Hi all – yes, here I am again sitting at the keyboard, collecting my thoughts about the past month. There have been some very interesting things happening internationally and nationally, but not quite so much in our lives. As a result of not having that much to do, and for such a long time, I have been spending more time focusing outwards, with my attention having been especially drawn to the events occurring in the US.

Before I start on life in Kyoto in winter during a state of emergency due to a pandemic, I will first talk about the weather here. The first word that jumps into my head is bizarre, and then changeable. So far this winter has had some of the coldest days we have experienced here, and also some of the warmest days in winter we have experienced here. Last Sunday the temperature reached 21C (which was glorious, BTW – I opened up all the windows). Since then it has cooled down, with a good rain on Monday (over 30mm) and the expected max. dropping to 5C (or less) on Wednesday and Thursday, with the possibility of snow on Thursday! Hard to keep up with, really, and if it’s confusing for us, imagine how it’s going to affect the sprouting plants and the birds who have been happily doing spring things.

Suffice it to say that the weather combined with the state of emergency have kept us at home a lot over the last month. We also had a slight issue with the actual virus, after a friend we had over for dinner and a movie (Mon Oncle) discovered a text after she left our home informing the staff of the school she teaches at that some students had tested positive to The virus.

As you can imagine, she was horrified and embarrassed that she may have exposed us to infection. Subsequently it was found that one teacher and over 40 students had been infected. Interestingly, while there was some information about it in the Kyoto paper, the name of the school was not included, apparently because the school had insisted that their privacy be protected (and their reputation as a private school, no doubt). So we self isolated for two weeks, with only a very careful trip to the supermarket for food during the period (we had no choice in this, having no back-up options).

Luckily there was plenty happening in the news during this period, and I spent a lot of time reading the ABC US politics blog. Fascinating. I had never had overly much interest in US politics, but that all changed with the election of the now ex-president and watching a tv show called “Designated Survivor”. I learnt a lot about US politics from that show, which made it much easier to understand what was going on over there., and the ABC blog was really absorbing. At times it was like watching a train crash in slow motion – you had a bit of an idea what might happen, but you just couldn’t look away. I was hugely relieved when the inauguration went off without a hitch.

Speaking of US politics and the ex-president (and the damage he wrought), we recently watched a two part series about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, about her life and career. What an amazing woman she was – very intelligent, very stoic and quite reserved and petite, yet a giant in her time. The documentary was called “RBG” – well worth watching.

We have seen a few other interesting documentaries on the BS (I kid you not, and they have the BS News…) station which included one about Drum Tao, a Japanese taiko troupe, who performed at the opening ceremony of the Year of Japan in Russia in 2018, at the Bolshoi Ballet Theatre. They focussed on one part of the performance in particular, where one of the drummers played on an odaiko drum (large and on a stand) while one of the Bolshoi soloists (Georgy Gusev) danced. It showed the development of the piece and it was very interesting that even though they didn’t speak the same language, they had a connection through the music. Two of my loves, taiko and ballet, put together – wonderful.

Rehearsal

Performance

The theatre

Some audience members…

Speaking of ballet, since we haven’t been going out much, I haven’t been going to gym, so I am doing three classes a week with Ernst Meisner and Rex Lobo (on piano). I have mentioned them before, but these classes really are a blessing for me, to maintain both some fitness and flexibility. I just wish I had a proper barre instead of using the back of the couch, which is a bit too low and somewhat soft 😊.

Locked and loaded

Apart from going to supermarkets, we have only been out twice on longer outings during this period, once was into town to buy some new ballet shoes (my old ones have a biggish hole in them) and we recently went to the Momak art gallery to see an exhibition. The shoe buying expedition took us through the Nishiki market. For those of you who have been here, you will know just how crowded the Nishiki market (which is a fairly long undercover mall) usually is. It is very popular for shopping and is also a major tourist destination.

Looking both ways – normally wall to wall people

When we were there the other day it was very quiet, with many shops closed; shutters down. We are not sure how many were just closed because of the state of emergency or permanently shut, though we did see some had small ‘for rent’ signs on them. What was really interesting was that the shutters, which you wouldn’t normally see down, were decorated with amazing copies of famous paintings. Many of them I recognised to be by the artist Itō Jakuchū, one of my favourite Japanese artists. As it turns out, thanks to the electronic oracle, I found out that Jakuchū’s father was a Kyoto grocer whose shop was in the Nishiki district, and Jakuchū ran the shop from the time of his father’s death in 1739 until 1755, when he handed it over to one of his brothers. What a lovely surprise it was.

The exhibition at Momak was entitled “100 Years of Bunriha: Can Architecture Be Art?” As per the title, Bunriha was the first architectural movement in Japan, which came into being in 1920 when six classmates of the Department of Architecture of Tokyo Imperial University formed the group before their graduation. Three other architects later joined the group, which was active in exhibiting and publishing their works until 1928. This year marks 100 years since the group’s formation, hence the touring exhibition.

Bunriha literally means “Secessionist group”, which was inspired in part by the Vienna Secessionists. They were worried about the reliance on historical styles and decoration and instead wanted to encourage artistic expression in Japanese architecture. They drew their influence from European movements like expressionism and the Bauhaus school and helped pave the way towards the introduction of the international style of Modernism into Japan.

It was a very extensive exhibition, with many photos, architectural renderings, floor plans and models, along with a number of video displays and some pieces of furniture. One of the videos showed Tokyo just after the 1923 earthquake (The Great  Kanto earthquake), which devastated Tokyo, killing over 100,000 people and flattening vast swathes of buildings, with the subsequent fire causing further damage. Many of the buildings that survived were European style concrete, brick and stone buildings. In fact, Frank Lloyd Wright received credit for designing the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo specifically so that it would withstand an earthquake. The structure withstood the anticipated earthquake stresses (with minimal damage) and the hotel remained in use until 1968. This helped usher in the construction of many more European style buildings.

One other exhibit of note in the gallery was by Kimiyo Mishima, a contemporary Japanese artist, who is known for creating extremely realistic versions of newspapers, comic books and boxes in ceramic. She uses the silk screen technique to print newspaper, poster and label images onto the clay. She actually began her career as a painter in the early 1960s, but then changed to working in ceramics in 1971. Her work is incredible; so realistic that I really wanted to touch some of the pieces to feel they were ceramic, especially the ‘cardboard’ boxes. She apparently designs her peices to look like discarded rubbish, with a focus on ‘information’ contained on and in them.

All individually made

Ending this post on one further bit of design, I thought I’d add some photos of street barricades that I have been collecting for a while, which is rather more kawaii, and very much Japanese. I love them 😊

Not in the Gion (l), in the Gion (r) – just add a kimono!

Cheers

PS – when we woke up this morning (Wednesday) it was snowing – bizarre indeed.

Miro using Zowie as a pillow…

Speaking of interesting buildings…

Interesting items at Costco – Vegetable Origami (?) and 6kg easter eggs!

Looking out the window at Momak

Some very weird sea creatures in a documentary about a trench off the US west coast:

A fish with a see through head. The arrows show the eyes and mouth.

A jelly fish which flashed rainbow colours along ribs

Not sure what this was, but it too flashed lights, as did nearly all of the creatures in the trench

Those teeth…

Watching all these, it was like seeing a nightclub for the deep

Hello and Happy New Year to you all!!! Yes, that’s right, 2020 has ended! Hopefully this year will be a whole lot better than last year, and the spectre of The virus will dissipate and we can get back to some sort of ordinary life again. Now, when I say ordinary, I do not mean dull and boring, but rather living which does not involve having to be so very careful all the time and where we can do more of what we want to do, such as have guests staying with us and being able to go to ballet classes without a mask on.

Before that dream begins, I still have one last month of 2020 to review which also happens to be the first month of my fifth year here. This time also happened to be cold, so cold that we actually had some (a little) snow before the end of the year. It started falling during the night of the 16^th into the 17^th, so we awoke to a sprinkling on the plants. That night, at around 3:40am we also had a smallish earthquake – around magnitude 3.5 – and the epicentre was very close to us, about 1.5km north. This was the first earthquake we have had that was centred north of us, so quite unusual.

I was awake at the time (I think Miro had awoken me) and then my bed started swaying (remember it is on the floor), and I heard the noise, and this lasted for around 10 seconds. It actually woke Craig up, which is also unusual 😊. I have recently come to create my own earthquake scale, somewhat different to the standard magnitude type – rather more descriptive. There are four basic types (so far), the Ripple, the Shunt, the Swayer and the Rattler/Shaker.

The Ripple is fairly mild and feels like being in a boat with water rippling underneath. The Shunt is very fast and feels like a truck has slammed into the house. The Swayer is a level up in length and feels like being rocked, such as in a hammock. The Rattler/Shaker ranges from innocuous to very nasty; from glasses rattling lightly together to the lights swaying, pictures tipping and things falling down or over (including buildings, in the extreme), and can keep going for quite a while.

We have had a few more light falls of snow since, including yesterday morning. Elsewhere, mainly along the west coast of Japan, the falls have been very heavy, with cars, trucks and vans being stuck on highways for up to three days. Niigata has been hardest hit, and a number of people have died as a result of being buried in snow, mostly via trying to get snow off their roofs and it falling on top of them all at once.

