Northwest Kyoto stroll

Today we decided to go for a long walk through the northwest corner of Kyoto.  This part of the city traditionally was famous for it's vegetable and rice fields.  In the years since WWII more and more  people have gotten tired of the crowded and noisy sections of the city and have moved into this area.  However it still retains a "countryside" feel with small fields throughout the area containing vegetable gardens and even small rice fields.


 The plants in the foreground are okra
- very popular in Kyoto.

.  Several neighborhood farmers had planted new fall crops especially onions and cabbage.

As we walked we found a family putting a cover over their greenhouse frame

Click on any photo to see it larger.

Ohara scenes

We were hoping to get to Ohara before the rice was harvested to see the fields of grain.  Too late!  The same fields I had taken photos of last May were now cut.

All over Japan the farmers have varieties of methods of hanging the rice to dry.

  We walked out into the gardens and fields to get photos.

Ohara

Ohara is a village in the countryside about an hour north of the Kyoto train station but still technically within the city limits.  It is a farming village that is famous both for the temples in the area and for the lovely mountains surrounding it - especially in autumn when the leaves turn. 

There is a t.v. show David and I watch called "Venetia in Kyoto" which is about a woman from England who lives in Ohara.  We have watched this show for 5 years and almost feel like we know her and the people of Ohara.

On Saturday we decided to walk all over Ohara.  We wandered up a trail toward a temple that was built in 600.  It burned down in 2000 and was rebuilt in 2004.  On our way up the trail we saw a sign that said something about beeswax.  I remembered a show on Venetia about honey so we decided to investigate.  We discovered a family that does silk screening on long strips of fabric using vegetable dyes (tumeric, rose madder, persimmon etc).

A young man showed us the entire process including where they rinse the fabric in a stream.

Sure enough we had seen him on t.v the year before when he and his family had been featured on Venetia's show!  What a fun accidental discovery.

We never did find out why the sign said "beeswax".

Shakuhachi Ensemble

(click picture to enlarge)

Yesterday afternoon we went with brother-in-law Zen to hear an ensemble called Yugao. The instrumentation for the group consists of cello, piano, tabla (Indian drums), and shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute). It's not a combination of sounds I would have expected to find. (And we wonder how the group found each other in the  first place.) But it works. I mean, it really works. The sound was full and rich and totally involving.

The setting was interesting. Down some cramped stairs off a main street into a little, slightly run-down bar/restaurant. (There must be hundreds of these in Kyoto and any Japanese city.) There was seating for perhaps twenty people.

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First Breakfast

Went to Royal Host (looks a little like Denny's) for my favorite Japanese breakfast but they were not open yet. Walked around the neighborhood and discovered a tiny coffee shop (2 tables and a few stools) run by an elderly man who made yummy pancakes for David and a very good egg sandwich for me. A good find that we will most likely return to again.

David spent much of the afternoon trying to to straighten out the problem we are having with getting wi-fi. (The service provider will no longer take foreign credit card) Not connected yet at the house however David found a very temporary solution to get a few e-mails by using some live wi-fi he found floating around in the sky above  one corner of the playground across the street.

Not as tired on the first day as we have been in past trips. Don't know if it is because we flew at a different time or if we are just getting used to 22 hours of travel before we arrive.

Children in the City

We see children, sometimes quite young making their way around the city on their own and in small groups. I've seen individual boys and girls (7 or eight years old) get on a city bus alone on their way home from school. They ride for perhaps a half mile, show their bus pass, and go on their way. All this without any apparent care in the world.

This city (and Japan in general) is a safe place for children.

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Walking on Water

I was in a different part of the city today and found myself next to the river in an area where I have not been before. In most of the length of the river through town, there are the normal traffic bridges you would expect. But in this area there were also large stepping stones creating foot crossings.

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Karen and Asahi visit too

While David's sister Ruth and cousin Patricia visited we had an opportunity to have a short visit with Ruth and Zen's daughter's Karen and Asahi. They are both college students in Tokyo. We walked to 2 Shrines and then had dinner together before they all left to go back to their respective towns. (Double click on photos for larger view)

Visit from Family

David's sister Ruth and his cousin Patricia are staying with us for a couple of days. They live in Matsuyama so are tourists in Kyoto. We had fun walking through the neighborhood and visiting Kamigamo shrine. David, Ruth and Patricia.

It is common to see wedding parties at the shrine. Today was no exception.

After we walked around the Shrine grounds we went down the street to the old pickle store. It is in a 200year old Kyoto Machiya (house) and under the hanging tea kettle there are bowls full of pickles for tasting.

I bought my favorite pumpkin rind pickles.

On our walk we passed a bicycle outfitted with an illegal but very popular umbrella holder.

Ohara countryside

A small village named Ohara is actually in the Kyoto city limits but is a 40 minute bus ride from downtown Koyto. We had learned about it from a T.V. show we watch in the U.S. on the Japanese cable channel that we subscribe to.We decided to see for ourselves and found it to be a lovely area.
We walked along a stream and many small shops to a Temple.

