month of the year, weather-wise, but not this year. I mean, we have had some nice days – sunny and warm – but they have been few, so far. After last year, when it rained for most of the summer, with so little sun most of our vegetable plants came to nothing, I can only hope that we are getting the overcast days out of the way now.

Anyway, back to mum and our grandchildren, they have come along in leaps and bounds (that is literally how they are now 😊). They are five weeks old as of tomorrow and are now very active and very interested in what is around them. Once they started looking outside of the box, and were moving around a bit more (in a wobbly kind of way), we created a verandah for them with soft lining and added a step on the outside so they could get back into the box. They liked this and it was Zara, the white, orange and tabby girl, who was first out.

Zara (on the left) looking out, making plans…

I should mention that we are pretty sure we have three girls and one boy – the girls are; Zara, Akashi (the dark kitten with the red stripe on one side of her face) and Yami (the dark kitten with a creamy coloured chin and chest) and the lone boy is Buchi (white and tabby kitten). The names are mostly descriptive; Akashi is a shortened form of red stripe; Yami means darkness, and Buchi is the descriptive name for two coloured cats. As for Zara, well, I don’t know why I called her that (because she’s a bit of a Dame?). Even at athis young age they all have distinct personalities – Zara the keen explorer, Akashi the keen climber (yes, up the side of the kitten enclosure we bought for them, which is largely made of netting so you can see in), Buchi is a bit of a bully, at times, though they all like to wrestle, and Yami is the more gentle kitten, though she can run fast!

Zara (r) and Buchi

Yami (r) and Akashi in the background

Mum feeding while still in the box (which she didn’t want to move out of…)

Mum is now quite comfortable in the tent

Adjustments were made to the tent/cage connection after discovering that Akashi had managed to climb up the outside of the tent and get on the top edge. For a kitten, it is quite a drop from there…

At the moment I am trying to interest the kittens in solid food, but it is tricky because anything I put in the tent Tahlia wants to eat, and the kids don’t get much opportunity. So I have taken to putting Tahlia’s food in the tent along with a smaller bowl of food, but without sitting and watching them I am not sure exactly how much they are getting. Today is day four of my efforts to introduce food to them – perseverance is the key.

Despite the somewhat inclement weather, we have taken the opportunity to get out for a few excursions other than going shopping. We walked into town, partly for exercise and partly to buy a few things and we walked up to the Okazaki Park area to visit another of Kyoto’s famous gardens, Murin-an. For those of you who watched the Monty Don series about Japanese gardens, Murin-an was one of the featured smaller gardens which used the ‘borrowed landscape’ feature. Our final outing took us to Takaragaike (again) for a picnic with Lilia and Yuval.

For our walk into town we went via Kiyamachi road and returned home via Chishakuin to see the azaleas which were in bloom. Many streets in Kyoto are lined with azalea bushes and they feature in many other areas where there is room. Interestingly, though, most of the plantings are pink and white. I’m not sure why this is, but it is still a delight to see the bushes everywhere covered in flowers, some more colour after the blossom is finished.

For our walk up to Murin-an, we took the road along the side of the canal which we love to walk along. Murin-an was the garden villa of Yamagata Aritomo, one of Japan’s leading statesmen of the time, and was constructed between 1894-96. It is made up three buildings: a main house, a Western-style house and a tearoom. The garden is a modern Japanese garden design created by master gardener Ogawa Jihei VII based upon the owner’s instructions. Yamagata was, in fact, a landscape designer himself and he purposely designed the garden using the hills in the background and creating a more natural looking waterway within the grounds, which was irrigated from the recently constructed canal bringing water to Kyoto from Lake Biwa. He also made use of grass in the design, which was very unusual (still is, actually).

It is a lovely garden, very open and quite serene, despite its position on a busy street corner. There are very few floral elements, with most of the design using trees and quite open spaces, so that you can sit inside the house and see most of the garden area. The house is equally designed to take full advantage of this aspect and to blend in. Interestingly, the block is not overly large but the buildings have been placed on the edge of the land so as to maximise the garden area.

The tea house

A resident

During Golden Week we arranged to go an a picnic with Lilia and Yuval and since they had not been to Takaragaike, we thought it would be a nice place for them to visit. I also thought that it might be less crowded than many other places, given it was in the middle of Golden Week. There were more people there than we had seen before, but the park is large enough that you can still have plenty of space and it isn’t too noisy. Not as spectacular as our last picnic together, but definitely just as pleasant.