Not very heavy here…

The weather has been very cold, at times. We have had nearly a week where most days were 5C or less maxima, including one day of just over 2C, and many nights sub-zero, with the coldest bottoming out at -5C. Most of the sub-zero nights have been clear, and hence no snow. We have been careful not to use too much power to stay warm, and end up wearing thermals and lined clothing at home, while puffy coats, gloves, scarves and beanies are de rigueur outside. I also have a pair of puffy leggings, called Poodlegs, which are fantastic when it’s really cold.

In the bus…

As you can imagine, we have been doing more things at home, rather than going out (it’s cold and the Covid numbers are up). For xmas day we organised a ‘xmas orphans’ repast (late afternoon into the evening). We invited four people, though on the day two of them didn’t make it, so the four of us here had a lot of food to ourselves. What a feast 😊! We also had one friend over for new year’s eve, although we didn’t quite make it to midnight…

We have also been watching more tv, including our regular “Nightmare Before Christmas” and “Love Actually” before xmas. We also watched a fantastic Godzilla movie recently, which was being aired on local tv (no English), called “Invasion of Astro-Monster”, which included Rodan and King Gidorah, along with some aliens. Even though we couldn’t understand exactly what they were saying, we could understand enough of what was going on to make it great fun to watch. It was made in 1965 and as a result also included some great design.

Aliens

Spaceships

Aliens taking Godzilla

Godzilla sees Gidorah

Godzilla trashes

Rays firing at aliens

Rodan down

Godzilla gets Gidorah

Something else we also happened across on tv was the opening of the new full-sized Gundam statue/robot exhibition facility. The robot has been built at a toymaker’s factory in Yokohama and on 19 December took it’s first steps outside. It is 18 metres tall and there are decks at 15 and 18 metres to get up close views, along with lots of paraphernalia for sale. It costs ¥1,650 to enter the facility – not cheap, but for fans no doubt all worth it. Watching the comperes at the opening, well known and popular males in their 20s and 30s, they were very excited to be there (they were almost giggling), so I suspect it will be popular.

We have ventured outside a few times, but mainly to go shopping. We did make an effort on New Year’s day to go to one of the local shrines, to plead with Kamisama (the deities) to get rid of the virus 😊, soon. We also took a long walk a couple of days ago, up and over the mountain behind Kiyomizu-dera, with a friend. It was a cold day, overcast initially, but otherwise good weather for walking.

Silliness on the path

We descended from the mountain near Heian shrine, very close to another shrine which I had wanted to visit. As it turned out, it is a shrine associated with the deity Ebisu and the Ebisu festival was being held around Kyoto. Ebisu is one of the Shichifukujin (Seven Gods of Luck), the deity of fishing, wealth, and fortune. This is the first major festival of the year, and is centred around January 10^th, Ebisu’s birthday.

Interesting display – we think they were lanterns at the back

Inside a small museum there

Rubber ducks sitting atop ice in the hand washing bowl, possibly to stop people washing – yes it was cold!

Ebisu shrine

In the past we have gone to the main festival at the Ebisu shrine in the Gion, however, this year we decided not to go due to the current increase in the virus numbers (not sure if it’s the third wave, or whether we are now entering a fourth wave). As a result it was quite opportune that we ended up at a related shrine, so we could ask Ebisu for luck in our business, and to buy a new lucky charm for the year.

After leaving the shrine we headed north, via Okazaki park towards a restaurant to get some lunch. Nearing the park/Heian shrine precinct, we started seeing a lot of young women dressed in kimono (very expensive looking kimono at that) and young men mostly dressed in suits. As we got closer we realised there were many hundreds of them accumulated in this area, and then we remembered it was a public holiday for the ‘Comin of Age’ celebration, for all those who have reached or will reach the ‘age of maturity’ (20 years old) between the 2^nd of April of the previous year and the 1^st of April of the current year, to help them celebrate the fact they are now considered adults.

Most of the celebrations had been cancelled around Japan, but Kyoto had decided to go ahead, despite the threat of the virus. As we walked through the enormous crowd, it really was a fantastic spectacle seeing all these beautifully dressed young people and you could see the fun they were having with all their friends. The sun had come out by then and it really was a feast for the eyes.

Unfortunately the restaurant we had wanted to go to was closed, being a public holiday, so we had to walk a bit further – I’m not sure how many kms we had walked by then, but it must have been well over 5kms including climbing up then down – however, the next nearest vegan friendly restaurant was open, and we had falafel for lunch, suitably distanced from anyone. We then caught a nearly empty train home. The following day was my ballet class day (which I’m doing at home at the moment…), and I have to say my muscles tired a little more easily than usual during the class, but the stretching felt good 😊.

Before I sign off, I should mention that we had a guest stay with us for two nights just after New Year. He was from Hawaii, with some Japanese heritage, and was in Japan early last year when the first state of emergency was called for the virus. Looking back, the numbers were so low then, amazing how the government has taken so long to call the second emergency, given the size of the numbers now…

Anyway, he has been caught in Japan, unable to get home, from March last year. Since that time he has bought a small bicycle and some lightweight camping gear, and has ridden pretty much all the way around Japan (excluding Okinawa). He is vegan and decided he wanted to spoil himself by staying here – he has spent very little on accommodation, at times sleeping under bridges where homeless people are.

When he arrived, he had a hat and face mask on, so it came as a surprise next morning at breakfast to see that he had a longish, thick head of hair, including a long beard! He hasn’t had a haircut or shaved since he has been here 😊. He was a lovely person, as nearly all of our guests seem to be, and it was a pleasure to have him here. He is currently preparing to leave Japan later this week, after having a test to show he is Covid negative. Wonderful to have a guest staying here again.

Well, that’s almost it for now. Just one quick nod to one of our pottery neighbours who invited us to come see some of the things he had been making recently, after I made a few comments about how beautiful they were on Instagram. In particular, he had made some ceramic speaker casings (believe it or not), and was obviously very proud of them. He had finished installing the speaker fittings and as we entered his workshop he put on a CD so we could hear them. Interestingly he chose the Phantom of the Opera, which made the whole thing even more spectacular! We had been wondering what they would sound like with a ceramic surround, but actually they were good, and very expensive at over $1,000, but then they are covered in gold leaf…

Picture from Instagram

Cheers

The end of Autumn

After Halloween toilet paper, there’s xmas toilet paper…

Ok, so it won’t go on Instagram

Interesting xmas decoration in the building where my gym is

All the xmas cakes for cats and dogs…

Display of a festival float in our local council building. All the major pieces are ceramic, including the huge platter

Tanuki at a local sake shop – one can’t see thanks to mask and the other has a beak mouth reminiscent of a kappa

Miro and Zowie up close

Zowie gets attention (not often you can see my natural hair colour…yes, it’s mid-brown, not black)

Beautiful obi display

Love the duck with the helmet, the one with the eye patch and the sleepy one

At the shrine – toilet rules

Partially frozen water at a local temple

Godzilla ice skating on our mochi bowl

Some early blossom buds – already!

Not much in the way of flowers at the moment

Godzilla doing his happy dance after defeating Gidorah

Hi all! Get yourself a caffeinated beverage (if you drink one of those) and take a seat, because you are in for a spectacular anthocyanin, carotenoid and tannin laced tour de force of trees, as this is the Autumn episode and you are going to see more photos of beautiful trees than you may think possible in one smallish post – and you want to be fully awake for the experience!!!

This year the colours were more intense than I have ever seen them here, and after checking the electronic oracle I found that the conditions this year were text book perfect:-

“The best weather for brilliant fall foliage is a growing season with ample moisture followed by a dry, cool and sunny autumn with warm days and cool but frostless nights.”

All boxes ticked – we had heavy rain for the first half of summer, with follow-up rain through until early Autumn, and Autumn has been warmish (mid-teens mostly) and sunny (as you will see in most of the photos) with very cool nights, but no frost. Interestingly, the leaves are still holding on many trees, and the reds are becoming even more intense. This may change in the next few days, however, as very cold upper level air is coming in and bringing snow to wide areas of Japan, perhaps even here.

The hill behind our home, taken yesterday

We, of course, took full advantage of the colourful pageant, visiting a number of the best places to view these trees. The end result of all of this was a joyous uplifted feeling, many, many photos to be checked, and difficult decisions to be made of which to use – exhausting 😊.

Our first colour outing was a return visit to Takaragaike park, for a picnic. It had been a long time since we’d been on a picnic, which we used to do a lot, so having found a suitable park for such an outing it seemed very appropriate. We still had the old picnic set, an assortment of bakelite plates and tumblers, 1960s picnic cutlery and other bits and pieces, and a picnic rug, so we took these, found a table and enjoyed an outdoor repast.

Prior to lunch we walked through the forest and were surprised when a group of deer walked past us. We had no idea there were any deer in the park, so we were somewhat shocked. Had we been in Nara, well, you just expect it, so it was quite funny that we were surprised with this Close Encounter of the Animal Kind. When I heard the nearby noises, before we saw the deer, I was hoping for a tanuki or maybe (laughingly) a serow, but the deer just sauntered across the path in front of us, with only one stopping to look at us briefly.

A serow

For our next visit we went to Arashiyama. Our walk took us through the bamboo and then up to the top of the hill behind the bamboo forest. In all the times we had visited the area, we had never climbed up the hill, from which you can see further up the Hozugawa river. With the colour and the sunny day it was a fantastic panorama.

