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Wednesday 20 November 2013

Autumn happened

So... I've been up to a lot in the last couple of weeks. Not least mid-terms and a Japanese history presentation. But sticking to the more fun stuff, it's now autumn leaf season here in Kyoto! The tourists have descended upon us. It's really quite scary.

Kyoto's especially famous for how pretty the momiji trees are when their leaves turn red, and there are a lot of places you can visit that are famous for them. Even our university campus is full of them. My teachers have now all, at some point or another, speculated about when the peak viewing time will be and encouraged us to go out and see them. If it's like this now, I can't bear to think what will happen when Japan's favourite flowers, cherry blossoms, begin blooming...

Having said that, it all really is beautiful. The other day a friend and I took a detour on the way home through Myoshinji, the big temple complex close to campus that you can cycle through. The paths are made of stone, so it's not a comfortable cycle, but you can cycle. I rather enjoy the slight sense of sacrilege you feel doing it (not that we're that bad, I've seen people going through on motorcycles...). On the way, we stopped off at one of the little temples that has a special autumn opening so you can view the momiji in its garden. We payed 600 yen to get in, which we were slightly surprised about - the price seemed a bit steep just for seeing some pretty leaves. Then we had another look at the tickets and realised that we got matcha tea as well! We could see a couple of people standing in the building waiting to welcome us, so we went on in and they served us matcha tea and a Japanese sweet, to enjoy while sitting on a veranda overlooking a garden specially designed for autumn. It was quite sweet, because they were very quiet and formal when we first went in, but when we spoke a little Japanese to them, they broke out into smiles and enthusiastically showed us some of the gorgeous details on the sliding doors in the rooms.
 
Another fun thing I did was go to the monthly handicraft market at Chionji. There are loads of markets that happen on temple grounds in Kyoto, and this was a big one. Everything was really pretty, and I was quite proud when my friend was looking at a tea bowl on one of the ceramics stalls and asked me why I thought there was a spiral shape in the middle - I could tell her exactly why because of my ceramics class! (It's to catch the bitter powder that might be left over in the bottom, so you don't accidentally drink it. Would be useful in my cocoa mug too.)

 Speaking of ceramics, this is the view from one of the bridges we cross on the cycle to the class every Saturday. Every time we go, I wonder why I put myself through such torture (the cycle is about an hour and you have to go through a super touristy bit, very congested), and then we come across something like this, and the light is gorgeous because it's only 10 o'clock, and I forget all of my grumpiness.
 And these are my traditional tea bowl and tea cup - all that's left to do is paint them!
 On the way back I took a little detour, because I heard that there was a chrysanthemum exhibit at Nishi Honganji and it wasn't too far out of my way. I didn't realise they come in so many colours!

Lastly, I found myself with a spare couple of hours on my hands a couple of Sundays ago, so I took a walk to this lake that I'd spotted close by on the map. It's an easy walk, you go past a lot of lovely gardens and a bamboo forest. In the distance you can always see Arashiyama's mountains, and the leaves were just beginning to turn that day, so it was a very pretty view.

I'm set for a very touristy weekend with my brother, so expect some fun pictures from that next time!
 

Friday 8 November 2013

Murasaki Shikibu's tomb

On Fridays we all finish class pretty early so one of my friends took a bunch of us to Murasaki Shikibu's grave. As you do on a Friday afternoon. (It was actually a perfect time to go, and great weather for cycling!)

Murasaki Shikibu is the noblewoman from the Heian period (roughly 1000 years ago) who wrote The Tale of Genji, which some say is the world's first novel. Having made it all the way through the1200-odd pages of the English translation, some kind of pilgrimage to her burial site seems quite apt. And it looked like a lot of people feel that way - although the site itself is hardly signposted, and it's pretty far from the usual tourist destinations, when we arrived there were some people just getting back into a taxi having visited, and another set were arriving as we left.

I didn't manage to get a picture of how it looks from the street, but imagine this: there are walls right along the pavement, not exactly forbidding but definitely blocking any view inside. These continue right down the street, but just here there's what looks like an alcove in the wall and this stone:
This says "Lady Murasaki's grave".
My friend pointed out that the berries on these plants are actually purple! (Murasaki means purple, or violet - it's used for amethyst). That's probably on purpose - even such tiny things are very thought-out here.

To get to the tomb, you just walk a few feet along the path next to the stone, under this tree (I'm not entirely sure what this fruit is...)

Then - there you are. Very little ceremony. On the same plot there's also another Heian-era noble buried, in a noticeably smaller tomb. I should mention here it has been suggested that it's a little strange that Shikibu would be buried in such an out-of-the-way place in relation to the Heian city centre, and especially that she would be buried next to someone from an entirely different family. Well... be that as it may, it's not like people are going to roll up to dig the tomb up and check, and I'm glad that a little place like this exists to visit.

This is the stone apparently explaining her life. It's... incomprehensible to me, if anyone can tell me what it says please do!
And this is her tomb. It has candles that people can light, and a place for flowers.


It was an interesting little excursion, and only about 20 minute's cycle from university. I know London has a very long history too, somaybe I'm just paying more attention here because it's all new and exciting, but I really love the way that in Kyoto you can just kind of stumble across the tomb of a 1000 year old author on the side of a busy street.

It's the university's festival this weekend so I'll write again soon with pictures of that!

Sunday 3 November 2013

Kobe

Today I went to visit some friends studying abroad at Kobe university. It's much easier to get to Kobe than I thought - there's something called the Hankyu line that goes to Osaka, where you can change super quickly to the Kobe branch. In the end it took just over an hour (and only 600 yen!).

I always really feel how packed together Japan is when I get the train. Whenever I get the train in the UK, London stops and it's all fields, interspersed with towns around each stop. But the area between Kyoto and Osaka is just more Kyoto and Osaka. They just kind of merge. Then when you turn right along the coast, there's no noticeable break between what's Osaka and what's Kobe. The only difference along that bit is that the habitable area is much smaller, so whereas the mountains are pretty far away going down to the sea, the view from the way to Kobe is pretty much all upward slope. And until the mountains get too steep, there are houses everywhere.

... anyway, Kobe!
My friends met me at the station and we went for a wander around the shopping district to Kobe's China town. It was much bigger and livelier than London's China town!
We didn't stop for food there because we were planning to have something more filling later, but I'd love to go back, because they have cute panda-decorated meat buns.

This is a cute little doorstop outside a restaurant. The rabbit was so small you might not even notice it walking along!

From China town we went wandering up to the old foreign district. This is a Chinese restaurant that we think used to be an embassy (maybe...?)


This is a building called 'Ben's House'. Apparently it's marked on a lot of the tourist maps. We're not sure who Ben was or why his house was so important, but apparently it's been there for over 100 years. So.

Just next door there was an old British embassy or something similar, and it's become a pub, also the Kobe Sherlock Holmes museum. That's pretty darn British.

On the way back down (Kobe has two directions: to the mountains, and to the sea. Makes it very easy to navigate) we came across the back of the big shrine in the shopping district. I think that this little one was for the god of rice - I heard that foxes are supposed to be the messengers of the god of rice, and there were these fox statues standing by the shrine.
 While we were eating the rain started coming down harder, so I couldn't get the panoramic view I was hoping for - this'll have to do for now (glorious weather):

So Kobe was really fun, a lovely break before the two (two!) exams I have this week. Hopefully I can go again on a clearer day!

And just quickly, a ceramics class update: I finished the tea cup and saucer I was working on! Here they are (I'm pretty pleased with them):