Looking up from our picnic spot

Before I sign off, I thought I’d mention how I was reminded the other day of the very uniqueness of Japan and its people. When we are out doing everyday things (such as shopping), or even just walking around in the suburbs, there are many things you see for which you think “only in Japan” (such as the very kawaii road barriers) or at times we see something and refer to it as “Japanese life”, such as seeing all the bedding hanging over balconies on warm, sunny days. More often than not, we have become used to seeing things like this and don’t really notice them. The other day we went to a hardware store and parked in the rooftop carpark. As we got back to the car I was vaguely looking around and noticed in amongst the very western style multi storey buildings one rooftop which had a small shrine on it…”Japanese life” 😊.

Cheers for now!

Also Japanese life:

Interesting names (a beauty parlour)

Dogs in prams

A proper translation unintentionally funny

People dressed up in fun costumes

Beautiful light fittings in a fence next to a gate

The last three are photos from our garden – the bottom one is our yuzu tree, with baby fruit!

It’s me!!!

Part deux begins now:-

I’m back again, and with more trees. Last time I showed you quite a few tree photos, and the places we went and trees we saw were wonderful, but I have to say that the next destination turned out to be one of the best displays yet. We had tried to find this place once before, but didn’t manage to find it. We caught a train out to a town called Kameoka, and then we were supposed to catch a bus out to the spot where the trees were, but there was no bus for a very long time, and when we tried to walk out there, well, we couldn’t find it. In fact, this whole shemozzle led us to finding the Hozugawa boat ride, so, in fact, it turned out to be quite fortuitous. We have since had two rides down the Hozugawa and enjoyed every minute.

BCV, obviously

Now, back to the current story, our visit to the Yawaragi no michi area (finally). This time we went via car, and we took our friends Lilia and Yuval with us. Lilia had suggested we take a hanami journey somewhere together, but everywhere I suggested she had been to in the recent past (Lilia writes a public blog and so is always looking for something new to write about). Finally I remembered our not so successful search for this blossom walk, and luckily she hadn’t been there before.

It was about an hours drive there, and I discovered that the distance between the train station and the walk was a long way – a very long way – so not surprising we didn’t find it. Unsurprisingly, there were a lot of people there, but the area was large enough that it didn’t seem too crowded. The local council has obviously gradually expanded the tree plantings, and we could see that there were some fairly recent plantings along the river. Apparently there are about 1,500 trees and the walk along the riverside extends for about 1km.

We took some picnic provisions with us and enjoyed sitting under a very large tree while partaking our repast. There were, in fact, many spots to sit and enjoy this amazing place, and many families, couples and friends were doing just that. It was a glorious, sunny day, not overly warm, but pleasant for walking. While we were there we saw some interesting sights, including a paraglider over the hills, a woman who had brought her dog and a chair on which she had placed the dog for photographs under the sakura (!), and a man who had brought a little person made from cardboard, who he was also photographing under the sakura…

Where we ate our lunch

The cardboard person strolling

All in all a wonderful journey, in beautiful surroundings, with good friends and food and some rather interesting people. On top of all this, there was no entry fee only a parking fee of ¥500 (although I think they could ask for donations towards upkeep and improvement of facilities – there was only one western style toilet) and the cost of petrol to get there.

Talking about interesting sights, during the hanami time we had a dirigible flying over our house for a few days. We first noticed the sound of a flying vehicle, but not the usual helicopter sound (we have many, many helicopters flying around our area, which we assume are mostly for tourists). It also didn’t sound like a light plane, so we just had to check what it was, and there above our house was an Asahi advertising blimp. With so many tourists in Kyoto for hanami, it is obviously worth the cost. Funnily enough, on the bottom of the blimp it said, in English, “Look Up Japan”, which you can only see if you are already looking up…

The last place we visited during this period was at the suggestion of Lilia, to a shrine that is very near Kyoto University, where she recently completed her doctorate. It is called Yoshida Jinja and was founded in 859CE by the Fujiwara clan, which the Encyclopaedia Britannica describes as a “dynastic family that, by shrewd intermarriage and diplomacy, dominated the Japanese imperial government from the 9th to the 12th century”. Further, it states that “The power and authority of the Fujiwara family rested not on military prowess but on political strategy and on the family’s special relationship to the imperial family, which it carefully cultivated and exploited. This relationship stemmed from the Fujiwara policy of maintaining attachment to the imperial family through the marriage of Fujiwara daughters to emperors. It meant that the Fujiwara daughters were empresses, that their grandsons and nephews were emperors, and that members of their family, including its lesser branches, received all the patronage. Thus, the Fujiwara clan chieftain, whether he held office or not, could manipulate the reins of government.” Interesting.

Anyway, this shrine was very important to the emperors – essentially it was the guardian shrine for the Heian-kyo (present day Kyoto) Palace. It came to be called Yoshida Jinja in reference to a new denomination of Shinto created by the Head Priest of the shrine, Yoshida Kanetomo, some time during the late 1400s. Yoshida Shinto no longer exists as a separate denomination, mainly because it essentially took over as the Shinto religion. Basically, by the time he became head priest Buddhism and Shintoism had become effectively intermingled and he was concerned that Shinto was the original Japanese religion, with Buddhism having been imported from China. So he set about re-establishing Shinto as a separate religion from Buddhism, obviously quite successfully.