We then climbed down to the river and along back to the main area to look for somewhere to eat. The restaurant we had planned to go to had a waiting list to get in, so we tried a couple of other places – one was gone – then checked the oracle and found a vegan café across the other side of the river, called Musubi Café. Initially we were the only people there, which was nice, and we had a fantastic lunch with the best taco rice I have ever eaten.

The final of our three outings for colour took us to Eikando Zenrinji temple, which Craig had never been to. I had been there with friends two years previously and loved it, so it seemed appropriate. This time the colour was unbelievable, so intense, and there were quite a few people but it wasn’t too over-crowded.

After leaving there we dropped into Nanzenji temple and had a snack which we had taken with us. After the beauty of Eikando we just sat there and ate there, and I only took two photos! We then walked back along one of my favourite canals. The weather was perfect for a long walk, mid-teens and clear blue sky. A lovely day.

As the weather continued to be clear, we went for a few other walks. For one we decided to go for a walk in the forest nearby (and yes, sometimes I do hum that tune 😊), taking a route past Tofukuji to see how the foliage was going there – but it had definitely passed it’s peak. We then walked around the back of the temple into an area we hadn’t been before where there were very large houses, many of which were very nice indeed. Like walking into Beaumont, or somewhere similar where there are many large, old homes.

One other noteworthy walk took us into the CBD area, from a different direction, and we found a very interesting small temple there called Rokkakudo. Legend has it that the temple was founded by Prince Shotoku in 587CE. It was previously known as Siunzanchohoji, however, the current name comes from its main hall’s hexagonal shape. Next to the temple is a hall called Ikenobo, which is renowned as the birthplace of Ikebana. The Ikenobo school has produced many skilled artists in Ikebana since the Muromachi period (1333-1568). There is an Ikebana museum there, but we didn’t have time to go in, so that will be left to another time. In front of the hexagonal hall there is a small hexagonal stone, which is known as the Navel Stone and is said to mark the centre of Kyoto.

The Navel

What a lovely time of year it is here in Autumn – Spring is lovely with the blossom on display and the warmer weather ahead but Autumn truly is a magical time here, especially this year. Perhaps nature was giving us a gift in light of the year we have all been enduring.

There were three other noteworthy events for us during this period – 25 November was the four year anniversary of my arrival here to live, we had a second vegan meet-up event here, nearly exactly a year after we held the previous brunch (in fact, it was the first meet-up event since ours) and the Veggy magazine with the article about us was published on 10 November. The magazine is a Japanese vegetarian/vegan publication, so we are hoping this will give us more exposure to the Japanese market.

To ensure social distancing, we held our meet-up event in two groups, one at lunchtime and the other at dinnertime. We made a three course Thai meal, followed by pumpkin spice muffins for dessert (yes, I know, not exactly a Thai dessert but really yummy, so why not?) Everyone enjoyed it and we had some queries about having other events here, and tomorrow one of the couples is coming here for a late breakfast.

That’s all for now. Next post will be the first of Year 5 in Kyoto. Let’s hope things improve and return to something a little more like ‘normality’.

Cheers

(I wonder if it will snow tonight?)

Hikonyan blending in with the trees

Hhhhmmmm

A really good band playing outside the mall where our supermarket is

The Kabuki is back…and we can’t afford to go

Gorgeous tea bowls

Amazing sights often found at temples

Toll roads

Monkey bike

Love this light fitting

What can I say…?

(Yes, I would love to buy it)

Hard to see, but a tiny bee is busy

Miro and Zowie loving…

Miro loving the heated floor

Ah, yes (& Puffy jackets aren’t overly flattering)

Hello everyone, and let me begin with a huge WOOHOO!!! Finally, something really positive for the world has happened this year 😊. Yes, I know there are still issues to be faced, including an unwillingness to face reality, but I feel like some weight has been lifted from my mind with the US election result. It certainly was a tense time, waiting for the results to come in, and I now know a lot more about the American electoral system (which is crazily complicated), but the sense of relief when the numbers started moving in the right direction was enormous. We celebrated, of course, and even watched the Biden/Harris speech live. My favourite thing has been watching the videos of the reactions of people in the US – the giant dance party that erupted and the noise of cars tooting and people yelling in joy when the media called it. Fantastic.

So, back to Kyoto and our other activities outside obsessive election watching. The weather is continuing to cool, and with it the Autumnal colour spectacle creeps in. It has definitely started earlier this year, as has my donning of puffy clothing. We have had many overcast days, with some rain, and the occasional sunny day. In fact, we weren’t able to go on my birthday outing, to Nara this year, for two weeks thanks to the weather.

My birthday happened to be on a Saturday this year, which was perfect as there was a restaurant we wanted to go to in Nara which only opens on Saturdays since re-opening after the COVID shut down. Not sure why that is, but it is a mother and daughter operation, so they can choose to run it as suits them. The problem was that on my birthday a typhoon passed by Japan along the eastern coast, bringing with it the usual wind and rain. So, we postponed until the following Saturday. The forecast the next week looked ok up until the Friday, when it changed to rain…all day…so, postponed again.

The following Saturday was looking good, so we kept our fingers crossed and planned. We awoke to clear skies, and though cool, it looked like it would be perfect for wandering around – and it was 😊. As we had been to see the daibutsu (giant Buddha) at Nara a few times previously, I thought it would be nice to find some new places to go to, so after consulting the electronic oracle I found a garden which sounded interesting and a very old shrine which we hadn’t visited previously, the Kasuga Taisha shrine.

The Yoshikien garden was our first port of call. The land used to be part of a temple complex, used for monk residences. In the Meiji period it became a privately owned site, with the garden being created in 1919. Subsequently the land ownership was transferred to Nara prefecture and now it is open to the public. It is a stroll garden (for Monty Don fans), with some distinct areas; a pond area, a moss garden and a tea ceremony flower garden. There is also a tea house within the grounds. It is a lovely garden, free to enter and there were only three other people there when we visited. I would definitely go back again, if the opportunity arises.

The Kasuga Taisha shrine was established at the same time as the capital (in Nara), in 768 CE, and is dedicated to the deity responsible for the protection of the city. Later, in 841 CE, the Emperor proclaimed a prohibition on hunting and logging in the nearby forest, preserving the forest in its unspoiled state. There are about 3,000 lanterns lining the pathways around the shrine, which have been dedicated there since the Heian period. Many of them are more than 300 years old, and it is said that the custom of arranging lanterns on the approach to shrines and temples began with this shrine. The deer, which are protected in Nara, are thought to be sacred messengers for the Shinto gods.

Following these visits, we had lunch at the vegan Ramuna Café and after that my plan was to watch the mochi pounding (mochitsuki) at a famous mochi shop on the way back to the train, but we arrived just as they were finishing up…Oh well, it was a gorgeous day and we enjoyed our time there.

A huge lunch!

Interesting terrace houses, which are very unusual here

Prior to this outing, friends asked us to join them at one of the Kyotographie installations, being held at the Kyoto station. The exhibition was of photographs by Kai Fusayoshi, who has been an active photographer for the past 50 years, and is known for his photographs of ‘feminine beauty’, which was the focus of this installation. It was set up along the station building Sky Way. As we were headed there we came across a piano put there as a ‘street piano’ for anyone to play, often with cameras installed to record the pianists. We have watched excerpts of this from a number of locations on TV and had no idea there was one in Kyoto. A woman started playing as we arrived – she was very good.

There’s a garden on the roof!

Two other notable events for us were visiting a new bakery, the Kamogawa Bakery, which specialises in plant based bagels and other bread products and, of course, a night out for Halloween. We received an invitation to the bakery opening via Instagram, which was a nice surprise. We don’t know the people involved, but they found us and we were invited to a pre-opening ‘try-out’. We were treated to a free coffee each and some free bagels, which were very good, especially the Keema curry bagel (yes, I know it sounds unusual but curry-pan (bread) is a popular thing here). Yum! We had to sit through a presentation (also, yes, TANSTAFL for those economists amongst you), but that was interesting as even though it was in Japanese, we knew what he was talking about, overall. They have hired chefs to create the menu and items, are trying their best to be environmentally friendly (no plastic straws or take-away coffee cups) and are trying to be fully inclusive of all people.

For Halloween we went out to dinner at Veg Out, a local vegan restaurant, which fronts the Kamogawa and has views over the river and to the east hills (our home area). Part of the reason for this is we knew that this year the night of Halloween was also the night of a blue moon (the 2^nd full moon of the month). So, we were in the perfect position to watch moon-rise, and it was a clear night.

The lights in the sky are reflections of the internal lights on the window, not UFOs!

After this we went to a bar just up the road, which is a craft beer establishment. I’m not a beer drinker, but they usually have a cider on tap…except this night. They did have, however, a citrus beer which I tried and liked. I like this place; the décor is very interesting, with a lot of tiles used as a decorative feature, and they play good music. On arrival we had to sanitise our hands and our temperatures were taken, which they were strict about and which I find comforting, not an infringement of my rights. We invited our friends to join us, which they did at the bar. We had fun – oh, I forgot to mention I was dressed up, as a witch of course 😊.

