Autumn, and you know what that means…yes, many, many photos of trees. So, welcome to the tree episode for 2021. In fact, this is the last episode for this year; let’s hope that next year is better for all of us.

For now, let us concentrate on trees for a while. Wonderful things, trees:- breathe in carbon dioxide, breathe out oxygen, some provide fruits and on top of that they are just plain beautiful, especially at this time of the year. Reviewing the photos for this episode, I noticed that they look quite different to last year, which was just an explosion of colour. This year the ‘colouring’ happened more slowly, with the trees changing in a staggered kind of way, with some fully in colour, some still to reach their peak and the rest had already passed their peak. The other difference this year is that the trees that aren’t deciduous are much greener than in the recent past. Obviously they enjoyed the massive amount of rain we had this year.

A quick report on the weather – it’s cold! Last time I said I thought I would be in a puffy jacket within the month, well, I have been wearing a puffy jacket for most of the time since then. Yesterday there was snow here, not much, but enough to cover the cars in the carpark across the road and to have a helicopter flying over our house before 7:30am – likely the media filming the snow on the hills. The max on Saturday was 6C. It is warming up a bit over the rest of the week, into the low teens, but back to sub-10C by Sunday.

Shortly after my last post we went out for a long walk, going back to Takao and following the Kyoto trail from there. This time we walked much further, with our total distance for the day being around 15km. It was a glorious day, slightly cool, but sunny and the Autumn colours were beautifully lit up.

We went back to Jingo-ji, the temple at the top of the hill accessed via a somewhat strenuous climb up many stairs (not sure how many, but it has to be well past 100 stairs), to see the Autumn colours there and to try to capture a photo of Craig throwing one of the kawarake disks out into the valley. Try, I said, because as you can see, I managed to capture Craig after he had released the kawarake and it had flown off into the valley. Ah well, there’s always next time.

???

No, definitely gone

One of the restaurants on the climb up to the temple

We walked a lot further along the river than we did last time, through beautiful scenery, and really enjoyed it. Some parts of the trail further along the river requires climbing over bigger rocks, and there was one part where you had to pull yourself up and over a rock using a rope attached to the hillside, but nothing really dangerous, though you definitely need a good pair of walking shoes. Some parts of the trail were a little soggier than last time, thanks to some overnight rain, but we managed to get through without getting our shoes too wet (or slipping).

The trail took us out towards the town of Kameoka, and, as a result, we ended up walking along the Hozugawa, the river we have traversed a few times in a boat. I didn’t make the connection, after we had passed through a tunnel, that the river we were walking along was the Hozugawa until I started hearing a familiar noise – the noise of the oar moving through the rope as the oarsman rowed. Sure enough, below us we saw the bow of one of the boats (the road we were on was a long way above the river level.

The tunnel, for cars and hikers…

I wasn’t sure if anyone on the boat could see us through the trees, but when I waved we had a number wave back, including the guys rowing and steering the boat. We saw a few more boats after that, as we walked along the road, waving and saying hello (ok, that was me…). The road we were on wound on, and once we had eaten our packed lunch, we decided not to continue on to Kameoka, but to go to the train station which would take us back to Kyoto station. Interestingly, it was the first station I have ever been to that was located on a bridge, between the tunnels through the hills.

The view from the station bridge – yes, there is a boat down there!

There were a lot more people traversing the trail this time, mainly because of the Autumn factor, but also The Virus numbers were way down, so people just wanted to get out. Much safer to go outdoors and get some exercise than sit inside somewhere surrounded in close proximity by potential health threats. Interestingly, there were a few hiking groups we passed, and a number of runners – yes, they were running the trail. Walking, hiking and running are definitely favoured pastimes here, for all ages.

During this period we took a few other walks, including a walk into town to buy some provisions, and we went for a walk to Fushimi Inari via the Kyoto trail with another acquaintance of ours who lives nearby. We had invited him over to dinner late in November to discuss the possibility of him trialling his idea for a restaurant, serving tapas (he is Spanish), using our venue for a few pop-up nights. He enjoys walking too, so we suggested walking to Mt Inari via the forest road, which he hadn’t tried before.

The walk into town

To Fushimi Inari and then Vermillion for a matcha latte (yum)

It was a lovely, sunny day again, and we would have gone to the top, but I had hurt my back (not sure how) and it involved a pinched nerve, so I decided climbing too many stairs may not be overly comfortable. Thankfully my back is nearly back to ‘normal’ and I can sit fairly comfortably again. Craig, on the other hand, appears to have damaged his hamstring and is struggling a bit. Must be the time of the year – our neighbour, Rachel, has also hurt her back!

There are a few more things to mention in this post, the first being ‘ii fufu no hi’, which essentially means good couple day in Japanese, occurring on 22 November. The name comes from a play on words for the pronunciation of the numbers 1-1-2-2 (the dates are ordered differently here, with the year first, then month, then the day). So, 1 in Japanese is ichi, and 2 is nichi, or futatsu, which then becomes i-i-fu-fu (if you shorten the words). Japanese people love plays on words, especially using numbers. In fact I actually did this to create Miro’s name, which is a play on ‘3 colours’ – 3 is san or mitsu and colour is iro, hence Miro (mi-iro squashed together). It was just pure chance that it is also the name of one of my favourite artists.

The next thing is another mention of one of our neighbours – Mrs Takeuchi. She is a lovely old woman (not sure how old, but I suspect she is in her late 80s, if not her early 90s). Recently we were tidying up our yard for winter and moving a few plants around. Anyway, we were near the front of our house and I was trying to dig into the ground in an area we hadn’t done much with before, ie it was very hard and full of stones, rocks, a brick, etc. Mrs Takeuchi was walking past and saw me struggling with the spade. She came over and said something to the effect that we would be better off with something we could use to break the ground.

As she rushed off Craig took over and had a bit more luck, managing to pull out a brick and a few other items. When she returned, she had two hoe-like tools, both of which were taller than she is (she is considerably shorter than I am). Anyway, she essentially told us to stand back and took to the ground with the three pronged hoe, and she wasn’t holding back!!! Within ten minutes she had done the whole garden bed and then made water channels around the plants we had put in the bed. She is incredibly strong, despite her stooped posture and short stature. Made us feel a little embarrassed – here we are, decades younger than her and we are standing watching her pound the ground with her gardening tools!

These are the kind of tools she returned with, but they had longer handles

The last thing I wanted too make mention of is our anniversary, which occurs on 15 December. This year we celebrated 30 years of marriage and 32 years together. Where did all that time go? We have been through so much together, yet it doesn’t seem that long to me. There have been good times, and bad, highs and lows, yet we have had each other through it all. Sometimes it’s me pulling Craig through, sometimes it’s Craig pulling me through. Together. My best friend. Mon amour.

Setting an Addams table – Craig bought me some flowers to add

The special anniversary portrait…

Well, that’s all for now

Cheers and enjoy your Summer Solstice, xmas and new year.

All the statues in this area had new outfits!

I see so many…

What we do with our shadows

There are still some flowers around

A very flat tree

The crack in the sky – and what is happening in the second photo? Looks a bit like some smoky dragon moving through (or maybe wraiths?).

This place looked abandoned. I would love to have it as a holiday house!!!

There must be fireflies in this area, another reason to have a holiday house there!

Autumn decorations

A sight you see often here at this time of year – kaki (persimmon) hanging out to dry

Anniversary flowers up close

Photos of us…proving yet again that I just cannot take a good photo – I always pull faces when I know the camera is on me.

Bye!

Hi everyone – here I am back at the keyboard again, reviewing the month that was. So, Halloween has been and gone and now we are heading towards Winter Solstice and year’s end. Wow, time really is moving along, and still we await a significant easing of The Virus situation. The new case numbers here have dropped very significantly, and are currently as low as they have been since the end of June last year. Fingers crossed that it stays that way, however, preparations for the sixth wave continue. Better to be prepared…

We keep looking to the government to ease foreign entry quarantine restrictions, but there is no definite news on that front yet. So, we continue to bide our time, although we are tentatively making more outside forays. Craig has returned to his bi-weekly gym visits and I will be doing the same come December. Interestingly, I feel a lot stronger in my ballet barre work now than I have for a very long time. The four times a week regime I have adopted at home, and the exercises in the Dutch National Ballet videos, together have been very beneficial. I am wondering if returning to the twice a week visits to the gym and twice a week at home regimen may actually set me back a bit. The positives, however, include mixing with others and doing some centre work.

Turning to the weather; I mentioned last time that there had been a sudden change in the weather just before I wrote Episode 10, with the temperature dropping around 10C, on average. This pattern has continued, with all days being low 20s/high teens – the quilts are well and truly out and the floor heater has been in use every evening since then. I have yet to resort to the puffy jackets, but I suspect that may occur in the next month.

So, what have we been doing in the last month? We have had a few excursions (though one of those was as a result of making a mistake) and we had a visitor who we had met via the Kyoto vegan meet-up group. Isi is a young woman from Scotland who is doing a thesis about veganism in Japan, particularly in the Kansai region, for a course she is studying. We were her first guinea pigs the first people she interviewed on this topic. She is a lovely person and it was interesting to hear what specifically she was examining. I think she was very keen to test the questions she had devised and maybe explore some areas a little further as a result.

Our first excursion was a walk from our home to Fushimi Inari via the forest path. It is a really lovely walk and being cooler we decided to go all the way up the mountain to the peak. Having not been on many walks for a while, it was harder than I remembered it being, but it was good for us to stretch our legs and breath the fresh air of the forest. Once we reached the bottom of the walk, we went to a café for a very nice matcha latte (made with soy milk). Interestingly, there were many new torii along the trail, with some being painted as we walked through. I wonder if the sheer number of new gates is an indicator of how many businesses are now getting close to real difficulties, hoping for divine intervention.