The shrine is located on one of the hills to the east of Kyoto (where we are also located, just a little further south from there), and within the grounds there are many smaller sub-shrines. The majority of the land, however, is wooded with paths winding through the trees, which makes it a nice place to walk. The reason Lilia mentioned it is because at the back of the shrine land there is a sub-shrine with a number of torii gates lining the walk to the shrine. In the gaps between these gates there are blossom trees, which makes for a very pretty walk and nice photos, when they are in bloom. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, most of the blossom had gone. Still, like I said a nice walk, with good views of Kyoto and the blimp, which had clearly followed us!

One thing I should mention from our visit to the shrine is the sighting of a bride and groom prior to their wedding ceremony. I think I have mentioned before that Shinto takes care of the ‘life’ things, such as marriage and children blessings, house blessings etc, while Buddhism takes care of the afterlife things, ie funerals and cemeteries, etc. For the traditional parts of the marriage ceremonies, the brides and grooms wear traditional clothing, with most brides choosing to wear a white kimono and interesting white headwear, which I thought you might like to see. I have used a photo from the electronic oracle, as the bride we saw had yet to put it on, though I saw it on a bench ready for the bride to don.

Waiting around

The bottom two photos show a bride and groom during the proceedings and a bride in close up.

Before I sign off, I should mention that our furry grandchildren are two weeks old today 😊. Their ears have all unfurled and their eyes are fully open, so we are making sure to let them see us, as much as is possible since they are spending most of their time drinking and sleeping. Tahlia is back to her supermodel shape (slim with very long legs), and she is doing a great job of looking after them. Unfortunately all of this means it is very hard to get any photos of them.

That’s all for now

Cheers!

Some strange people, or is it blossom sickness?

A couple of cosplay girls being photographed

Even the pavers have blossom on them

Not sure if these are two separate birds, or just the one moving around so that it is photographed a lot

This cafe was up near the summit of the Yoshida shrine. Obviously popular, because there was a queue to get in. The bottom photo shows an old concrete table and bench there.

Lichen on  a cherry tree.

Ending on a non-blossom note, to prepare you for next time…

Guess what? It’s tree time again!

Hello and welcome to part one of a two part posting in which you will see more voluptuously voyeuristic tree photos than you thought possible in two sittings. Theoretically, all of this should be in only one post but there are so many fabulous photos, that I can’t bring myself to reduce them down that much. Sitting in the folder for this post are around 300 photos of trees! Now, don’t panic, I am not going to put in anywhere near that many, and the difficult task of culling is yet to come for me, but at least it is a rather pleasurable difficulty…

The truth about hanami…

Spring has well and truly sprung here and the weather is gradually improving, with days in the 20s now dominating the weather. The warmest day we have had this year, so far, was 27C – glorious. I wore a t-shirt and sandals! It felt like real freedom; lighter clothing, my feet un-socked (can I use that as a term?) and no cold wind. The puffs are all put away. I have heard some people call this time ‘the greening’, and it does seem an apt term to me. Our garden is turning green again, with all our plants now sprouting. We have even had the first flowers from one of our irises, a gorgeous yellow bearded iris.

Speaking of our garden, we have had to do a little re-arranging, as we found some plants just didn’t like where we initially put them. We have also had to replace some plants which just haven’t coped with the last two winters – too cold then too much snow. Unfortunately one of these was the purple princess flower bush, which I loved. I couldn’t find a suitable endemic plant that was purple to replace it, so we decided to replace it with a camellia which we know can survive the winters here.

We found the geisha plants weren’t overly happy during winter too and tended to die back completely, so we have put two of the three into pots and replaced them with a couple of wisteria plants. We also had to move the dogwood tree and have replaced it with a white magnolia. Hopefully these changes will mean a more settled garden which can grow happily. Fingers crossed.

In terms of natural phenomena, we have also had at least four earthquakes near us in the last two weeks, which is a little unusual. While there are earthquakes in Japan basically every day, we don’t get too many around us. They haven’t been very strong, more in the medium magnitude 3 – 5 range at the epicentre, which translated to about magnitude 1 – 3 for us. Interestingly, I have had to add a new descriptor to my earthquake scale – the Double Hit. Two of the four recent earthquakes fall into this category. We have never experienced this type of quake before. The first time we felt this we were watching tv; we felt the slight movement and heard the house creak, and thought ‘good, that was not so bad’, then a couple of seconds later it happened again. Somewhat unnerving.