Fuzzed out to protect the innocent…

The witch is in the house/bar

Before I go, I thought I’d mention one trial I had to go through during October – my driver’s licence came up for renewal. For some reason licences are set to be renewed as of your birthday, though they give you a month to do so. Craig had already been through the process, so I knew what I was up for, a two hour lecture on road safety as it was the first time we had renewed our licences here. Apparently everyone in this position has to go through this torture, along with those who have received fines for road offences and been in accidents (I think).

We left home at midday and arrived home after 4pm. I stood in various queues for over an hour, the first one being the majority of the time, and then had to sit through the lecture, which was in Japanese and included two video presentations. There were just under fifty people in my lecture group and there were other lecture rooms. Some of the people in my group fell asleep (all men, I believe). I stayed awake. Thankfully the nightmares have stopped…(kidding, I survived ok).

Oh, I forgot one thing. Since we moved here there have been some things we missed, and people of course, but the one item of food we have really craved, believe it or not, is Cornish pasties (veg, of course). Recently Craig bit the bullet and tried out making pastry using some added gluten in the flour – for some reason the flour here is really soft, so it is no good for pastry, or many other baked goods, without. They were good, even if one broke open!

Cheers

The last of Halloween, for this year…

The only Close Encounters of the Animal Kind were all deer

Couldn’t resist

You know who this is for…yes, you!

Lights – how mod…

Ah, of course

Not sure but only in Kyoto?

I had to find some flowers

I knew it was coming, but it’s still a shock when it’s so early, and, yes, it is constructed of real wood

Oh?

Bonjour mes amis! No, I haven’t turned French, I just thought I’d find a way to start that I haven’t used before and since the Japanese are such Francophiles it seemed somehow appropriate (in my head, although now I think about it a bit more…).

Anyway, here we are again sitting around having a chat about how we have been passing the time (a rather one-way discussion) when day to day life has been so thoroughly upended. Starting with the weather…well, something else that is rather different this year. We have had a very sudden change from hot to much cooler, especially overnight temperatures. Abruptly we have quilts on our beds – from no covering and the fan on most nights to this! Also, the toilet seat heater is now definitely switched on. Of course it does make for much more pleasant walking weather, so we have been taking advantage of that.

We have been for a few walks too, at least one of which was to a place we have never been. One of the other walks was meant to be to a new destination, but it turned out that the path we took just led us back to a point we had been before – more about that later.

Firstly, despite yet again thinking there would be nothing to talk about, we have had some more ‘Close Encounters of the Animal Kind’. To be precise, all of them have been ‘…of the Insect Kind’. The first is the Red Helen butterfly, of which a few have been visiting our garden recently. It seems the geisha flowers and the lantana flowers are big drawcards for flying insects of all kinds – the gift that keeps on giving. I got some photos of one of the Helens and noticed when reviewing my photos that this one was missing part of one of its wings ☹.

The next encounter occurred as we were walking over to the station area, just past the Kamo bridge. In fact, I nearly trod on it – a huge green caterpillar which was heading towards the road. I had to rescue it, of course, otherwise it would never have survived to the adult stage of life. It had a spiky tail on one end, so I was being careful, just in case it had some toxic chemical in it. Anyway, after several attempts at picking it up (it was not happy about me touching it) I decided to try using a leaf, which was successful, and so it ended up in a safer place.

It was bright green, around 8cms in length and had some very interesting markings. Unfortunately I didn’t get a photo, but on our return home I checked in with the electronic oracle and discovered that the caterpillar of the Oleander Hawk-moth fits this description. So, below are some photos of both the caterpillar and the rather beautiful moth.

The final encounter worth covering is the glorious Hummingbird Moth. We had one visit our garden last year, and again we have seen just one this year. It was slightly different to last year’s visitor, somewhat smaller and not as brightly coloured – its tail was darker – but still just as amazing. I did manage to get some photos…just. They move so fast I had to take around twenty shots just to actually capture it.

Nearly…

Now, to our discovery walks; the first involved a follow-up on a previous walk to Fushimi Inari. You may remember there was a mysterious set of stairs up a hill at the back of the shrine mountain which I just had to find out where they led. Yes, indeed, things like this sit in the back of my mind until I am able to resolve them, one way or another. The change of weather meant that it was time to explore. It was a lovely day for a walk, and walking through a forested area is one of my favourite things to do, which is lucky, because it turned out the stairs led to another of the trails around the mountain, one which we had walked before. Oh well, exercise, fresh air and natural beauty, what more could you want?

The second exploratory adventure came about via me looking at a map of Kyoto trying to find places we hadn’t been before. I noticed a very large green area some distance north of our home, called Takaragaike park. It actually involved a train ride to reach it, but the park itself is nearly 63 hectares, so plenty of room to walk around. The park surrounds Takaragaike Lake, which is a purpose-made, artificial lake dating from the 18th century. It was built mainly to provide a regular supply of water for the area’s rice fields.

Initially, it was only a small pond created by damming spring water, but it is believed to have reached its present size by the end of the Edo period. During World War II, a plan for the development of the park was developed, originally as a Bouku Ryokuchi, or evacuation area, for people to avoid air raids and to prevent fire from spreading into urban areas. In 1961 it was decided to build a conference centre at the park, and the Kyoto International Conference Centre was completed in 1966. The centre was designed by architect Sachio Otani with an unusual hexagonal framework, which resulted in few columns or vertical walls.

The centre was expanded in 1973 and, as it happens, they are now talking about expanding it further to accommodate double the number of conference delegates, which, by coincidence, was a news item on the night we visited the park. This centre is where the Kyoto Protocol was agreed and signed in 1997. The building is truly amazing to see – very scfi-fi like in design. It is huge and looks like the headquarters for a league of superheroes and giant robots (like Gundam).

‘Life-size’ statue of Gundam in Tokyo

As we walked around the lake, after dragging ourselves away from the conference centre, we were admiring the views and how really natural the lake looked, when we started hearing some music. I wasn’t sure if it was recorded or being played live for an audience. As it turned out, it was a man sitting on the shore of the lake practicing playing a shamisen, which also included him singing in some songs. He was very good and it was an absolute pleasure strolling along the forest path, next to the lake listening to his music.

Nice place for practice

The park has many built structures, such as wooden platforms and gazebos, for people to enjoy the views while picnicking. There is even a bird hide constructed near a small pond away from the lake, with some boards attached showing names and drawings of birds which inhabit the area. A very thoughtfully designed and constructed park, which has large forested areas and even has a horse stable area which was formerly the home for a racing stable exclusively for the use of the Heian cavalry. The area is now used by the Kyoto Prefectural Police Department to house the horses which are used for patrol work and traffic safety campaigns. We will be going back to enjoy a picnic there in the near future.

Before I sign off, I just thought I’d mention a gift we found at our front door on returning home from one of our outings. It was a paper bag with some sweet potatoes and other food items inside. On the front of the bag was a little drawing of a face, with the words “From Nezu…mother’s sweet potato”, one of our neighbours 😊.

Cheers and Happy Halloween for later this month (which is the same night as a blue moon!!!)

Halloween items for your dog…

and, of course, Halloween toilet paper…

A bunch of grapes for ¥2,480!

More late flowering plants at home

Some glorious sunsets – even through the shoji

Colour!

Fabulous fungi

Lovely patterning

  Patterned bark too

You know summer has come to an end when the grass is in full seed

…and as I was saying, hasn’t this been a crazy year so far?

Hello! Tis me returning with another month’s worth of “what have we been doing recently?” I hope you are all well and weathering the weirdness of this time as best you can. We are still not doing much, although we have had one guest stay here! She only stayed for one night, but even that was a nice change. She was a Japanese person, from Osaka, and she was here to get away from everything prior to getting down to some serious study for an English exam, which she needs to pass to enable her to migrate to Canada. A lovely person and she said she might bring her family here to stay after her exam…fingers crossed.

The last month here has been hot, hot, hot. I think we have had only one day below 35 (and even then it was around 34), but still we are not getting the super humidity that we have experienced in the previous few years. We have had a few fabulous thunderstorms and now we are getting some typhoon action – number 10 is just passing west of us at the moment, which may bring us some heavy rain.

Typhoon 10 – as big as Honshu

Another thing I have noticed since the end of the rain is the summer clouds. It just wouldn’t be summer here without the giant meringue clouds. Those great towering white behemoths are quite awe inspiring and beautiful. They are also harbingers of thunderstorms, though not always. None-the-less the sight of them always makes me feel happy.

Last month I introduced a new segment ‘Close Encounters of the Animal Kind’, which came about because we kept having interesting animals visiting our yard, as well as seeing some while we were out and about. I didn’t expect it could keep going monthly, though I was hoping to see a Tanuki up close. Unfortunately that has yet to happen, though I am not giving up. I have to report, though, that we have indeed had more up close encounters!

Firstly, I have to report that the Red Helens keep coming to our yard, to visit the Geisha and Lantana flowers, which makes me smile every time 😊. There has also been many visits from a different swallowtail butterfly, which is yellow and black, but not as big as the Helen. In fact, I saw two of them flying around together yesterday, so I’m hoping we may have some more next year.