Spirits of the forest?

Yum!

For Halloween we decided to try Vegan Ramen UZU, as it appeared it was open again. You may recall we went there for my birthday only to find it was temporarily closed. This time it was indeed open, and we were the first there waiting for it to open for the dinner seating. As this restaurant was recently listed in the Michelin Guide, we thought we should get there early, just in case others were also keen to try it out. Just before opening time a waiter came to check if we had a booking (which we had done earlier when we first arrived at the door, and one of the staff kindly came out and did this for us).

As we waited he asked us where we were from and we did our usual “from Australia, but we live in Kyoto” routine, which often includes us saying that we run a guest house. At this point, the waiter said he had heard about us, from a friend, and remembered we were called ‘sanbiki neko’ 😊. This is the first time anyone had actually said they had heard of our business and made us feel quite pleased.

The interior of the restaurant was amazing – very dark, almost entirely black, with one huge table which seated 16 diners, eight on each side. The artwork was across the entire wall at the head of the table, and the walls behind the diners on each side were entirely covered by mirrors. Each seat had a glass place setting (stuck to the table) and a single down light above the setting (but not too bright, just focussed on the food). The effect was like being inside the spaceship in 2001: A Space Odyssey, with the reflections in the mirrors appearing to curve up and away from the table. The food was good, but the entrée and the dessert were amazing. It was also the first time I had ever drunk gin and soda – but actually it was quite good. The gin was delicate; locally made.

Me being drawn into the artwork

The final two excursions were to the southern reaches of Kyoto prefecture, the Kizugawa area. Each year, since 2010, the Kizugawa Art event has been held, with many artists and local citizens contributing to the event. The event came about as a result of the creation of Kizugawa city in 2007, which subsumed three towns – Kizu, Kamo and Yamashiro. Apparently locals had felt the history and culture of the respective towns was disappearing, so, as the website says, “a culture that is over a millennium old is passed down as our pride” through this event.

Poems about Kizugawa and the surrounding land appear in the Nara era’s (710-784CE) Manyoshu (an anthology of Japanese poetry), and during this era, the capital was moved to Kunikyo, which later became Kamo, for a few years from 740-744CE. The event’s purpose is to “recognize anew this city that is modern, yet ancient, and beautiful at once” through the power of art.

We saw snippets of the event on tv and decided to go, so I went to the event website to find out exactly where it was. The problem was that the map and instructions were loaded onto the site as a picture, so I couldn’t translate it using Google (as I usually do). I printed the map and took that with us. Unfortunately, what I didn’t realise was that the event wasn’t near the Kizu train station, which is what the map appeared to show (I should have known better, we have been mislead by maps here before, with even locals not knowing how to read them).

As a result we spent a few hours walking around completely the wrong area, having crossed the wrong bridge over the Kizu river. It was a lovely sunny day and a very pleasant walk, however, we ended up walking in a huge circle (around 6kms) trying to work out where the installations were. I eventually gave up and asked some locals in an auto repair business, and luckily one of them knew about the event (!!!) and said we were a long (long) way from where we should be.

Two works of art, but not what we were looking for!

Not to be beaten, we decided to go back and try again the following Saturday, also a nice day (thankfully). This time we caught another train to the Kamo station from Kizu station, found the shuttlebus and made our way to the starting point. It was a very long walk making our way around the installations (well, we missed a few, but saw most of the 20 installation sites). We’re not sure how far it was, but our best guess is somewhere between 8-10 kms. Some were in open spaces, some at specific homes and some at shrines. It was very interesting seeing the different works and a lot of fun. The Kamo area was really very nice, with many old homes, and a lot of rice and vegetable fields and tea plantations. I’m very glad we went back to try again.

Harvested rice

Finally, a quick Close Encounters of the Animal Kind entry to note the man with a meerkat on a lead we saw on the way to shopping one day (I kid you not – we both did a double take), and my attempts to capture a good photo of a Hummingbird Moth, which was moving around the lantana we have in the backyard (which I keep because it draws many different flying insects into our yard). I had the ‘big’ camera set to rapid fire shooting, and managed to get around 20 shots of the moth, with two being, well, ok. It moved so fast, that I spent a lot of time just trying to keep up with its movements.

Cheers for now!

L: Another perspective, R: Barrel of Monkeys

I call it ‘Wind’

“If you touch me one more time…”

Dr Seuss lives here

Interesting additions to home entries

Old kitchen cooker

Ahhh, Halloween

? Had some pieces left over?

The fire brigade does some exercises – I think…

I just have to take them now…

These lovely late 60s early 70s side tables sitting outside on a balcony gradually rotting…

Lovely entries

Some very old cycads

Autumn colour cometh

Hard to run while not tripping on the cross bars and not touching the uprights!!!

Good boy…

Hello, and welcome back! October!!! A big month, mainly because it is Halloween month, my favourite spooky time of the year. I love putting up the decorations – witches, bats, ghouls, vampires, skeletons, etc – and it is so much the better here, as they embrace the season with enthusiasm (ok, mainly for retail purposes, but I take what I can get 😊).

Zowie as decoration

Now to the weather. I have to say that it really has been glorious since my last post, with most days being high 20s/low 30s, sometimes sunny, sometimes not and not too much rain. That is, until three days ago, when it suddenly became cool; literally overnight. One night we were still sleeping under a sheet, with the fan on low, the next night it was time for a quilt. It seems that a big mass of cold air has moved down from Siberia-way and cooled things down across most of the country – they have even had sub-zero overnight temperatures up north over the last three nights.

Is this a harbinger of things to come this winter? We have been told that the ‘weather people’ (whoever they are) are expecting it to be a cold winter. Colder than last winter? Will Godzilla go out skating again? We are well prepared personally, so we’ll just have to make sure we prepare the garden better by moving the plants in pots under cover and anything else we can do to make sure it is as best prepared as possible.

The other big question is, of course, what next for The Virus? Things move slowly here, on the whole, although the vaccination process has been very good after a slow start. It also seems the people have finally taken on board the danger the Delta Variant poses, with the infection numbers very suddenly dropping. Researchers indicate that it has largely been due to the unvaccinated being a lot more careful.

The state of emergency was lifted at the end of September, and so far the numbers have remained down. I have to say, I was a little nervous that we may have a repeat of last time, especially when the late news on 1 October had two items re The Virus – the first talking to bar owners and restaurateurs who were very keen to start selling alcohol again and stay open later. They were saying that at first the patrons were a little wary coming back, but once they had a few drinks in them they loosened up, and this made the owners and staff happy…

The other item was about the pandemic experts and medicos making preparations for the sixth wave!!!! Already! Ok, so good to be prepared, but I really hope it proves to be unnecessary. Let’s hope the cooler weather doesn’t bring on a surge, too. I am being hopeful that we will indeed have guests staying with us again next year. In fact, we took a booking for three people in April recently! Some Australians who have decided to be optimistic and get in early. It cheered us up – a lot.

We have had two at home dinners with friends since we last spoke; one with our Israeli friends and a pizza night with our friend from down the road, a small birthday repast. For our Israeli friends we made an Afghan meal and played Carcassonne, since they had indicated they would like to play a board game with us (we do have a largish collection of games). Craig also made one of the recipes he has learnt through the patisserie course he is doing, which was very (very) nice. A fun night.

Craig’s pistachio cream with praline topping tarts. Yum. (Zowie as photo-bombing decoration)

This being October, it was time for my annual birthday excursion. This year I decided it was finally time to make the long (and somewhat expensive) journey to the Tsujikawayama Park – land of the youkai. Yes it is a mouthful; Tsujikawa being the local river, yama meaning mountain and youkai being supernatural entities and spirits in Japanese folklore. Youkai are not literally demons in the sense of the word as we understand it, but are instead spirits and entities whose behaviour can range from malevolent or mischievous to friendly, fortuitous or even helpful to humans. What better way to celebrate my birthday and Halloween all at once?

A selection of the many, many youkai

The drive takes about three hours if you don’t take the toll roads, hence the somewhat expensive part as it takes just over half the time to get there via the tolls, clearly the better option. It took about 1 hour and 40 minutes to get there (a bit longer on the way back as one side of one of the expressways was having road works done). The park itself is free to enter and is located in a town called Fukusaki. It was created to celebrate the birthplace of Yanagita Kunio (1875–1962), a famous Japanese scholar and folklorist. In his study of regional lore, Yanagita revealed a particular interest in tales involving youkai, hence the park has various youkai statues and two mechanical youkai attractions. His childhood home, which is now owned by the city of Fukusaki, is also part of the park.

Apparently Yanagita called his home the smallest house in Japan

The statues are really amazing in detail. Along with all the statues, every fifteen minutes a kappa (water sprite or river monster) rises out of the pond, and a few minutes later a winged tengu flies out of a nearby small tower, upside down (don’t know why). It is a lot of fun and children seem to like it too, despite them being ‘monsters’. On the other hand, a small dog that accompanied a woman there did not like any of the monsters, and barked at all of them as it came to them. Unsurprisingly, we were the only non-Japanese people there, and, interestingly, a lot of the Japanese people that were visiting the park were dressed traditionally.

Apart from the park, there is a bit of a trail around the town, with ‘bench youkai’ placed in front of some of the businesses there. Unfortunately some of the businesses appear to have closed down, and some of the benches had been moved, so we didn’t find all of them in the end, especially as we had limited time since the journey there and back took a while. We did, however, make sure we found the nekomata. The nekomata is a kind of cat youkai which has two tails and can either be of a type that live in the mountains, or domestic cats that have grown old and transformed into youkai. Funnily enough, sometimes we think Miro is a nekomata, with the sounds she makes when playing with Zowie, although she doesn’t have two obvious tails. She did belong to a colony of cats that live here in the foothills, though…

What’s with the head of that horse???