The second time this type of quake happened, Craig was at gym and I was at home doing my stretching and ballet routine. The first hit was very similar to the previous one – slight movement, house creaked – I thought, ok, good, not too bad. Then about four seconds later I heard the second one coming. This time it was stronger than the first hit – a rattler – enough to get me off the floor and the kids to look concerned. Craig said he felt it at the gym, too. Of the other two, the first was the strongest of them all and woke me up, at around 11:30 pm. It was a swayer, and lasted for a while. Yes, I was rocked awake. Strangely, even though it only felt like it was swaying, the shoji were rattling.

In terms of much more pleasant natural phenomena, we had a few outings specifically to view the blossom (hanami, as it is known here) during this period. We made a return visit to Daigoji, as planned, and we walked into town, which takes us along many blossom tree lined roads, and we returned via the Chishakuin cemetery, where there are some lovely trees. The other outings will be covered in the next post.

Near our home

As expected, there were many more people visiting Daigoji, but it was worth going there. The temple grounds are so vast that even though there were hundreds of people, we could still get some photos without people in them, although most of those were taken over their heads (luckily we are relatively tall here, yes, even me). It wasn’t quite peak time, with some trees still to open, but there were plenty that were and it was a beautiful sunny day. Not much more to say really, so here is a selection of the photos:

On the day we walked into town, it was very grey on the way in and it was a little cooler, but it was still a very pleasant walk. There are so many cherry trees planted in and around Kyoto, that you can pretty much walk in any direction and you will find blossom at this time of year. It really is a wonderful thing, which makes any walk into a lovely hanami experience.

To finish this post off, I have an update on our newest family member, Tahlia. After bringing her inside and ensuring she was disease free, we started letting her integrate into the family a bit more, which she was very keen to do (even if the other kids were not quite so keen). At first we let the others go out into the dining room, and Tahlia was a little aloof at first. I would feed her out there, to ensure Ziggy couldn’t steal any of her food (he likes to do that…). As she was pregnant, I changed her diet to a kitten food based diet, as recommended on the internet because kitten food is higher in calories, which a pregnant cat needs.

After about a week, she decided that she should come out into our area – so I would give her breakfast in the dining room, then she would join us after. At night, I would take her food out to the dining room, and she would follow me out there. We didn’t want her to sleep in our area, because even though she was there all day, the other kids were still adjusting to her presence (if you know what I mean).

During this time, Tahlia became increasingly affectionate with us, and she just loved lying on the heated floor at night. Sometimes she would lie right in front of me, so I could rub her belly. Gradually her belly grew, until she looked like a furry football with four legs.

We made a ‘birthing box’ for her, out of a cardboard box. I followed directions from the internet, lining it with plastic, and using cat toilet pads for padding and to capture fluids from birthing and the kittens’ toilet needs. These pads are made to be used either inside litter trays or there are trays especially made where you put the pads on drawers which are under a perforated tray. Tahlia basically ignored the box up until she was nearly two months pregnant. We were worried she would find somewhere else rather less suitable.

One morning I discovered that she had been in the box and had mostly pulled all the linings apart. So, I decided to remove the plastic lining, as it was this that she had really shredded. I kept the padding at the bottom and rearranged the toilet pads, to make them neater. The, on the morning of the 12^th of April, day 64 of her pregnancy, I went out to the dining room to find her in the box, all the layers rearranged by her to form a sort of nest in the corner, and she was panting. I got down to see how she was and at that moment she gave birth to her first kitten! She started cleaning it, and it started squeaking (relief).

After this, over the next few hours, she gave birth to three more bundles of fur. Mother and babies were fine, and the anxious grandmamar (me) was able to relax a little. Having had her babies, she has become much less affectionate, and is now in aggressively protective mummy mode, so we are hassling her as little as possible, and our plans to try to remove the top layer of the toilet pads has completely gone out the window. Our friend who feeds some of the cat colonies, who we helped to move cats and paraphernalia to the house she bought for the cats, has suggested we wait and let Tahlia make the first move in terms of cleaning out the box. This has also taken a weight off our minds. The thing is, all the information on the internet is really aimed at people whose pet cat is having kittens, not one you have recently trapped and brought inside from the streets.

So, we are grandparents 😊, and we are learning. The photos I have of her and the kittens were taken from a distance, and then edited so that more can be seen. I’m not even sure if they all have tails, yet. One thing, none of them look like their mum, that I can see. The father is a ginger and white, fully tailed cat.

That’s all for now. The next post will be “The trees, part deux”.

Cheers!

Hurrah!

Queuing for a restaurant

I wonder if Kitchen Aid was paid for this image…?

Normal Pocky on the left and the new tasty ones on the right… 

for Steven

Um, what is Tonteki?

These ducks may look like normal ducks, but they are the ones that walk instead of swimming!!! (they are walking on the bottom…)

There are some amazing street and mall decorations

Yes, I do like Tanuki

Also, turtles