There have been other members of the insect family visiting – the first being a Japanese Giant Mantis (called ookamakiri here). The one in our garden, who was enjoying our vegetables for some time, was around 11cms in length, with very large green eyes. The other frequent (almost daily) visitor is a Carpenter Bee, which loves the Geisha flowers. This one appears to be all black and about 2cms in length. It’s abdomen is shiny, unlike the bumblebee. These are solitary bees, which usually build their nests in wood, mainly dead wood, hence the name.

Notice the partially eaten leaves…

We have also had a couple of four-legged visitors. One of these is another Japanese Weasel (itachi), which we only knew was there because Ziggy went after it. He was on a lead attached to a heavy chair outside, and in his attempt to get the weasel he nearly pulled over the chair. The weasel, however, was incredibly fast and I suspect would be a rather fearsome fighter, so lucky Ziggy couldn’t get to it. This is about the third or fourth time we have seen one in our backyard recently, so I am beginning to think that it may live nearby, or even in our backyard. There is a hole at the base of the stone wall, which has been partially blocked up, but more than big enough to accommodate a weasel, and now the entrance is hidden behind some plants…

The last visitor was rather less expected – a Japanese Badger – well, actually two of them initially. It was late at night and very quiet outside, when all of a sudden we heard…noises which sounded like two squeaky toys fighting! We rushed to the back deck door, turning on the light in time to see the two fighting, with the loser then running away down the side of our house. The spoils??? Our fig tree, yet again. I watched it, as best I could see with the badger being dark in colour, climbing around in the fig tree. Unfortunately as it was night there are no photos, but I have included a couple of photos from the internet, for visual reference.

Yet again, this month, we haven’t done overly much, this time because of the heat rather than it being wet. We undertook two recreational outings, one at night and the other involving a visit to the mountains (both being cooler options 😊). Prior to these, we went to a birthday celebration for a woman we have met here. She and her husband are here on a scholarship and are from Israel. She is researching and writing an anthropology thesis.

About ten of us had a picnic dinner and drinks on the banks of the Kamo river to celebrate her 31^st birthday, which was very pleasant. It was definitely a mixed crowd of mostly women from many different countries; Israel, Mongolia, Nepal, Iran, Malaysia, Japan and, of course, Australia. It was nice to meet such a diverse range of women, most of them studying. We had an interesting discussion about Zoroastrians, amongst other topics!

The birthday girl learning a dance

Our night-time visit was to Nijo-jo, which was being lit up during the month of August. We started the evening by going to a restaurant we hadn’t been to for quite a while, which serves Taiwanese style veg food. The food was, as always, fabulous and this time there was a really nice young man serving who was from England but had a Japanese mother, so spoke both English and Japanese very well. Interestingly, he a very ‘posh’ English accent having grown up in Oxford. Following that pleasantness, we walked to Nijo-jo to stand in a queue for what ended up being around an hour, but then we are in Japan and they are the world champions at queuing.

We got there around half an hour before opening to make sure we got in, because they were limiting the number who could enter to ensure social distancing (which has become a term here – ソーシャル・ディスタンシング). Once we got our tickets we had to change lines to go in the gate, before which we had to load some tracking software (in case of the need to track everyone for a positive test in someone) and have our temperature taken.

Inside we received a lantern to carry with us and walked through areas which were lit to highlight certain parts of the grounds, along with a video of fireworks being displayed on one of the giant stone keep walls and some stations which produced bubbles filled with incense smoke (so that when they popped it smelled beautiful). The bubbles were underlit with coloured light, so looked quite spectacular as they poured out of the machines. All quite ethereal.

Our visit to the mountains took us to the villages of Kibune and then Kurama. We decided to again attempt the climb from Kibune village across the mountain to Kurama-dera and then have lunch at the veg restaurant in Kurama, at the base of the temple grounds. There was a slight hitch to our plans, though, because we didn’t know repairs were being undertaken on the Kurama train line. This meant we could only get to Ichihara station, which is three stops before Kibune. At the station we were directed to a bus station about 300m away, for a bus which took us to near the Kibune train station, at which point we had to change buses to get to Kibune, around 2kms away.

At Kibune we decided to visit Kifune Shrine which we had never been to before, than head up and over the mountain to Kuruma-dera – over 2kms, mostly up. It is somewhat strenuous doing the climb in this direction – much easier from the other direction, and as we climbed quite a few people passed us going in the other direction. When we reached the main temple hall of Kurama-dera, there was no-one else there. It was a very strange sight because it is a very popular temple with the Japanese. Anyway, it gave me plenty of time on the point of power in front of the hall, after which we descended to Kurama village and the restaurant. I always love having lunch there, and especially so after that exertion! We also got to see the new Tengu installation, which replaced the previous one damaged in the typhoon two years ago (hard to believe it was that long ago…).

Summer seating over the river

I was so hungry…

On a more mundane note, one of the interesting things about our life here is the fact we live on a short, dead-end road (a roji), which actually has no name. This sometimes causes issues when trying to give directions to get to our B&B, especially as the road our road runs off of also has no name…Anyway, our no name road is having some work done on it this week, to replace the storm water drains (we think). This is going to require the entire road be dug up, creating a problem re access to our home. There are no footpaths and the road is very narrow, one car wide, so for the duration we have had to move our car to a nearby temple carpark, which they have organised. Complications of life living in one of the old areas.

Just before I sign off, I should mention that Halloween has entered the shops already, which, as you should all know, I love!!! (and Craig fears as I see so many things I would love to buy 😊) Yet again Costco has some amazing Halloween items, including a 2m tall werewolf (WOW!). Scarily, there are hints of xmas also appearing, and so I leave you with some photos of the Petemo xmas catalogue for your pets, highlighting the xmas cake ranges for cats and dogs, and a range of pet hors d’oeuvres……………….

Cheers!

I’ve recently taken to taking photos of us in trains, because there’s so few people in them it’s weird. Anyway, didn’t notice the two in the background had photo bombed until I checked the photos before writing the post!!!! Hilarious. Not normally something that happens here.

Interesting names for wine – huggy, or crass?

No words…

Love an apricot sky

Two years on, and they’re still dealing with the aftermath. Firewood anyone?

Dry arrangements

From the upstairs window

Looks like a brain, or maybe coral?

The long hot summer

Hello everyone!!! Here I am again in front of a blank screen, gathering my thoughts. I often start by reviewing what I wrote in the previous post, which I have just done and I promise to start this post in a much more positive way 😊. No, things haven’t improved in any way (in fact, things seem to be getting worse…) but the sun is out now, and has been so for a few days, which has definitely lifted my mood.

Yes, the rainy season finally ended on the weekend, after two months, and it has been sunny and quite warm ever since. We are having days of mid-30s and higher every day, however, it still isn’t overly humid, thank goodness. The last month consisted of rainy days with about one day of sun per week. The rain was quite heavy at times – the heaviest we had here was a one hour period of over 33mm.

We also had a few thunderstorms, which made me happy but the kids hated. Poor Miro, she really found the heavy rain very scary and with the thunderstorms on top of this, well, she just hid as best she could. One interesting side-effect of the extended rainy season (and even the Japanese said it was unusually long) is that the sound of summer, courtesy of the cicadas, didn’t commence until the last few days of the rain – a few intrepid souls started then, with the majority joining the chorus after the rain completely stopped.

And on a nature and creatures note, in a new segment, which I am calling Close Encounters of the Animal Kind, I have to report that yet again during this month we have had some close encounters with local creatures, while at home! The first visitor to our garden was a Japanese Weasel – possibly a return visit, or this may have been a new weasel, hard to tell as both were seen from within our living area as they ran through.

The second visit was by a female Macaque and her juvenile, who appeared to be fully weaned and was moving around independently. Yes, it was a quite a shock when it occurred! We were in our living area (as so often we were during the wet time), when we heard a very loud bang outside, followed by a couple more. I said something along the lines of “WTF was that?” Craig, looking outside, said it was a monkey on our deck roof (which is see-through), at which I immediately raced to get the camera (as I do when something unusual like this happens 😂).

She walked across the deck roof and was checking the fig tree while I was trying to get photos through the door, which is double glazed with cross hatched wire in the outer glass (fire regulations here), so it was quite difficult but I knew I couldn’t make any noise and I was trying to stay out of line of view, because I knew she would be spooked. Well, she finally did see me and went back across the roof and climbed to the balcony. I ran upstairs (quietly) and went in to the first room to go to the balcony, just in time to see both her and another, smaller monkey climb onto a neighbour’s roof.

With the thought that they would be back for the figs, I put a couple of cucumbers outside, near the mochi bowl water feature – a good place for a photo 😊. Some time later they did return, this time via the roof of the kiln behind our house. They spent some time in the fig tree (breaking one of the branches), then the mother must have spotted the cucumbers, because she climbed down into our back yard, grabbed a cucumber, rinsed it and then started eating it. Photo opportunity achieved! I got one through the window, then tried to open it quietly…but failed. So, she joined her offspring on the kiln roof.

Later they climbed down to the ground, then onto the next door flat balcony balustrade and finally our roof. Not sure where they went after that. A few days later we awoke to find a gift left by one of them on our deck roof. We hadn’t heard them, which is surprising for me, since I awaken at the least noise. The last time we know they had been in our yard was a few days later, when we arrived home to find the remains of a couple of cucumbers behind our car and all of the ripe tomatoes on our bushes stripped. The cucumbers came from our neighbour, Mrs Takeuchi’s vegetable garden.