We decided to save the Temple for another day and went to a restaurant / gift shop for lunch .

The lunch was beautiful and delicious. It came in lacquered boxes and included fish, soup, pickles, tofu, rice, tempera and more. What a fun feast.

Gion and Kiyomizudera Temple

There are thousands of temples and shrines in Kyoto. Some very close to where we live, others a long bus ride away. Some are fairly plain, others park-like, some have amazing and very old sand gardens, one is covered in gold, some small others huge.

On Tuesday we went to one that we have been to before. Two bus rides and quite a climb up steps. Yet worth it for the view. It is called Kiyomizudera.
We thought there would be fewer people on a weekday - but it seems several schools had field trips on the day we visited.





I am always amazed at the size of the floor boards in these ancient buildings.

It is fun for some to rent Geisha outfits - including face paint in the area called Gion near the temple. Click on the photo to see the geisha costumed youth.











On the way down from the temple we ate soba noodles at low tables in a little place that is built to hang over a small valley.

A New Restaurant

One of the enjoyable things about being in Japan is discovering restaurants. The fun part is the variety. We have: an "Italian" restaurant we like. It's part of a chain: quite modern where we can order a crisp chef's salad, a nice little one-person pizza, paella, au gratin, and/or of course, spaghetti. 

We have a wonderful little hole-in-the-wall noodle and rice bowl ma-and-pa restaurant we eat at where the cook and his wife know us and serve us our favorite things along with whatever meal we order. Mary and I can both order the tempura meal and the cook will put an extra bit of pumpkin tempura on Mary's tray and a special pickle on mine. (more story and pictures after the jump)

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Very long walk -uphill and down

After we viewed the Iris garden we saw a path and decided to follow it. It soon turned into a trail up a mountain. When we got to the top we could see a golf course down below on one side and the city on the other side. Along the way there were signs warning us to watch out for monkeys. We saw none.

The forest had quite a variety of trees - cedar, pine, maple and also bamboo. Pink rhododendron in bloom everywhere.

When we came off the mountain we walked along a lovely bamboo lined quiet road.

200 - 300 year old house

Near Kamigamo Jinja Shrine there are houses that were built two or three hundred years ago by the priests of the Shrine. We visited one that is open to the public. It was built on the grounds of the previous house and the garden was designed in 1181 by Fujiki Shegeyasu, the head priest of Kamigamo jinja. It is the most traditional style garden - shake-machi.

In the house is a viewing room of the garden, an eating room with the kotatsu table (notice the hole under the table for feet) and a tea room with a basket weave ceiling. The house has a canal running in front of it.

Big Gulp

As we walked along the Kamo river just a few blocks from the house we noticed a crane near us on the bank of the river. It was fussing with something on the ground. Then it lifted it up and we saw that he had a snake and was trying to eat it.

Fortunately it was more fascinated with the snake than worried about us getting close. It tried swallowing the snake more than once and spit it out several times. Finally it gulped it down, took a few sips of water and then walked for a minute and took off flying further down river.

Fractured (but Touching) English

English words and phrases are often used in Japan. The Japanese language now includes many, many English words. Often these are used in modified and interesting ways. "Michine" specifically means a sewing machine. But "machine" can mean any kind of mechanical device (just as in English).

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Reading at Doshisha

The cafeteria at Doshisha University is an amazing place to be at lunch time. It is a very inexpensive place to grab a bite and the variety to choose from is overwhelming. I decided to tag along with David today so we ate there before his meeting with a professor.

A view of the school of theology building from "my bench". (We are working on getting rid of the red shadow)

After lunch I sat outside on my favorite bench and watched students and teachers hurry by in all directions to and from classes. I also started reading a book recommended to me by Karen and Gail Jiles. "The Tea House Fire" by Avery Ellis is a great book to read about Kyoto while in Kyoto.

When we left the University we walked across the street and along the walls of the old Imperial Palace. The Palace is in the center of Kyoto and the grounds are about 1/2 mile wide and nearly a mile long. It is a forested, gardened, park like area and feels as though you have stepped out of the city and into the mountains. When festivals are held on the grounds it is extremely crowded - otherwise there are very few people and except for birdsong, very quiet.

Short English Lesson

We went for a walk to a nearby shrine today. There were several High School and Middle school youth visiting the shrine in groups of 5 - 8 .

One small group approached David and said in Japanese "we are supposed to speak to a foreigner in English for our class." One of them proceeded to ask David using English if he would sign his notebook. He tried several times to say it properly and pronounced correctly(with his friends laughing at his attempts).

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Watch out!

Whenever we walk on any sidewalk anywhere in Kyoto we need to have eyes in the back of our heads!
So many people ride bicycles - very fast and on the sidewalks - that it feels like tragedy will strike any second.

After one or two days of jumping frantically out of the way we've developed a warning system for each other. The pain in my neck from constantly turning to check is almost gone.

Now I must stop waving my arms while talking!

Luckily most bicycles have bells.