It was a lot of fun taking photos with the youkai, and as we returned to the park to get our car we found a large plant nursery which had a good collection of larger trees and shrubs, something we haven’t found within the confines of Kyoto. We were looking for a replacement for a couple of plants which have suffered from both the cold winter and then the very wet and overcast summer, and we found larger plants than we already had and a lot cheaper than smaller versions here.

We actually went to see the youkai a few days before my birthday, as the weather was pretty good and we had planned to go out to dinner on my birthday and thought it may be difficult to fit all of this in on one day. So, for my birthday I had decided I would like to go to a vegan ramen restaurant which is a bit more upmarket than the places we usually go to, ie more expensive, and it was designed by teamLab. Unfortunately, when we got to the location it was closed. There was no warning on their website, but it coincided with the opening of a new restaurant in Tokyo, so it is likely they were there helping them learn the ropes.

Through the door…the teamLab artwork constantly changes

In the end we walked into the city centre and went to Ain Soph, not quite as ‘upmarket’ but we know the burgers are good and they serve wine there. I suppose we’ll just have to wait until the ramen restaurant re-opens here, maybe around New Year, to give us time to save up some money!

Before I sign off, I thought I’d mention a visit we had from our backdoor neighbours, the people who own the pottery kiln behind us, and includes the lovely stone wall at the back of our yard. In that wall a fig tree has sprouted at some point – how this happened, I don’t know, but it is quite healthy and a reasonable size. This is the tree the monkeys and badgers came here for last year. A group of four of the family arrived at our front door, a youngish couple, their son and grandma – likely great grandma to the boy. It seems that she was very worried about the tree, that it was causing us a burden looking after it, and she wanted to ask us if they could help look after it. We told them, as best we could, that we were perfectly happy looking after the tree, that we loved having it there and it was absolutely no burden to us – though it took some convincing. She is a lovely old woman who has always been very friendly to us. Nice to have good neighbours.

That’s all for now – enjoy Halloween!

Cheers!

Very bright green old library house in Fukusaki

Hhhmmmm

Restaurant near the park

Old building de-constructing…

For you, Steven

The sometimes very confusing expressways

L: When a road becomes a carpark        R: A very large ferris wheel

Many tunnels through the mountains 

My birthday night – the Teremachi; Tanouki already preparing for xmas; me in one of my new masks

My first personal Halloween decoration

Just happened to see movement in the pond before the kappa arose

Huge preying mantis, which flew across the street in front of us

Turns out this is what a Red Helen caterpillar looks like – when it is eating our lemon tree…

Impressive display of pitcher plants

At first I thought it was a UFO…

Bye

Hello one and all, here I am again and it’s already mid-September! Hard to reconcile just how long this dang pandemic has been going on now, with time being much more fluid than I ever remember it being. Staying at home a lot can do this. Hopefully this will change in the near future, with both Craig and I having had our second jab enabling us to return to ‘outside home’ activities soon, such as going to the gym. Craig will be resuming more ‘normal’ activities before me, as I suspended my gym membership until December a while ago because I thought we weren’t going to get the vaccine as soon as we ended up doing. Sometimes things move faster than you expect!

One thing I will be doing, in regards to out of home activities, is to continue wearing a mask and sanitising, to be extra safe and because I have liked the fact that I have had very little in the way of colds and flu since The Virus became part of our lives. I now have a collection of nice masks and am completely used to wearing them – so much so that sometimes I forget I have one on and try to have a drink/put something in my mouth/smell something without moving it out of the way 😊. Thankfully I haven’t had any bad accidents yet. I also have a special Halloween mask on order which I am really looking forward to getting soon.

Hehehe

Weather-wise, while the rain continues, on and off, there has been a fairly significant change temperature-wise. Previously, most days were 35-36C max when it wasn’t raining, but we are now having days in the high 20s to low 30s. Does this mean autumn has arrived early, as nearly every weather pattern has this year? Who knows, but the rain continues, at the moment thanks to a typhoon which came up the China coast towards us. It had been weakening as it approached, then it fell apart and reformed, changing direction in the process, and headed directly towards Kyushu and Honshu. Currently it is south of us and has brought yet more rain, but not as much as they expected.

The other day I did some quick estimating and realised that we have had somewhere between 1.5 and 2 metres of rain here since the rainy season started (early) in May this year. It also occurred to me that in that one week where we had very heavy rain, we actually had about the same amount as Adelaide has in an average year. Pity we can’t find room to fit a rainwater tank here somewhere. All this rain has come at a cost, though, not just in terms of flooding and loss of life, but also in terms of fruit and vegetable crops (and, no doubt, grain crops). With it being overcast on so many of the days since spring, it has impacted growth of the crops and also caused a lot of water damage. Some of our plants have died, but we’re not sure if it is lack of sun, too much water, nutrients being washed out of the soil, or anything else.

Yet again we haven’t been out much, but we do need to get some exercise and a change of scenery occasionally, so I try to think of places we haven’t been to and which are relatively safe, though most excursions do necessitate some public transport usage, where you have to be much more aware of your surroundings, including the people. Ventilation is key, so I try to find seating near an open window or air vent, and maintain appropriate distancing. I also never touch anything with my hands…shades of Howard Hughes?

Our first excursion during this period took us to a sake brewery, which we discovered was fairly close to us. We had bought a small bottle for a birthday celebration (yes you, Steven!) because it was made in Kyoto and had a special Gion Matsuri label, which looked suitably festive. It actually was very nice, so hence worth a visit to the brewery. Unfortunately, with the ‘state of emergency’ restrictions, which consist almost entirely of restricting public alcohol imbibement, it meant we couldn’t taste anything, which was disappointing (I suppose we should have anticipated this, but a tasting is vastly different to social drinking, or should be). Anyway, we decided to buy another bottle in their range, which also has a very nice label, as it happens.

Boots made of reeds or grass

Sake paraphernalia

How many cedar balls do you need?

After this slight disappointment, we went to Vegan Farm, a green grocer and other vegan foods shop, to buy a bento lunch which we ate next to the nearby canal. While we waited for them to cook our lunch (they had run out of cooked rice), we introduced ourselves to the owner, who was there that day. He was very excited that we had a vegan business and decided to video us talking about our business, to upload to Instagram. We didn’t quite understand exactly what he wanted at first, so it was a little stilted, but Craig ended up getting the gist before I did, so he said a few things.

Once we had eaten our lunch, we decided to walk into town to visit a supermarket there which has a few things that we wanted, and we can’t get elsewhere now (one of our favourite supermarkets recently closed down, so we are having to find these items elsewhere). A reasonable walk in humidity, but good for us none-the-less, particularly in terms of vitamin D, which is much reduced being indoors so much.

For our other excursion, I decided to take the plunge and visit Osaka. This came about for two reasons, Craig needed some baking equipment as he is currently doing a vegan patisserie course (an online course) which necessitates these items, and we had two tickets to an art gallery in the Umeda Sky Building in Osaka, which had to be used within 6 months, and they were due to expire mid-October. These tickets were given to us by the lovely couple I have previously mentioned who sent us a Thai cookbook as a gift.

The building is known as the Sky Bridge due to it’s unusual design. It is the 19^th tallest building in Osaka (there are many tall buildings there), and has a circular platform on top, giving 365 degree views of the city. It consists of two 40-storey towers that connect at their two uppermost stories, with bridges and two escalators crossing the wide space in the centre. To get to the top you have to take an escalator to the 3^rd floor, then a lift up to the 35^th floor. Most of the ride up in the glass lift (which is a very fast, ear-popping experience), is via a glass encased open metal structure, so you can watch the ground fall away 😊. Once on the 35^th floor you exit the lift and walk around to an escalator which takes you up to the 39^th floor, also quite a quick journey and inside a glass encased open metal structure.

The close-up shows the outside lift shaft and the two escalators across the gap

No light at the end of this tunnel!

To get to the roof observatory area it costs ¥1,000 per person, which we decided was a little too much for our budget for the day. So we went into the gift shop, looked around and then made the fast return journey down. There were only three other people that we encountered who were going up, so it was very quiet. After that, we went into the other tower and up to the 27^th floor to visit the Koji Kinutani Gallery, Koji Kinutani (1943-) being the artist whose work is exhibited there.

How does this artist have a gallery all of his own? Well, he has won many prizes for his works and he was designated a ‘Person of Cultural Merit’ by the Japanese government in 2014, and Sekisui House is the gallery sponsor. According to his bio, “He mastered fresco technique at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice. In 1974, Kinutani became the youngest winner of the Yasui Prize, a touchstone for young Japanese painters. Since then, his works have been awarded other important prizes, such as the Nihon Geijutsu Taishō (Grand Prize for Japanese Fine Arts), Mainichi Art Award, and an award from the Japan Art Academy. He also designed the official poster of the Nagano Winter Olympics in 1998 and installed public art on the walls of Shibuya Station in 2008.”

We had no idea what to expect, but I am incredibly glad we were given these tickets. His works are very big and bright and really amazing. I have to say I kept wondering if he had been taking psychedelic drugs at some point, because his works really do look a bit like that. Before we went in to view his paintings and sculptures, we were given 3-D glasses and told to wait in a smallish curved wall room until the attendant let us into the small theatrette, which was the other half of the full spherical space. Inside there was a huge curved screen, measuring 3m x 14m wide. Standing waiting for our cue, I was trying to work out what we were going to see…

  This sculpture was about 2m in height

The bottom two photos are the only ones we could take in the gallery, all the others are lifted from the internet

Well, I can honestly say it was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had – I just wanted to stay in there after it finished and watch it again (and again,…). Basically it was an animation of a number of his paintings, which you literally flew into and around in. Phenomenal. It felt like you were immersed in the painting, moving in all directions, and there were things coming towards you, including some interesting flying things and at least twice a huge Japanese-style dragon came directly at you, mouth open! I can’t understate how much I loved it. If we get a chance, I really want to go back again just to sit through it (Float through it? Fly through it?). The best thing was that we were the only people there, so we were able to wander around at our own pace, uninterrupted.