The final recent visitor to our yard, which we have never seen before, is a Damselfly. In fact, I have never seen one before anywhere here, that I can think of. It is as beautiful as a dragonfly and a similar size, at around 6cms. It has two pairs of black wings and a long deep green (borderline black) body. We have seen it over a number of days recently, hopefully filling up on the multitude mosquitoes around here. Yesterday we went to a hardware shop to buy a bowl, which are often used here for growing lotus, to try to create a breeding area for it…fingers crossed.

The four wings fold together then spread separately as it flies

Onto our major outings for the month, which were limited to two due to the inclement weather. We had seen a poster a while back for an exhibition of embroidery at a museum near Kiyomizudera, which looked really interesting. So, after some research to find out where it was, and waiting for a clear day to walk there, we went to the Sannenzaka Museum, which houses works of traditional Japanese crafts, including metalwork, cloisonné, makie lacquerwork and Kyoto Satsuma ware.

Wow! Stunningly beautiful works are housed there and I am a huge fan of cloisonné and Satsuma ware, in particular. Unfortunately, photographs are not allowed in the museum (and there are no books containing details of the permanent exhibits), so I have copied some of the few photos from their website for this. The special exhibition consisted of Meiji art embroidery and Yuzen-dyed cut velvet works (applying dye directly to the fabric by hand), both of which were very much Kyoto based techniques. Some amazing creations, but again no pictorial catalogue. One of the best things about this museum was that they had exhibits with step-by-step displays of how these crafts are created.

I would really like to have this one…

Amazing embroidery, took my breath away when I saw it. I would also like this…

The other outing involved a longish train journey to Hyogo prefecture, to visit a building/museum that we first saw on tv and have been waiting to go to for a while – Yodoko Guest House, architect Frank Lloyd Wright. I knew he had been in Japan early in the 1900s, because there are some of his works in Tokyo. What I didn’t know is that he had lived here for a while, and designed 14 buildings while here, including the US Embassy.

So, we waited for a rain-free day (which turned out to be gloriously sunny) when it was open to the public and set off for Hyogo. The place was as good as I expected, maybe even better. I had always wanted to see something of his, but thought we would have to travel to America, which I am not overly interested in doing otherwise. Anyway, fantastic to wander around inside and see some of his furniture designs along with the actual buildings themselves. The level of detail is phenomenal – truly a feast for the eyes. Interestingly, along the same road Yodoko House is situated on, there were many examples of really interesting design, as if the architects have been inspired by the location of the houses.

Speaking of design, a number of friends had mentioned they had recently watched a couple of programs by a gardening guru, Monty Don, which were about Japanese garden design. We tried to get them through ABC iView, but were blocked because of our location (we can only see some programs through there – something to do with regionality). Anyway, Craig finally found a way to see them, through a site with BBC programs on it, so we were able to watch them.

They were interesting, especially as at least three of the gardens are ones we visit regularly in Kyoto, two of which are close walking distance from us. We have also visited a number of the others he showed, though none of the gardens in Tokyo – we haven’t spent overly much time in Tokyo during our journeys here, preferring more regional areas. Thankyou to those who mentioned him – it is always fascinating seeing places you know well through other’s eyes.

On a final note, a short story that I meant to mention last time but forgot to. Before the ‘second wave’ hit, the Japanese Govt had been talking about connecting with other countries which had similarly low Covid numbers, to try to stimulate some movement between them, initially for business travel but ultimately to revive some tourism. Anyway, there were four countries they were initially concentrating on – Thailand, Vietnam, New Zealand and Australia. This was being reported on the news over a few days, and, as the Japanese have a way of doing, they put up photos to illustrate the story – four photos each representing one country: Thailand, a Thai temple; Vietnam, a rice paddy (I think); Australia, the Opera House; and New Zealand…some sheep!!!!!! Well, we both nearly fell on the floor laughing when we saw this. Hilarious. I suppose they couldn’t think what else to show about New Zealand? Sorry New Zealand, but we just loved this and every time it came on it had the same affect.

!!!!!

And on that note – Cheers!

Two of the nearby houses

Interesting clock at the train station in Hyogo, and one for the ‘person-hole spotters’!

A model of the Yodoko Guest house

It’s all about the detail

Clouds upon clouds

Summer and kakigori – shaved ice dessert – at a really interesting cafe

The last of the lotus…

(my hand for size reference)

New frog statue to replace the Buddha Miro beheaded

New water bowl with papyrus plant for the damselfly (which has now disappeared – doesn’t like the bowl?)

Checking for monkeys…

So, here we are in the second half of the year and no sign of the virus situation easing up… In fact, it seems young people (20 – 40 yrs), combined with the governments in some countries (including here) which are deciding that saving the economies of their respective countries is more important than any other consideration, are giving the ‘second waves’ a red hot go. The only slight problem with all of this is that it is likely to damage the respective economies a lot more in the long run by reopening too early than staying in lockdown mode for a bit longer – and I say this as a small business owner that is watching any prospect of our business reviving in the near term fly right out of the window (of opportunity).

Anyway, as there is very little I can do about it except try my best not to get the virus and if I indeed did happen to become infected, then spread it further either knowingly or in a ‘Typhoid Mary’ kind of way. As I can’t let all of this get to me I just keep taking one day at a time; and so, to the weather. At the moment we are experiencing what it is like to have a full rainy season in Kyoto. Over the last month at least half of the days have been rainy, some consisting of light but consistent showers and others where we have had fairly heavy rain – at least 20mm in an hour the other night. This, however, pales into insignificance when compared to the recent rain in Kumamoto (in Kyushu), where they had 116mm in one hour, and around 500mm over 24 hours.

On the night with the heavy rain, we could actually hear it, which is unusual, since we normally can’t hear the rain at all. I discovered then that Miro is afraid of heavy rain, and spent a few hours soothing her. Despite all the rain, it still hasn’t been overly humid, with yesterday feeling the most humid it has been so far this summer. We have only resorted to having the aircon on once to date, and that was for a short while on one higher temperature day after coming home from the gym. Otherwise, we are using the fan when necessary, which certainly helps to keep the bills down a bit.

Moving on to our month of activities, yet again we have mainly been out looking at flowers, and nature generally, although we did visit a museum recently, now that they are all reopening. We also participated in a BLM march held here in Kyoto, which was really fantastic. We found out about the march via Instagram, which the organisers used along with other social media to get the word out. They were very organised about it, insisting we all wear masks and asking us to download the Covid tracking app which has recently been released in Japan. They also made sure we marched three abreast, in lines, which most people did.

While it is a constitutional right of all Japanese people to participate in peaceful marches, they still have to be organised in conjunction with the police, and the police participate during the march in terms of directing the marchers and traffic to ensure no issues occur. The meet-up point was in Maruyama Park and we then proceeded to City Hall, which is just under 2km, with the route taking us along two main roads in the centre of the city. I wasn’t sure there would be many people participating, given we’re in Kyoto which is fairly conservative (despite the Communists being the most supported party here…they are very nationalistic). On the day there were at least 1,000 people marching, which was marvellous, and despite some bemused onlookers we also received a lot of support from the sides.

Our first botanically oriented visit this month took us to Ohara and the beautiful Sanzenin temple grounds, with the intention of seeing the huge hydrangea area there. We also invited a couple we know here to come with us, since they hadn’t been there before. It was a lovely warm, sunny day and there were very few people at the temple, which was a bonus, and consequently we had a lovely time wandering through the extensive garden at our own pace and in relative quiet, so we could hear all the birds and other creatures. Unfortunately it was a little too early to get the full glory of the hydrangeas, but it is such a wonderful place it didn’t really matter.

(yes, I know, shade into light…)

Speaking of creatures, in my last post I described our encounters with some large creatures. This time we encountered the other end of the scale, seeing many tiny frogs and some tiny crabs. This is interesting not only because they were so tiny, but also because we have been up to Ohara and Sanzenin many times and never seen any of the local wildlife. I assume that the significant reduction in the number of people visiting has meant the animals feel safer being more out in the open.

The first creatures we saw were actually in the carpark we usually park in. There is a very tall sheer wall at the back of the parking area, with a wide drain at the bottom which always has water in it. We had reversed into the park (as you always do here, no matter which carpark you are in) and I went to the back to get my parasol out. As I was about to step behind the car I noticed a sudden movement and luckily caught myself in time before treading on the grass there. It turned out to be a tiny brown frog, about 3cm in length. At that point I noticed a number of other frogs in and around the drain, along with some tiny crabs (Japanese fresh water crab), which were about 3cm in width across the brownish shell, while their legs were orange.

Along the path up to the temple there is a creek and a fence dividing the two (perhaps to prevent cars driving in there?). On the top of one of the posts there was a tiny green frog – a Japanese tree frog – which was slightly smaller than the brown frogs, at about 2.5cm in length. Inside the temple grounds we noticed many other little frogs and could hear what sounded like some larger frogs making their presence known. We also saw a snake! It was on one of the small islands in one of the ponds in the grounds, had full length reddish stripes along it’s dark body and was about 2m in length. It turns out this is a Japanese Rat Snake, which is the largest snake in Japan, outside of Okinawa. It was really beautiful.

