Kamo River

 Last week I took myself on a cycle ride before classes across the Kamo river (Kamo means duck, which is why there's a fairly abstract duck sculpture by the sign...). I went Tadao Ando's Garden of Fine Art, tucked away beside the botanical garden. It's an outdoor art gallery, exhibiting 8 of the world's most famous paintings recreated in ceramics so that they can be kept outside, whatever the weather. The building itself was beautiful, made all of concrete, very like the other gorgeous art gallery (the Chichu Art Museum) that I visited on my trip to Naoshima, designed by the same architect. There's water everywhere in the Fine Art Garden, and seeing golden light reflect off the small ripples in the pool underneath Van Gogh's "Road with Cypress and Star" was an experience. Also whoever decided to put Monet's Water Lilies actually under water was clearly a genius.

I see why it's not part of the usual Kyoto tourist route, because it's pretty far away from the main attractions. But it was a very relaxing way to spend a morning, though sadly if the temperature keeps rising here I won't be able to stomach the cycle again...

It IS a beautiful cycle, though, and I stopped to take this wonderful view south along the Kamo river. Actually this direction is heading into town, you'd start to see loads more buildings just fifteen minutes walk down river, but you wouldn't know it from this picture, would you?

 The flower display outside the botanical garden, and my lovely long-suffering bicycle.

 The other activity I took part in recently also involved the Kamo river. Actually, it involved huddling under a bridge while rain poured down...

We'd planned to light sparklers and generally hang around at the river, so the immense amount of rain pouring down wasn't going to stop us. As well as the sparklers we usually have in the UK, a friend had bought two more types that are popular here. One sort is this one I tried to take a picture of - it's like holding a watered-down roman candle in your hands. The person with the lighter has to jump back pretty quickly when it gets going. (We were all very careful, I promise!)

 The other type, called Senkou fireworks (directly translates to incense-stick firework) was really interesting. You hold the top of it, and light the bottom. The flame travels up the stick to whatever (metal?) is coating it, and forms a ball. This ball starts to emit flashes of light, like lightning. As the flame travels higher, the ball becomes heavier, until it drops to the floor and extinguishes the light. It's mesmerising to watch. We had races where everyone lights their sparkler at the same time and the last person whose sparkler is lit wins. Really fun, and a bit surreal when you take into account that to have these races, we were all crouched around a lighter, under a bridge, by a river, in the pouring rain...
(It was a lovely evening).

That day I also got my first design coffee. The art of making designs in the foam on the top of your coffee is pretty big in Japan, and everyone got a different one. I thought it looked like a mysterious eye.

 I'm hoping I'll get another design coffee when I go to Tokyo in a couple of weeks time. I'm only there for two days, but I'm definitely fitting in a trip to the pop-up Rilakkuma cafe in Shibuya. (Rilakkuma is a cartoon bear, used to sell merchandise, and I'm a sucker for it...). And yes, at the cafe you can get Rilakkuma design coffee!

Still, before that trip I have an upsetting amount of essays and exams to get done. Also, coming up this weekend, the trip to the moss temple. I look forward to telling you all about it next week.