How it looks without the glasses

Again lifted from the internet, and the bottom shows on of the dragons, which felt like it was coming towards us

After all that, I was definitely ready for some lunch, so we went to a vegan restaurant in the direction of the Dotonbori. The food was good, and certainly filling. I had a vegan version of an Hawaiian Loco Moco (seemed fitting), which I had never heard of before but was really tasty, and Craig had a burger, which he said was very good too.

Filled to the brim, we set off for the Dotonbori and, in particular, the Sennichimae Doguyasuji Shopping Street which is lined with shops selling all sorts of kitchen, dining and drinking items, mainly targeted at restaurants, cafes and bars. If you love kitchenalia, you will love this place. We spent quite a while wandering the shops and found everything we wanted, so went away carrying our desired goodies (ok, soup bowls, pastry baking rounds and a silicon baking sheet), contented. Truth is, there was so much more I would have liked, if money wasn’t a consideration. Fabulous day, if a little tiring – we did quite a bit of walking.

The last two also from the internet

That’s all for now

Cheers!

Fly in/fly out guests

My toes…

There were gardens around the Sky Bldg, including some crops, with scarecrows!!

In an underpass the walls were all decorated – this was my favourite section

Well, funny you should ask…

(on the window, it said “ESSENTIALS” and underneath “Fear of God”!?)

Building decorations

What can I say? Weird? WTF? Who…? (…are they? …designed this?) Why?

Interesting bamboo decorations

Us waiting in the Emperor’s Palace grounds for Craig’s vaccine timeslot

Couldn’t resist another pig photo at this shrine

Me looking into the abyss

Most summer flowers are now gone

Hi all, and my apologies for being so late. We have had a few things on our plate recently and so I haven’t had enough time to sit down, edit the photos, gather my thoughts, write the text, then upload the post. This whole process usually takes at least a whole day, depending on the speed of our Wi-Fi connection.

Moving onto the narrative, firstly, it turns out that I was sadly rather too accurate in my predictions about the fifth wave here, with the daily numbers of The Virus sky rocketing around the country – Tokyo numbers are now above 5,000 per day (except for Sunday numbers, which are slightly lower), Osaka numbers are now above 2,000 per day, and the Kyoto numbers are between 400 – 500 per day, and most days are also ‘record highs’. This is thanks to the delta variant and poor management, and had very little to do with the Olympics being here, except maybe people having parties to watch the events.

Thankfully, the vaccine rollout is now back on track, with bookings re-commencing in Kyoto from 2 August. Both Craig and I have, as of Saturday, had our first jab, and we have appointments for the second dose in three weeks. This is very much a relief for us and, while I have a sore upper arm from the injection, it all went very smoothly. We both went to mass vaccination centres (in different places, as we just grabbed the earliest appointments we could get), and even though I had to wait for 30 minutes after the injection, having had a bad reaction to a flu vaccination once many years ago (this was my first vaccination since then), I was out within an hour.

In terms of the weather, most of this period has been hot, with the occasional rainy day – up until 11 August, that is. Since the 11^th, we have had a stationary cold/warm front sitting over most of Honshu. Yes, it has remained in position for over a week, and while there has been dragging rain across from China. Hence, we have had a lot of heavy rain, with one area having around 1.5metres of rain in a week! In the same time, Kyoto city had around 500ml, and I think we must have had more than that in our area, because one of the Japanese women we know sent a message to us last Sunday (15/8) asking us if we were ok.

The day before (Saturday 14/8) it was raining very heavily here, and we had five Level 4 emergency warnings during the day (Level 5 means evacuate, now), the first three of which consisted of the emergency bell sounds and a written warning (in Japanese, but we know basically what they mean), then the last two had the added fun of a voice telling us the whole warning. These warnings are sent to everyone who owns a smartphone registered in Japan, and somehow the warnings come out at full volume, even if your phone is turned down. You can hear the neighbours receiving them, if you open a window.

As is usual here, the warnings for our area were all about possible landslides and the evacuation centre for our area is fairly close to our home, so we haven’t been there as yet. If we lived closer to the hillside, this would be a different story. The heaviest rain recorded for Kyoto city was 42.5ml in one hour. I have to assume it was heavier where we are (which is in the foothills). On the Saturday the city had 127.5ml in the 24hr period. Interestingly, after all the heavy rain, we had two smallish earthquakes on Monday morning (one at 5am, which woke me up, and the next at 8am, both swayers and basically the same strength), which could’ve caused problems if they had been a bit stronger, given how much water was still in the soil.

How the river normally looks (top) and after some heavy rain – and this was on the Monday

The weekend before all the rain set in, we met up with two of our friends and some of their friends (seven of us in all), to celebrate Lilia’s birthday. She chose to meet up on the banks of the Kamo river, as she did last year, but with fewer people due to The Virus. It wasn’t quite as hot and humid as last year but there was lightning again, which I enjoyed (even without the thunder). It was again a united nations group, with representatives from Israel (the birthday girl and husband), Iran, Jamaica, Japan and Australia. We had fun and ate a lot of wonderful food (and also drank a reasonable amount of wine 😊).

The cloud which gave us the lightning display and a close visitor

Apart from our usual weekly supermarket trip, and a visit to Costco, which we visit at least once every two months, we have also had one major outing to visit a house with a large garden and museum, and we recently helped another foreign friend here move all her rescue cats to a new home. Tamarah is an American who lives with her partner here and lectures in ethics (mainly animal ethics to Veterinary students) at one of the universities in Osaka. Aside from this, she has taken it upon herself to help the street-cat population, mainly the colonies along the Kamo river nearby, by undertaking the ‘trap, neuter, release’ program.

If necessary, she keeps some of them, such as kittens in need and those cats who are unwell. She had been looking to find a new place to keep them, as she was only renting space up until now (a warehouse which has no air-conditioning), and finally found an old home in the suburb on the other side of the mountain range behind us which she could afford and then had it renovated to make it into an amazing cat sanctuary. We offered to help with the move, since we don’t have much in the way of cash to help support her, but we do have time since we have no guests.

So, we spent two days (during the time it was raining, but before it got really heavy), moving around twenty six cats and all the associated accoutrements, such as cages, cat trays, bowls, blankets, marble slabs (used for the cats to sleep on, to help keep them cooler), towels, toys, scratching posts, etc. We will be moving more cats up until the end of September, since part of the reason for this move is that she is going to try to trap all the remaining cats in the Kamo colonies so that she doesn’t have to go out every day to feed them, which she does late at night so as to avoid the mostly old men cat haters who have tried to hurt her, and the cats, many times.

As it happens, the rain was good cover to move the cats in, away from prying neighbours eyes…

For our major outing we decided to visit the old residence of a famous artist, who we found out about via Instagram. His name is Hashimoto Kansetsu (1883 – 1945), and he was the son of an artist, born in Kobe but mainly lived in Kyoto. The residence is named Hakusansonso (白沙村荘), but I couldn’t find out why he named it that. He believed that painting and creating gardens were the same, and in fact he designed the house and garden, and all the other buildings within his 1 hectare property. He also designed a gallery to display both his works and his collections, however, WWII put an end to that, and in the end the gallery wasn’t constructed until 2014.

Some of Kansetsu’s paintings

The garden is beautiful, with many different ‘zones’ connected by paths and gateways, and there are many old stone items he collected spread around the spaces. We had no idea exactly what to expect, except we knew it had been a home, but it definitely exceeded our expectations. We were lucky enough to be there in time to see the lotus pond in flower, too 😊. Unfortunately the gallery didn’t have as many of his works as I had hoped for, but it was still lovely to walk around. We were the only people viewing the garden and the gallery, which also made it seem more intimate, and the two staff members in the gallery were very attentive and helpful, with one speaking a little English.

Me crossing a bridge pointing out something important!

The Zonkoro – painting studio

Kansetsu and friends used to sit on this giant slab of stone to drink tea, or sake…

There are a few final things to mention before I finish up for this post:–

Apart from being high summer (and usually walking puddle time), July is also Gion Matsuri month, however, as with last year, the festival and parades were scaled back due to The Virus. In fact, the only evidence of the matsuri was the construction of a few of the smaller floats in a back street near the centre of the city, where they also had some of the usual matsuri items for sale. Here’s hoping that the full matsuri will go ahead next year!

While on our way to the vaccine centre that Craig had his shot at, we passed a shrine which was dedicated to wild boars. As I am a boar (I’m sure you all know that…), I decided to visit the shrine on our way back from the centre. Known as Goō Jinja, it was built to enshrine Wake no Kiyomaro (733–799), who was a trusted advisor to Emperor Kanmu and was committed to trying to keep politics and Buddhism separate. He was eventually sent into exile by a Buddhist monk who wanted to be the next emperor, through his influence with the Empress, but who Wake no Kiyomaro said couldn’t be an emperor. The monk had the sinews of Kiyomaro’s legs cut, and only the protection of a powerful clan saved him from being killed by the monk instead of his going into exile.

The next year a new Emperor came to the throne and sent the monk into exile and recalled Kiyomaro from exile, making him a governor. Interestingly, he was the person who convinced the emperor to make Heian-kyo the site of the new capital, now known as Kyoto. As to why the shrine is dedicated to boars, it is said that Kiyomaro was saved and protected by 300 wild boars until the end of his journey into exile. It’s an amazing shrine, with a huge collection of boars of all shapes and sizes, carved from wood, cast in metal and made of ceramic.