One final wildlife encounter I must mention, even though it was about 100m from where we were standing, was a Tanuki!!! I have been trying to see a tanuki in the wild since we first came to Japan, but to no avail. Recently we were at the Princessline bus stop, which is close to the base of the hill leading to Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s mausoleum, and it was around 6:00pm. I was looking towards the hill waiting for the bus (which comes from that direction) when I saw a smallish animal run across the end of the road. It looked about large cat size, but the head was different – bigger and squarer – and it had an unusual colouring, with a sandy coloured torso and black legs and head. It also didn’t move like a cat. I, of course got very excited because I guessed it may have been a tanuki, especially since we had been told by a neighbour that she had seen a tanuki close by recently. So, Craig found photos of tanukis via the electronic oracle and they were exactly the same. I wish I could have got a photo, but I’m now thinking of going on a tanuki hunting party in the near future! (Be vewy, vewy quiet…)

That night we were catching a bus into town to go to Engine Ramen, one of my favourite places to eat in Kyoto, although we had heard that it may have closed permanently… Well, the information was correct, unfortunately. I have now contacted the owner via Instagram and expressed my dismay, and he indicated there may be a chance it will re-open at a new location later this year – maybe. I’m crossing my fingers. In the meantime we went to Ain Soph for a burger and bought a takeaway “cheesecake” (because we were full but I really wanted to try it – verdict: yum).

Continuing with our restaurant visiting regime, we also went to Veg Out and Mumokuteki during the month, both of which are veg and very popular, so not at risk of closing down. After visiting VegOut we walked home through Chisakuin, which is the large temple close to our home, and which has a large hydrangea garden at the back. They were in full bloom, so it topped off a nice lunch very well 😊.

The view from VegOut

Prior to visiting Mumokuteki, we went to the Raku Museum, which is a private museum dedicated to pottery, mainly raku ware which was first developed by an ancestor of the owners, Chōjirō, who was a tile maker in the 16^th century and was commissioned to make some hand formed bowls for the developing tea ceremony. Raku ware (raku-yaki) is a type of Japanese pottery traditionally used in Japanese tea ceremonies, most often in the form of tea bowls. It is characterised by being hand-shaped rather than thrown and are fairly porous vessels, which result from low firing temperatures, using lead glazes and removing the pieces from the kiln while still glowing hot to cool in the open air. As I love the style of the raku ware bowls, and we hadn’t been to this museum before, I thought it would be an interesting first visit after all the closures. It was a lovely place, and while not cheap, it was amazing to think this family had been making pots continuously since the 1500s.

This bowl is called Nekowaride and was made by the current head of the family. It is called this because it was broken one day by a cat that his dog was chasing through his workshop. He loved this bowl and was very upset by it’s demise, so his wife took the pieces to be repaired. Apparently he loved the new form more than the original, so much so that he felt thankful to the cat for breaking it!

The final visit for this blog happened somewhat by accident, in that we went to Toji hoping the antiques market would be on (hoping to buy a replacement for the Buddha statue which was accidentally beheaded by Miro when she tried to climb it to reach a dragonfly and it fell backwards into the drain…), but regrettably it was not. Fortuitously, however, the lotus are just coming into flower now, and Toji has a lovely lotus pond, so we spent some time there admiring the flowers and watching the turtles, of which there were many.

It’s at times like all of these that I realise how wonderful it is to be able to visit so many gardens and see just how beautiful and fascinating nature can be, especially here in Kyoto.

Cheers!

A new shikishi

I just liked the reflection in the sunglasses…

They have a system for it in Osaka?

Some mask shots – the new normal…

This business wear shop has some very interesting mannequins, and they move them around weekly. Also, more masks…

Interesting marking on this tree. Not sure what has caused them.

River turkey and raging river after some heavy rain

The garden before heavy rain

After heavy rain and one hydrangea had collapsed. One of the flower heads inside.

On the way to the museum – some interesting things.

Just gorgeous flowers…

We see many cars here with collections lined up on the dash

Hello and welcome to Kyoto in summer – early summer, that is, so we haven’t reached the mushi mushi ‘walking puddle’ part of summer yet, but it is coming as surely as I love cats (and all animals, really). Having said all that, this means we have reached the end of May, which, as always, is the most beautiful month of the year weather-wise. Warm, mostly sunny and not humid. In terms of the continuing flower show which is Kyoto, May also brings us azaleas, irises, peonies, roses and multitude annuals which the folk of Kyoto love planting in pots at the front of their houses.

May really is the month of acceleration for all life here, not just the plant life, but also the animal life with the bird song all around us (and one bird I am yet to identify, which sounds almost exactly like the Australian Lyre bird [when it isn’t mimicking a multiplicity of other birds and any other sound it hears]).

We have had close encounters with a few of the insects at home during this time, including some wasps which we do try to avoid getting too close to. The wasps here vary in size from small bee up to the very scary giant hornets which grow up to around 5cms and can be lethal to humans. Recently they have become known as the ‘murder hornets’ in America, as they have found their way there and are causing fear not so much for the ability to kill humans (although that is also a concern) as for their delectation of eating bees.

Actually, the other encounters have been with some additional giants – the Red Helen butterfly and the Giant Japanese Dragonfly. The butterfly happened to be hanging around a plant we have next to the deck door just as I went to check on Ziggy outside. I, of course, went into a fluster rushing to get my phone to finally get a photo of it, nearly falling over in the process… Anyway, I managed to get a few photos before it flew away, which enabled me to confirm that it was, indeed, a Red Helen (which, of course, made me happy 😊). The Red Helen has a wing span of between 11 and 13cms. It really is huge.

It did not stop moving the entire time I watched it…

The next encounter was with the dragonfly, which had landed on one of the window screens of the dining room. I again rushed to get my phone for a photo, although I needn’t have because it stayed in the same position for well over an hour, including when we were getting up close to take some detail shots of it. This giant grows between 9.5 and 10cms in length.

My hand for reference

(yes, and Craig reflected in the window…)

We did have one other encounter with a giant, but this was not an insect and not at home. It occurred when we visited the Kyoto Botanical Garden, during one of our two major outings this month, both of which involved visiting gardens and taking many (many) photos of flowers 😊. The botanical garden is quite a long way away from home, but it is definitely worth the effort. It had been closed for a couple of months because of a viral epidemic you may have heard of, but it had re-opened late in May so we took the opportunity to visit, hoping to see the peonies. Unfortunately we were a little too late for them, with only a few blooms left.

That’s all there was – the last one looked like a head of lettuce!

We also had thought the hydrangeas might be well into opening, since ours at home were getting close, but that, too, was not to be, though there were some. What was fully in bloom were the roses, which I am not so much a fan of (I’m with Morticia on this one), but I have to say the collection they have there includes some colour schemes I have never seen before. The one thing I do like about some roses is the scent, but sadly we didn’t find any that had any scent at all – even what looked like Blue Moon had no scent whatsoever, unlike the bushes we had at home in Adelaide (yes, well, they are a blue/purple colour, they smell beautiful and the bushes were already there when we bought the house).

So, what giant creature(s) did we encounter there???? Tadpoles. Yes, having got off the train one station too early (Kitaoji, instead of Kitayama and I wasn’t listening carefully enough), we entered the garden through a different gate and found ourselves in a section of the garden we hadn’t seen before, which included a smallish lotus and iris pond. As a lover of both, I stopped to take photos and as I squatted to photograph a lotus I noticed some creatures swimming in the pond, which I initially mistook for fish. On second glance I realised that they were in fact huge tadpoles, significantly bigger than any I have ever seen at around 15cms in length!

I’m not sure how well you’ll be able to see them in this photo, but I can count at least 10 tadpoles.

Having investigated this oddity using the electronic oracle, I have come to the conclusion they (and there were dozens of them) were American bullfrog tadpoles. Apparently they were deliberately imported to Japan decades ago. Interestingly, they stay in the tadpole phase for around three years (or sometimes more), only growing legs towards the end of this period. I did see some with back legs, but none I saw had visible front legs. I have no idea what will happen to them once they become frogs – though there are plenty of wet areas, both small lakes and creeks within the garden area. I imagine it will get quite noisy once they reach this stage.

Some of the other wet areas

The other botanical visit was a return visit to the Heian Jingu shrine garden, to see the irises in bloom. We have previously been there to see the Dutch irises, but never the bearded irises, and I have to say it was magical. I literally took in a breath when we came to the pond where thousands of these irises are planted. It was possibly the most beautiful sight (in terms of flowers) I have ever seen, but then irises are my favourite flowers (my wedding bouquet consisted of just irises). Looking at the photos I took, they don’t really do it justice, and there definitely aren’t enough superlatives. I could have sat there for hours just taking it in, but the two benches were occupied and I think Craig wouldn’t have quite appreciated it in the same way. So, we continued on through the gardens and appreciated the silence and lack of other people there. I can tell you I kept feeling a strong pull to go back there, though.

ducks instead of people

Feeding the carp and turtles…the carp are bullies!

The bridge walkway empty – a very rare sight.

After we left Heian, we walked up to a vegan restaurant called Café Ren, about 2kms away. We went through the back streets, which is nearly always more interesting, and this path took us through a very upmarket area (many BMWs and Mercedes, etc, in driveways). The houses were mostly amazing and it certainly was a very pleasant half hour walk. The other amazing thing is we passed a business that produces headstones and other items for temples and cemeteries and lo and behold out the front was a small granite Ojizousan, which I had been looking to buy for our backyard for many months – and there it was. It was exactly what I had been looking for, better in fact, because it was a carved stone jizou, and it was affordable. So, now I have Ojizousan residing amongst the bamboo in our Zen garden.

Ojizousan

In residence

During this period of ‘iso’ (Australian vernacular for isolation…apparently) we have been making an effort to visit one restaurant per week for lunch (both take-out and eat-in more recently), in part to keep making contact with the owners we know and also to help support their businesses during this difficult time. We need them as much as they need us, so it is important to try to ensure their continued existence. We are a community of fairly like minded people and the ones we know personally are very supportive of us.

Take-out from Padma (finally)

Eat-in at Muku

Eat-in at Towzen (ramen and eggplant sushi)

Eat-in at Cafe Ren

One last item before I sign off – recently our doorbell rang and Craig answered it to find one of our neighbours outside, a member of the Takeuchi family. They are the family who run the pottery across the road from us and we often see them as they move between their homes, the pottery and the kiln building. We are following the man who came to the door on Instagram and he puts up frequent posts about the items he is making. A recent post had a selection of four small sake cups which he had just made as a test run, and was asking which of the colour schemes he was testing people liked the most.

I responded and said that I liked the green and purple colour scheme (anyone surprised???). Anyway, when Craig answered the door he handed Craig one of these sake cups, in the scheme I liked. He said it had a fault on it, but he thought I would like it. As you can imagine, I was stunned to receive this gift. BTW, the fault is a small run of one of the colours, hardly noticeable, but not perfect for sale. Yet again I am touched by the generosity of spirit that so many Japanese have. He also gave us a Maneki Neko house warming gift that he made (and which is very expensive to buy) when we opened, so I made sure I gave him a gift this time. He subsequently posted a photo of it on Instagram saying he will look after it. Lovely.

The fault is on the other side…

Cheers and keep on dancing (or drinking, or both)!

Some of the other plants at the Botanical Garden:

Allium, believe it or not (another giant!)

Clematis, another favourite

These shots are from our home garden:

I knew it!!!

Kawaii is everywhere

Having got off the train one stop early, we had to cross the river somewhere!

Oh dear…

Never miss opportunities

Miro continues to relax

…

Hello fellow ‘isolationers’! Here we are keeping ourselves away from as many people as possible, pretty much like the hikikomori (reclusive Japanese adolescents or adults who withdraw from society and seek extreme degrees of isolation and confinement) , except that we are doing this so as not to endanger the health of ourselves or others. As a result, ironically, we all have more time to notice the outside world and the movement of time, which seems to be slowing down and speeding up depending on what you are doing in your isolation. It is easy to forget what day it is when you aren’t following your usual routine.

Anyway, speaking of time passing, now that we have reached May the weather is lovely, for the most part. At the moment we are experiencing a run of days all in the 20s, mostly sunny with some occasional rain. The growth in our garden is really picking up and we are getting more flowers blooming and nearing that time. The Dutch iris I planted late last year are in flower. The peony has formed flower buds, which I am awaiting with anticipation 😊. The bearded iris are somewhat behind at the moment, but there is one bud already. The blueberry, tomatoes and cucumber all have flowers – I am particularly keen to try the blueberries, as the bush didn’t do much last year.

The Hostas booming!

Hydrangeas on the way; Dogwood flowering

One month ago

Today

In terms of our day to day life, we are still taking the occasional walk, I am now doing three ballet classes a week thanks to the Dutch National Ballet, and otherwise we busy ourselves with reading, playing games, watching tv, cooking and keeping up with some people both here and elsewhere in the world (mostly via electronic means). Miro continues to settle in with us – she now often comes to lie next to me in the morning while I have a cup of tea in bed. For those who are interested in ballet, the Dutch classes are good, with the sound and visuals very clear. They are available on YouTube and generally last a bit over 35 minutes. Barre and centre work are separate classes, but unfortunately I don’t have the necessary space for proper centre work. Much thanks to Ernst (teacher and artistic director) and Rex (pianist) 😊.

Lovely tv program about an older man and his cat (a Scottish Fold)

Ernst and Rex

The blossom finished up by mid April, while the azaleas and rhododendrons are out still. The last photos I got of the blossom were on 10^th April, and I know this because that is the last day I went to gym, only to find out that all classes had been stopped. I wasn’t the only one caught out, but I did wonder when most of the people who usually are waiting for the gym to open didn’t turn up. Not to be thwarted in my attempts to get exercise, I decided to walk home – about 3.5 km – and I was able to get the photos.

The canal pink with petals

The footpath next to the river

During the past month we went for two walks for sightseeing purposes, and we also walked home from town after visiting the tax office with our accountant (we arranged to pay our land tax monthly, rather than in four payments [which are not paid quarterly…]). The first was to Fushimi Inari via the Kyoto trail. This is quite a physically demanding walk and we actually pushed it further this time by taking a different route, once we reached the edge of the shrine mountain (about half way up the mountain), which took us down to the bottom of the mountain again, around the back and then up to the summit and then all the way to the bottom again.

No-one around…

We had never done this walk before and certainly noticed it in our calves the next couple of days. Having said that, it was a beautiful walk through nature and we also ended up walking through an area where new torii had been and were being installed. It was interesting to see this area and go through parts of the huge shrine complex we had never been. Along the way we passed a set of stairs which went off in a different direction, which we will explore in the near future…

L: a new section / R: one nearing completion, just the concrete to be smoothed over

L: a hole ready for the next torii / R: where does that set of stairs go?

Our other sightseeing walk took us along the Kamogawa, always a nice saunter, especially on a sunny day. We left home mid morning with the intention of buying a take away lunch to eat on the banks of the river, about 3 km from home. There were a reasonable number of people out enjoying the sun, exercising and generally being outside, and, interestingly, a few people out practising their instruments – notably one violinist and one shamisen player. We have to assume that living in close quarters can make it difficult to practice without upsetting some neighbours (we have one neighbour who is learning the violin…).

They are going ahead with the construction of the balconies for summer

There are a few places where you can cross the river on large stepping stones – some shaped like turtles

Unfortunately, when we reached the restaurant we had planned to get our lunch from we discovered they are closed on Thursdays ☹. We had never been to this place and were keen to try their bento style lunch, while listening to the shamisen player, but it was not to be. We decided to catch the train up to a restaurant we had been to before, knew the owner and were pretty sure would be open. I was disappointed that we wouldn’t have the music to eat to (it was a long way back to where the shamisen player was and we were hungry!), but we still went back down to the river to the nearest bridge (you have to be under cover to avoid the hawks attempting to snatch your food). As we neared the bridge we could hear loud yelling, laughing and screeching. A group of young people were sitting under the bridge making all this noise, and we were immediately frustrated by this din but too hungry to go further along to the next bridge.

Waiting for the train, by ourselves

We found a spot as far away from them as we could and settled down to enjoy our lunch. Just as we started eating, some voices rang out in song…it was the young people, who turned out to be choristers and singing quite intricate chorale music – and pretty well at that! We were stunned, especially as they appeared to be very young, ie early teens and younger. There were two male voices – one quite deep – and three female voices. Their voices were all amazingly mature. So, our lunch turned out to be very pleasant after all, including musical accompaniment. I should know better: never judge a book by it’s cover.

A very nice lunch

For the walk back from the tax office we decided to go via a route back home that we hadn’t taken before. We ended up walking along another canal to the back of the buildings near the art galleries and Heian Jingu. Along the way, we came across a section of the path which someone who lived nearby was obviously tending, and decorating. It’s interesting how people find ways to have gardens even when they physically don’t have any land to create a garden in. The many pot based gardens are witness to this and it is interesting to watch how they are moved around and re-planted year round, year-on-year. In this case the person has planted out some flowers, including irises, and created a little place using public land which they can visit and enjoy, as well as passers-by, like us.

L: Someone had drawn in the sand at the park near Heian Jingu / R: A different angle of the giant torii

As we arrived home that day, there was the woman from Muku restaurant at our front door, with a bag of food for us! She had contacted us via Facebook a few days prior to see how we were going. Craig had responded and also talked to her about her business and whether she was doing take away, as many are now doing. She said she was so Craig indicated we would drop by and get something in the near future (support your local businesses). Lo and behold, she took it upon herself to bring us a mixed bag of items left from the day’s lunch trade – and she wouldn’t accept any payment for this. Yet again we see the generosity of people here, particularly from what we have come to know as the vegan community.

Thus, life continues, even though it is definitely not in a way that any of us expected (except for some sci-fi authors).

Cheers for now, and here’s to a return to some form of normality in the not too distant future.

Vale Tim Brooke-Taylor and Florian Schneider

Social distancing on the train

Is that it’s name, or the owner’s?

If I had a bike, I would, I think…?

I’m glad it’s not this world!

I ordered some hair colour (purple) and it arrived in this box

?????

Some cats of Fushimi Inari

 Miro on my bed, and Miro the climber

Adaptation

Gardening in pots

Hehehe

This is Amabie, a Japanese yokai (literally a monster). It is said that if you look at a picture of Amabie, you will be cured of illness caused by an epidemic.