The last item for mention is a ‘Close Encounter of the Animal Kind’ – only one animal this time, though. I was mid-way through my ballet at home class, facing towards the backyard at my couch-barre, when I saw a Japanese weasel run across the open area behind the fence – or should I say bound. Unfortunately it was gone before I could reach a camera, but it was very beautiful, covered in bright orange brown fur.

That’s all for now – lets hope I have better news on The Virus front next time. At least both Craig and I will be fully vaccinated by then (well, unless we have to get a booster, but that is still being debated).

Cheers!

Our first comment when we saw this, rare to see a sheep in Japan…

More photos from Hakusasonso

It’s all about marketing!

Interesting design

 Halloween!!!!

Trying to take a selfie with friend, but there’s little room and then your friend hits you on the head…

Visited Toji temple the other day and found the lotus still in flower, and it appears Ghidorah may have found a new place to nest!!!

River turkey enjoying the extra water

Bee enjoying a lovely flower

What???

Ahhh, lying next to the fan in summer

Hi all, tis me again, bringing you all the latest about our lives here in Kyoto and other titbits. Firstly, I am officially changing my name to Nostradamus Addams for the purposes of this blog, since my prediction about The Virus in my last post has proven to be fully accurate – sadly. Yes, it seems we are heading into the fifth wave, and we are now officially in the fourth state of emergency. The infection numbers in Tokyo have risen back over 1,000 for the last two days, while here in Kyoto they are on the rise (although we have never had huge numbers here). Just in time for the Olympics.

The good news for Craig and I is that we received our vaccine coupons a few weeks ago (in separate letters), but the bad news is that just after I received mine, and before Craig received his, the prefectural government notified all doctors and others administering the vaccines that they had basically run out of the vaccine and it was unlikely they’d have any more before September! This is apparently the case right around the country, although the small, rural prefectures actually have some left since they received enough to vaccinate all the above 18s initially, and there have been many who haven’t wanted to be vaccinated. Apparently they have been vaccinating the under 18s with the surplus…

Moving on to the weather, the story is wet, wet, wet. There have been few days since the last post that there hasn’t been any rain. Up until yesterday, we had over three weeks where it rained every day. Some days it only rained briefly, while on other days it rained all day. While there was no rain yesterday, it rained again early this morning. We have also had a run of thunderstorms, which, of course, I am loving. Not so poor Miro, who has turned out to be our very own thunderstorm early warning system, now named Miro Ninja Cat because she will suddenly appear from wherever she is running low and fast, up against the wall, to her thunderstorm hiding spot, which is in my clothes cupboard. When she reappears we know it is over.

Another wet day

The clouds of summer

It has been raining a lot right across Japan, with some local flooding and landslides in various places, which seems to happen here every year. Some of the rainfall figures are truly astounding, with one area experiencing 100ml of rain in a one hour period! You just wouldn’t have been able to even walk in that kind of rain. Another place had double the rainfall they normally experience in the whole of the month within the first twelve days of July. We have been avoiding going out when it is raining heavily here.

Luckily we were able to have a couple of outside excursions without getting wet (rain, not sweat, because it has been very humid when it isn’t actually raining and so you do end up damp anyway), though on one occasion we had to go out so that I could suspend my gym membership (finally) and it did rain and we got wet. One thing I have been waiting for, which really lets you know it is summer here, is the cicadas – halfway through summer and no ‘sound of summer’. Well they finally started on the day we went to Uji (see below)! Thank goodness.

One of the outings was to an art exhibition where a neighbour had some works showing. The exhibition had been delayed due to The Virus, but they decided to go ahead during June, and she had invited us to go, so we really wanted to get there. Since we were going to have to walk there (it was around a half hour walk from home, and there is no public transport in the direction of the gallery and very limited parking in the area (as there is anywhere near the city)), we were waiting for a day when it wasn’t raining, the exhibition was open and we had enough time to be able to spend most of a day going out.

We ended up going on the last day, as it turned out, and we enjoyed it, especially since we hadn’t been to any exhibitions for many months. It was a very interesting mix of works, including painting, photography, pottery, mixed media and some little statues (which I loved). Our neighbour’s works were based around printed photographs.

One of our neighbour’s pieces

After the exhibition we decided to walk into town to have some lunch, which we thought should be ok since we were still technically in the state of emergency (in fact the last day of the third ‘lockdown’), so it shouldn’t be too crowded, right? How wrong we were. It was unbelievably crowded in the city centre, with many groups of young people out together and also lots of young families. Most of them seemed to be just there with no particular purpose other than just being in town.

For our other outing I was looking for lotus flowers, since they were just coming into bloom, and I wanted to find somewhere we hadn’t been before. Takako suggested a temple in Uji might be good (we met with her to help with the suspension of my gym membership), and we thought that maybe going somewhere outside of Kyoto city might be good. I did some research about the temple she mentioned and found there was another temple fairly close to that one which was known as the flower temple for its surrounding garden which is made up of many different plants, including lotus.

The latter temple is known as Mimurotoji and was established by Emperor Kōnin in 770CE. Although it was originally established as a palace, it was subsequently converted into the temple (during his time as emperor). As with many temples (and shrines and castles, etc) it has been rebuilt, in this case three times, with the current main structures being built in the early 1800s. Interestingly, the second time it was destroyed was at the hand of Nobunaga. The temple properties and treasures were confiscated until Toyotomi Hideyoshi ascended to power after the death of Nobunaga and restored the temple.

I have to say that the given title of ‘flower temple’ is well justified – it is a truly beautiful place to be and I can imagine that it would be equally stunning when the hydrangeas or azaleas or cherry blossoms or…are in the ascendant. For those who watched Monty Don, this is a classic example of a stroll garden with borrowed greenery from the surrounding hills, which were not part of the temple. We were extra lucky to be there on the day we went because, while it was fairly hot and humid, the giant clouds of summer were around and there was rolling thunder for the entire time we were there. Bliss.

A long entrance

Borrowed scenery in background

Also, some fish!

The other temple we visited was Manpukuji, a much younger temple having been founded in 1661 by the Chinese monk Yinyuan Longqi (known as Ingen in Japan) and his disciple Muyan. Ingen Zenji (Zen master) had been repeatedly invited to visit Japan and finally did in 1655, with many Buddhist monks and others attending his arrival. Having received the devotion of Emperor Go-Mizunoo and Shogun Tokugawa Ietsuna, Ingen Zenji was offered a piece of land in Uji. Instead of returning to China he decided to found Manpukuji and ended up making Japan his permanent home.

The temple structures were built in the traditional Ming Dynasty Chinese architectural style, and the layout of the buildings also follows the Ming Dynasty architectural style, apparently representing an image of a dragon. The main buildings of the temple were constructed from teak, which is also very unusual here and, unlike so many others, the buildings are still the original structures from 1661. It has many other interesting features, including a gyoban, which is a large wooden fish that is, in fact, a wooden percussion instrument which is used by monks and others in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition mainly during rituals involving the recitation of sutras, mantras, or other Buddhist texts.

No flowers…

It was a very interesting place to visit, but it did not have the expected lotus flowers (lucky we went to the other temple!) – the plants were there, but they weren’t in flower. Curiously, we only saw one other person actually walking around in the huge area of the temple while we were there, a monk. It felt like something had happened and we were the only people left, and in this very peaceful place. Again, there was rumbling thunder the whole time we were there. We had planned to have lunch at the temple restaurant which serves shōjin ryōri (Buddhist cuisine which is vegetarian or vegan), but it turned out that you had to have a reservation to eat there, so we went home hungry. Still, all in all a lovely and rather dramatic outing (with thunder sound effects). When we got home we found it had been raining quite heavily in Kyoto – luckily not in Uji.

Well, that’s it for this episode, and I am not going to make any predictions about what happens in the nearish future!!!

Cheers

Vale Maeve

Road art in Uji – apparently the city of trees (yes, that’s my hands in the photo – it was on the road and cars were coming…)

Yes, a human head on a snake – a local deity

It’s all about the packaging

The only flowers at Manpukuji

A little sake tasting keg building…I think

The dragonflies are out and about

Just stunning

My one and only gerbera

Carpenter bee visiting hosta

Moss flowers soon!

Pan in his natural environment

The Kyoto Art High School, Uji

What is that rabbit doing?

More rabbits

Who is that masked woman?

On the train to Uji

…and so, despite the issues still existing re The Virus, with the delta variant being the major infectant being detected everywhere here now, the restrictions are being lifted for most areas (barring Okinawa) by the end of this weekend. The proviso is that although restaurants and bars will be allowed to serve alcohol (and I use the word ‘allowed’ loosely, since they weren’t banned from serving before, just asked not to), the only restriction is that they stop serving alcohol from 7pm and then shut by 8pm – please.

This is happening a month before the games are due to start (so enough time for the numbers to build up again), and just as the indicators are looking suspiciously like they did before the numbers started increasing significantly last time. On top of these indicators, we have the delta variant which spreads much more easily, is affecting younger people more and can come on very fast. Do I sound frustrated?

In terms of the vaccinations, things are moving a little faster now, in part because the government wants it to and in part because a significant number of the over 65s are declining to have the vaccine. Apparently this stems from some bad experiences with vaccines in the past in Japan, where there have been some bad reactions, including deaths, despite the rest of the world not having any problems. So far there have been a significant number of anaphylactic reactions to the Pfizer vaccine and a lot of bad reactions to the Moderna vaccine here.

As a result, they are now opening the mass vaccination centres up to all people from 18 yrs and up, so, theoretically, we could make an appointment and have out first shot. The slight problem, however, is that you have to have received a coupon that has a personal number on it which you have to use when you book, and we have not yet received one of these coupons. The coupons are being posted out to everyone by the respective prefectural governments and it seems the national government may not have informed the prefectures that they were going to open up the vaccinations so soon. As far as we can work out, the Kyoto government has only sent out the coupons to the 65+ year old citizens so far. We wait in hope.

Turning now to the weather; I mentioned the rainy season had started earlier than usual in my last post, and we have had some good rain, with the heaviest rain here in Kyoto being a bit over 120ml in one day, which included 17ml in one hour. Yes, that was pretty heavy, but there were areas which had much heavier rain. Luckily, there doesn’t seem to have been any major flooding anywhere – fingers crossed it stays that way.

We have moved into warmer weather now, with most days 30C and over, and unless it is overcast with rain approaching, it hasn’t been very humid. We have had a few thunderstorms, but nothing to write home about (haha). Yes, I am a little disappointed about that. So it has been good growing weather and our garden is in full swing now. We have had the irises bloom (as you know, my favourite flower) and the hydrangeas are still in flower -we’re talking around three weeks since they first opened.

Above: Taken early June

Below: Taken yesterday

Some of the flower heads are the size of a dinner plate!

Very pink – needs more acid…

One hosta to rule them all

Regarding the insect life of spring/summer, we have seen a few Red Helens, although that was some time ago, and we are seeing other butterflies, moths and bees, but no ‘sound of summer’ cicadas yet. In fact, we recently had a community of Carpenter Bees move into our backyard – I kid you not, a significant Close Encounter of the Animal Kind. They are called Carpenter bees because they burrow into bamboo and dead wood to make their homes and lay their eggs, and so it has been here, with our small bamboo fence now sporting quite a few circular holes of a bit less than 1cm diameter, just big enough for them to go in and out. They are about 2cm in length.

Carpenter Bees do not live in hives, rather they live alone, however, they do sometimes live in little neighbourhoods, which is what happened in our backyard. There were four of them that I saw, all busily going to and fro and making a lot of noise – they are very loud. I checked on them using the electronic oracle, and from what I could tell, the bees we had here (they seem to have gone now) are not the native Japanese Carpenter Bees, but are interlopers from Taiwan. They probably arrived in Japan in a bamboo shipment and have now settled in quite happily. The only thing I couldn’t find out is whether they are affecting the native species in any way. Apparently lay six eggs in their nest.

During this period, yet again, we have not been doing very much. This is mainly due to my reticence to put us in peril of catching the delta variant. We go shopping once a week, and occasionally go for a walk, though with the wet weather we have been having, there haven’t been many suitable walking days. We ventured into town recently to buy a few things, and while we were there had lunch at a Nepalese restaurant we have been to before (we were the only customers). This was our first meal out in over two months, and was most pleasant. On the way home we dropped by Chishakuin temple, to look at the hydrangea garden, which is always nice at this time of year.

Strange hydrangea?

We only had one major outing during this period, which I decided should be to seek out a new place to look at hydrangeas. Consulting the electronic oracle I found a shrine, Umenomiya Taisha, which apparently also had some irises in their garden. Perfect, I thought, and we had never been there before so even better, but I was proved wrong as the bus pulled up at the stop we had to get off at and we both recognised the area. It was very near a property we had looked at five years earlier, when we were trying to find a location for our guest house.

As we considered the property, we had a look around the close neighbourhood and found a shrine, which is known as being associated with sake brewing, thanks to one of the enshrined deities (at the time, I remember thinking this seemed good…). I also remembered thinking that it wasn’t a particularly captivating shrine. We had no idea that there was a huge garden surrounding the shrine on three sides, as it was fenced off and there were no obvious signs re a garden.

There’s the entrance to the garden, over in the corner…

So it was when we arrived there that day, however, knowing that it did indeed have a garden, we looked a little more closely and found a small, entirely unremarkable entrance (with a gate that looked somewhat like one you would see on a farm, made of old bits of metal and a long spring), with a very faded sign next to it. We also knew you had to pay to get in, so we looked for somewhere to do so, and found a small window on the other side of the central shrine grounds.

Having paid our fee, we returned to the little gate, through which you could see a large pond/small lake, a bridge across the lake and a small tea house to the left. Again, unremarkable and no sign of hydrangeas, although we could see a few irises. After passing through the gate, there was a small bridge across a ditch, which was a bit over a metre wide. In this ditch were literally hundreds of irises, although not many of them were in flower, but it looked nice.

After we crossed the bridge, we could see that the garden was larger than we thought, and there were large Koi (carp) in the lake, which was edged with some more irises. As we moved further around the lake, you could see there was a lot more to this garden and the further we went, the more irises we could see. At a certain point, about a third of the way along the edge of the lake, there was a “Wow” moment, as you could see that there were many hundreds of iris plants along the edge of the lake and on the ‘island’ in the middle of the lake, where the tea house was.

We kept going, drinking in the stunning beauty of the irises, until at a certain point, we could see that beyond the zigzag bridge, the lake was completely covered with lotus leaves and some flowers. “Wow”. I was completely mesmerised by all this, strolling, looking and taking many, many photos, when I noticed a noise, a loudish screeching noise (a bit like a loud cockatoo). So, anyway, we kept strolling, enjoying, soaking it all in when, again, we hear the noise – “what is that noise?”. Hhhmmm. So, we strolled (loud screeching noise), strolled (loud screeching noise, getting sort of used to it); strolled (loud zombie like noise) “what the hell was that?”; crossed a small bridge onto the ‘island’ (loud noise that sounded like a large animal being drowned) “what the f*#@ was that?”.

At this point, despite what was around us, the noises had really started to pique our curiosity. After the second time we heard the drowning sound, we decided we had to find out what it was. As we were near the end of the path around the lake and on the ‘island’ we continued on wondering where the hydrangeas were and what those noises were (you couldn’t see much outside of the path) – curiouser and curiouser. At the end of the path it opened up into a large space edged by hydrangeas (there they are!), with a large square pavilion in the centre and a stand of very large trees to the left – and it was the stand of trees from whence the noise was emanating.

Looking up into the trees we could see huge nests of sticks, in which Great Egrets were nesting – both white and grey varieties it seemed. They were making those three quite distinct noises, the screech, the zombie noise and the drowning noise. We could only guess at what the latter was, but we decided it was likely a parent feeding a chick. Having solved that (sort of), we tried to get photos of the birds, but our phone cameras just weren’t up to it. So, we continued on into the hydrangea area of the garden.

There’s one…

The number and variety of hydrangeas there was amazing, and they were truly beautiful. The design of the garden was such that it was a strolling garden and also that you couldn’t see overly much beyond where you were, unless you were next to a lake or pond, and in the case of this garden there was one small lake and a pond, both with irises and lotus plants, although the pond had only a small area of lotus surrounded by iris. Next to the pond there was also a wisteria walkway. Past the main hydrangea area, there was a stand of plum trees, and a small bamboo grove.

What a truly amazing garden – wonderful design, beautiful plantings and quite large, although not in the league of Heian Jingu. The birds added an extra air of drama, and it turns out that there are cats which live at the shrine and are cared for by the shrine employees and volunteers. Information about the garden indicates that there are also cherry trees and many azaleas, so the blooming starts in February and keeps on until around mid-summer. A place that is definitely worth re-visiting and is not likely to be overwhelmed with tourists.

Yes, it was quite warm!

Before I sign off, I thought I might mention an interesting coincidence that was recently highlighted to me by a friend who spotted an article in The Guardian about a new book which has been published containing photographs of lost and lonely gloves taken by Nick Cave! It seems Nick and I saw the same thing in these gloves, and at around the same time, with both of us taking our first photos of gloves in January 2018. Interesting.

L: Together but homeless, R: Wait!!!!

L: Lost for weeks, R: Hitchhiking home

Trying to crawl home

Cheers for now!

We’ve seen many types of vending machines, but these are the first vegetable (above) and rice (below) vending machines.

The view across to Arashiyama, while walking from the shrine

There were also quite a few crows at the shrine

There are also a lot of egrets nesting along the Kamogawa

Hallelujah for drink, or Craig? Both!

America’s new secret weapon in the space race – The Emperor Shuttle!

Looking out the back window

Homegrown flowers

How much do I love flowers???

Hello and welcome to Japan in ‘lockdown’, which is nothing at all like Australia in lockdown, with very few actual restrictions imposed and the various governments – local and national – almost begging people to behave sensibly. I am noting a certain increased level of anxiety in the language being used by MPs, although apparently the PM is still more concerned about the economy than the virus and has only increased the areas covered in the state of emergency due to what I suspect must have been very strong language from the expert panel. Thank goodness they are now pushing their point more forcefully, otherwise this would likely drag on forever.

The state of emergency has also been extended to the end of May, which is also a good thing. The other good news in relation to The virus is on the vaccine front – the government has asked the military to help by setting up mass vaccination centres in Tokyo and Osaka, and today they are starting to take bookings, with the first vaccinations in Osaka commencing today (Tokyo will commence 31 May)! Apparently people from Kyoto and Hyogo will be able to travel to Osaka to be vaccinated starting in the second week of June, if we really want to.

Now, to something a little lighter…the weather! Yes, I know, I am somewhat fascinated by the weather, and living here you do experience many different types of weather patterns, especially because the weather here can come from nearly any direction, quite unlike living in Adelaide where it nearly always comes from a westerly direction. The interesting news at the moment is that yesterday the Japan Meteorological Agency declared that the rainy season was well and truly open in western Japan, which includes the Kansai region.

We managed a BBQ in between the rain

Have I talked about the Kansai region before? Well, it is in the central section of Honshu, on the western side of the island. The region includes the prefectures of Mie, Nara, Wakayama, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyōgo and Shiga, and sometimes Fukui, Tokushima and Tottori. The metropolitan region of the cities of Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto (the Keihanshin region) is the second-most populated region in Japan after the greater Tokyo area, with a population of over 23million people.

Anyway, back to the weather – apparently the rainy season is at least three weeks early this year, which sort of fits with the early blossom bloom. We had pretty much guessed the rainy season had started, it was the rain that gave it away (uh-huh) We have had some clear sunny days, some overcast days and quite a few wet days – days where it basically rains all day. It hasn’t been too heavy (yet), with the most rain in 24hrs around 90ml so far. Unfortunately this hasn’t brought much in the way of thunder and lightning so far. I await…

One good thing about the rain, it helps to keep people home. We haven’t been going out very much, including not going to gym for the time being (neither of which have closed). We have had two very pleasant long walks, taking advantage of a couple of the clear days to get out of the house for a while. I am also back to doing ballet at home, though that has been a bit interrupted recently thanks to a ‘Close Encounter Of The Animal Kind’.

While doing some work in my little garden bed out the back I had a brush with an orb weaver, which, while I noticed it was there, I underestimated how wide its web was. Thankfully it was still quite small, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it has been over two weeks now, and it still hasn’t fully gone away, though it is a lot better than it was. We get quite a few of the orb weavers in our yard every year, and I am quite aware of them – they are actually quite beautiful in their spidery kind of way. I have talked about the Spikes in previous posts and even included photos of them; they are the largest spiders in Japan with their bodies reaching up to 25mm. My body reacted to the bite by sleeping a lot longer than usual for me (I generally need at least 7 ½ hrs sleep to be human), as well as inflammation, itchiness, a slight burning, etc. They are known as the Joro spider here, and, like it’s counterpart in Australia, the female is larger than the male and they eat the male after mating.

Uh-oh

Moving right along, the first walk we embarked on is a part of the Kyoto trail, which is a 70 km loop that encircles the city. The whole trail is split up into three sections: East, North, and West, and we have walked along the East section before, both to Fushimi Inari via the trail from our home and in the other direction to Kiyomizu-dera and on to Heian Jingu, the latter of which we did again earlier this year. This time we went to walk part of the northern section, which began at Takao, a sparsely populated, mountainous area with three historic temples located in the area and is a one hour bus ride north from Kyoto station.

The trail

This is where you get off – we were a little perplexed initially

We visited two of the three temples, Saimyo-ji and Jingo-ji – the other temple was a bit further away from the trail. These two temples are part of the Shingon Buddhist sect and are connected in both having a history related to Kukai, who I have mentioned before. Jingo-ji is believed to have been established in the year 824CE as a merger of two private temples. In 812CE, Kukai resided at Takaosan-ji temple, which was the predecessor temple that existed at the current site of Jingo-ji.

Saimyo-ji Temple was founded between 824 and 834CE by Chisen Daitoku, a leading disciple of Kukai, as a branch temple of Jingo-ji Temple. We visited this temple first, which you enter via a bridge over the river Kiyotaki. It is a very small temple and is located in a very verdant setting. Nothing spectacular, but a lovely calm place to visit.

Jingo-ji, on the other hand involves a reasonably strenuous climb up many stairs and is apparently the successor head temple of the Koyasan Shingon sect. It is a big complex covering a large area on Takao-san mountain. The information we had said that there was a place there where you can undertake ‘kawarake-nage’, taking small bowl shaped ceramic cups (kawarake) and throwing them (nageru) from a lookout down into the valley below. The idea is that you transfer your bad luck to the ceramic and it serves as a mayoke, a charm against evil, which you then throw away from you.

The valley from the lookout

Borrowed photos of people throwing the kawarake – we were so wrapped up in the process we forgot to take photos…

The instructions we had was that the further you throw it the better, and that you should hold it curved side up and throw it like a frisbee. So, this is exactly what we did – we had two each – and the first one for both of us went a long way, off to the left and out of sight into the valley. The woman from the shop where you buy the discs was very excited by how well we did (there was a Japanese woman there also throwing discs, she had a box of them (!) and she wasn’t doing very well at all). On our second throw, both our discs curved to the right, and mine ended up in the trees…but Craig’s went out further and skimmed past them.

After that, we went down into the valley, walking along the river for kms, past long open structures sitting next to the river which are part of local restaurants, across bridges and through forested areas. We actually walked along the valley floor where many of the kawarake end up, some still intact, some not. The track along the river is quite soggy in some areas as water runs from springs out of the valley wall sides into the river. Mostly, however, it is a most pleasant walk.

The water in the river was crystal clear

A weir and what appears to be a salmon ladder

Water pours out of the hillside in spots

A large part of the forest along the route consist of extremely tall and very straight cedar trees, which are supposedly tended to make them like this. As we were walking I suggested it would be perfect to have the song “A Walk in the Black Forest” playing, since we had taken this to Germany with us so that we could walk in the Black Forest with music but it turned out it wasn’t possible to walk in the forest where we stayed (it was very dense and very, very dark). Anyway, as we walked into one stand of trees Craig surprised me by playing it😊. We both quickly fell into the rhythm. Fun.

A Walk in the Black(ish) Forest

We decided to take a side track to a waterfall, which took us through another forest, taking over an hour in total, and by the time we got back to the original track it had become overcast and had cooled down a lot – it looked like rain. So, we gave up on finishing this part of trail (which is 11km in total) and went to the nearest bus stop, taking us back to Arashiyama to catch a train back to the station. A really lovely walk, which we will do again, with or without music.

!!!! I didn’t realise quite how far we had walked. Hope there are no highwaymen

More stairs – to the waterfall

For our other walk I had been wanting to find where the trail went after the end point near Heian Jingu, so we took a bus to start from that point. The trail near our home has a series of post markers along the way, so you can walk it without a map. We found the marker at the point we had finished previously and set off from there. The trail took us up towards Nanzen-ji, but then we couldn’t find the next marker, so continued on toward the Philosopher’s Path, which we reasoned would have to be part of the trail.

The beginning of the path

Well, we didn’t find any more markers but decided to walk the path because it is a very nice walk, and there were very few people around (unlike spring or autumn). Along the way we came to a bridge and there were two Japanese people standing there with buckets and various bits and pieces. They beckoned us over (while also saying “free”) to show us some small boats they had made with leaves and flowers, which they said we could drop into the canal from the bridge (about 1½ m drop). They  gave one to Craig and asked me to select one (I chose one with a yellow and a purple flower, of course), then showed us /how to drop them. We did as they said and they both landed upright and started off in the strong current, at which they w mere very excited and said it was good luck for us (again!). We really do need some good luck for our business…

Our little boats – mine had hit an obstacle and was listing

We continued on to Ginkaku-ji (though not inside) and set about finding where the trail up to the diamonji begins, as we’d heard it is a nice hike and didn’t know how to get there. After a quick search we found it, surprisingly it wasn’t very well marked, perhaps they think tourists wouldn’t be interested. In any case, we now know where it is, and that may be our next adventure. Before going home we had our first kakigori (shaved ice sweet) for the season – with matcha syrup, adzuki beans and matcha mochi. Very refreshing.

The diamonji

Well, that’s it for this episode – how long will the rainy season last; what will happen next in The virus saga; when will our luck kick in? Who knows, maybe we’ll have some answers by the next episode. Hhhmmmmm

Cheers

I call it rain?

Not sure if the yellow one is a Tanuki..?

Interesting decorations on a building – The Aoi Matsuri (top 2 levels) and the Gion Matsuri (bottom)

Finally – I hate to queue

” I’d like the fish sushi set please”

Nice day for an outing

OK, yes I am a little obsessed with clematis. I soooo wish I could grow some

Ziggy nearly fits in there!

Ooops, it seems I’m running a little behind. I don’t know how time got away from me so much – we haven’t really been doing that much. Perhaps it has been the focus on what’s happening here, virus-wise, and us looking for something to do that might generate some income. Anyway, I apologise for the delay and hope you find something to smile about in this post. Certainly, if you like flowers, you’re going to LOVE it!

Spring! Blossom!! Glorious. Wonderful. Beautiful. Stunning. Otherworldly. How many superlatives can I put in one paragraph? Yes, the blossom has been and gone, but just reflecting on it brings a smile to my face. I mentioned last time that the blossom was going to be early this year, thanks to some occasional warm days in February and early March. Well, it turns out that this year’s blossom peaked so early that it was the earliest it has been since 812CE. How do we know exactly which year? The Buddhists – yes, it seems one of the roles they play here is recording the blossom season each year and, as a result, they can tell us exactly how it compares to other years.

I have to assume that in 812CE it also warmed up earlier than usual. Since my last post, most days have been above 20C (just the odd one here and there in the teens). Currently we are having a run of mid 20 degree days, and yesterday, on my way home from gym, I had only a t-shirt on top, no coat or long sleeves! What a pleasure it is on that first t-shirt day of the year.

As to our outings, we undertook two blossom viewing excursions on two lovely, sunny days. We walked for both outings, the weather was just too good not to! For our first journey, we walked along some of the back roads near Kiyomizu-dera (avoiding the crowds as much as possible) to Maruyama park. After that we walked down into the Gion area and finally into town, taking the road along the canal near the Pontochou area.

It was mid-week, but despite this there were many newly weds having photos taken around these areas. Apparently many couples actually have their official wedding photos taken in either spring or autumn for the scenery, no matter when they actually have the ceremony. Not to miss out, I took a few unobtrusive photos of some of them because they did look beautiful.

Our next walk took us further out, along some of the other back streets and canals up to Heian jinja. There were many family groups picnicking in Okazaki park (which is in front of Heian jinja), so we went a bit further to the next canals and ate a fabulous vegan bento lunch from Vegan Farm, which is a fruit and veg shop that also sells takeaway foods. Most of the benches were taken along the canal just past the park and jinja, but we found one unoccupied – the only one that was not under trees. Still, it was nice and warm and we had a good view of the canal, and the boats traversing it for hanami. We had no idea that this actually happened in blossom time!

Just walking along those canals I had a smile on my face the whole time. Absolutely the best tonic for forgetting what was happening nearly everywhere else in the world, and particularly here, in Japan. Yes, I am referring to The Virus. I know I said in my last post that things seemed to be going in the right direction in terms of the numbers here, but I definitely spoke too soon.

It seems a combination of a certain amount of Covid weariness, hanami travelling and the fact that at least three of the variants have been able to make their way into the population here, has meant the numbers have sky-rocketed. The UK, Sth African and Brazilian variants are here, and to top this off we now have our very own Japanese variant, which came from the Brazilian variant. It seems these have taken hold, so much so that nearly all new cases now are the variants. This is resulting in a flood of new serious cases requiring hospitalisation and oxygen (which is in relatively limited supply compared to the need) and many of these serious cases are younger than previously.

In this period, then, we have come out of a ‘national emergency situation’ and we are about to enter another one, as of Monday. This time, given the dire seriousness of the situation, it is going to be a lot stricter, and the Osaka Governor is saying that he intends to stay in ‘lockdown’ until at least the end of May, mainly because the numbers in Osaka are horrendous, with over 1,000 new cases per day for the last three days – much higher than the numbers in the last peak (or third wave). I think Kyoto will follow the lead of Osaka and Hyogo (collectively, the three prefectures are known as Kansai and do work together a lot) – the Governor here has asked people to stay away from Kyoto and as many tourist destination places as possible are being asked to close.

In terms of travelling, Kyoto was literally flooded with visitors for the one week period at the blossom peak. The reason for the numbers visiting here is that Kyoto has literally thousands of cherry blossom trees in and around the city. Along the river and the canals, in parks and temples, and basically anywhere trees can be planted, there are blossom trees. Everywhere you go you will see some trees – just driving to the hardware store is picturesque. They are very important to the psyche here and the trees are generally very carefully tended and preserved.

Even the end of the blossom period is spectacular, as the petals rain down on you and there are huge drifts on the ground below the trees. I have coined a new word for this time – hanayuki time – hana being the Japanese word for flowers and yuki the word for snow 😊.

We actually had a visitor stay here with us in March too, although he didn’t actually come here for the blossom, just to have a brief holiday from work. He stayed with us for two nights, and was a real pleasure to have here. It really reminded us of how much we missed having guests, and we may have perhaps taken a little too much of his time here just talking to him. He left us a very generous gift when he departed, so I have to assume he didn’t mind too much or he just felt sorry for us🤔?

On the 27^th of March, it was 14 years to the day that we first came to Japan, arriving very early on the 28^th, sleep deprived strangers in a strange and wonderful new land. While it was very much a learning experience in terms of us finding vegetarian (at the time) food here, we loved it so much we kept coming back. It was during that first trip when we were walking down one of the main roads in Kyoto that we remarked how much like home it felt to us. Little did we know at the time that years later we would be ensconced here, although the idea started forming at that time.

That’s it for now, and I’ll try not to get so side-tracked next time. Let’s hope there is some good news re The Virus…

Cheers

Vale Villi

Artists at work😆

A non-blossom tree!

???!!!

There are sooo many ornaments for flower pots here…

Is that Mary Poppins going to my gym?

Wall art at Starbucks – looks familiar

Yes, birthday crowns for that special 4-legged someone!

Our first azalea flower opens!

Now look at them – planted late last year

This what a dogwood should look like – ours is a third of the size and had one flower…

So, Spring is springing into life here – hurrah! Welcome all to the increasingly warm weather and ‘the blooming’. Wonderful, and with the warmer weather the Covid numbers are gradually falling, thanks to a combined effort by the government and The Virus (and viruses in general) not being particularly fond of warmer weather. Earlier in this past month we were still having wild swings in temperature, with a temperature of 21C followed a few days later by a maximum of 4 in the week following my last post. We seem to have settled into a mid to high teens pattern now, though still cold overnight when it is clear.

As a result of the warmer days here and there previously, the cherry blossom is starting to open now, very early indeed. Prior to the cherry blossom, the plum blossom makes an appearance, and though we went on a few outings to view the plum blossom, we weren’t overly successful in finding the right place at the right time – but more about that in a while.

Firstly, I thought I would tell you a wee tale of surprise and mystery, our surprise that is. A few weeks ago we received a parcel from Amazon, but not the one I was expecting. It was, in fact, a Thai vegan cookbook which we had not ordered, as far as we remembered. We became worried that we had somehow accidentally ordered it, Craig does like to look at what cookbooks are available from time to time. So, we scoured through our Amazon orders, both the business and my personal account, but to no avail. Our brains were well and truly racked!!!

Craig had opened the package, so I checked the inside of the envelope to see if there was anything at all inside it which would give us a clue, and there it was, a note saying it was a gift from a couple we had met through the vegan meetup group and who had subsequently paid for a brunch here. Following the brunch, they had added an entry to their vegan restaurant blog, which was very complementary. So when we thanked them for this we said they should come here to have dinner with us when they were back in Kyoto. This did go ahead and they tried to give us money to pay for it when they left, which we refused having invited them on the basis of it being a shared meal.

Anyway, they decided to buy the cookbook for us which is authored by the owners of their favourite veg Thai restaurant in New York (where they live). So, mystery solved, but it did have us going for quite a while – “we can’t have accidentally bought a book, can we???” 😊

Now, onto the blossom. We undertook three blossom seeking outings during the past month, travelling to Zuishin-in, a temple in Yamashina (over the mountain from our home), the Imperial Palace park and Heian-jingu shrine, none of which were overly successful, unfortunately. Nonetheless, the days we went out were clear and sunny, so most pleasant anyway.

We decided to go to Zuishin-in because we thought it would be quiet (it was), it was in Yamashina (ie close) and we had never been there before. As it happened, while most of the blossom trees were just starting to come into flower, the actual blossom garden was not yet open, so we decided to have a look around the temple itself. The history of the temple begins in 991, when permission was given by Emperor Ichijō to construct a temple, named Gyuhizan Mandara-ji, in southeastern Kyoto. Some time later, the fifth Chief Abbot of the temple founded Zuishin-in as a sub-temple of Mandara-ji, but it was reduced to ashes during a rebellion (shogun v emperor) in 1221.

In 1599, the main hall was restored and subsequently some sizable donations contributed to the reconstruction of the full complex, with most of the temple buildings being dated to the 17^th century. Though the temple is renowned for its connection to Ono no Komachi (825 – 900), a famous Heian period beauty and poet, Zuishin-in did not exist during her lifetime, despite the many references to this found on the internet. Her family, however, did have an estate in the Ono area (yes, named after them) where Zuishin-in was built. There are a number of artefacts and paintings related to her at the temple and there is a well on the grounds, excavated fairly recently, which is said to be where she drew water to prepare her makeup each day (according to a plaque at the site).

An ukiyo-e of Ono no Komachi

(PS this is not in the collection at the temple, just for reference)

Stone inlay with one of her poems and close-up

The temple buildings do look a little run down (due, no doubt to the fact that there are fewer paying customers visiting the temple) the art works contained with the main complex are very beautiful and well worth a visit to see them. Unfortunately, as with so many temples, you cannot take photos of many of the old fusuma-e (paintings on the sliding doors in tatami rooms – the doors are called fusuma, and the ‘e’ refers to the painting). I did accidentally take a photo of one of the rooms, and Craig then not so accidentally took a straight photo of that room.

My accident

Not so accidental

Modern fusuma-e

(photos allowed)

The best tree there, but not within the temple

Our next outing was to the park, which surrounds the Imperial Palace. We hadn’t been there for many years, so thought it might be nice to have another look at the park, and there happen to be about 200 plum blossom trees there. It is an extensive park, as you would imagine it would be, with the majority of the trees being of the pine family. The grove is near one of the entrances to the park, and quite a few of the trees are fairly small, they appeared to have been planted in the last decade although the grove began as a collection of cuttings from shrines around Kyoto in 1945. After that walk we went to have lunch at a local restaurant, which was most pleasant.

The roads in the park are wider than most outside!

A fallen tree that refused to die…

Craig’s lunch!!!

The last outing during this period was to the Heian-jingu garden, my favourite garden in Kyoto. I really love this place, finding it to be a very beautiful and peaceful place to be. There are only a few plum blossom trees, but it is always worth visiting and this time the Japanese Andromeda or Dwarf Lily of the Valley (Pieris japonica) was in full bloom around the grounds.

There’s the blossom tree, to the left…

Before I leave you, I thought I would mention that on 11 March it was the 10 year anniversary of the giant earthquake and tsunami in the Sendai and Fukushima area (north east from here). I remember this event very clearly, especially as it occurred a month before we were due to travel to Japan including travelling along the east coast up to Hokkaido, with a four night stay in Sendai booked. Watching the footage of the tsunami was devastating then, and still is. A lot of video was shown on the 11^th that we had never seen before, with some from cameras in cars as they were swept up and also from roofs where some had found refuge, which showed their reactions and them yelling at people to run.

Many of the areas affected still have not been fully rebuilt, particularly since in some areas so many people lost their lives and with most of the buildings destroyed many of those who survived just have not returned, even though local councils have offered incentives and the national government provided huge amounts of money to the councils to assist with rebuilding. A lot of this money is still unspent.

That’s all for now – *spoiler alert* next post will definitely have lots of sakura 😊.

Cheers

Both at Zuishin-in. The palanquins on the left are carried as per figurine below (yes they are hanging from the ceiling)

The birds are loving this weather!

Hina display for Girl’s Day

WTF???

This is just plain wrong

A knot of toll roads

Is that Winnie? Is he trying to escape?

Gorgeous ceramics

Magnolia time

Love these trees – the Japanese Red Pine

(for obvious reasons – see below)

I’m lichen it (hehehe)

Uh-oh!

Ziggy harking back to Halloween while watching me do ballet

He’s mine!

Me next to a large camellia – and not to be outdone, Craig next to a very large tree