Studying

... is what I've been doing for the last three weeks. And going out to restaurants with friends, but mostly studying. I'd almost forgotten I was here as a university student...

So there's no big trip to tell you about, but I did just want to share a few pictures from around Kyoto.

This is part of the local tram tracks that you go past on the way to school. The people who live along the road grow flowers up the bank and there's always something new to look at.

 The azaleas have just started losing petals but I think they still look pretty!

 Speaking of flowers - in ikebana class we reached the modern art part of its history, so our teacher explained a few ideas of what you can do, but then set us loose on our own designs for the first time. I... tried to make a butterfly. It was really fun, though!

And on the topic of insects - we found this huge dragonfly on campus the other day! It's kind of exciting to see so many flying about (though my friend from Taiwan was less impressed - she said they have so many dragonflies on their university campus back home that they're actually kind of a pest).

We went to the Tofu Cafe again the other day - I enjoyed their summer menu very much.

I also almost forgot to mention, but I went to see fireflies the other day! With about half of the population of Kyoto, it felt like. Fireflies are only about at a very particular time of year - the rainy season - so when there's a chance to see them people flock there. The Uji Botanical Garden had late opening hours for a week especially for firefly viewing.

The entrance at dusk was really pretty, and there were swarms of bats flying around just above our heads.

 This is the best picture I can give you of a firefly, I'm afraid. Photography is banned in the garden in case flashes disturb the fireflies (and even if I were allowed to take pictures I'm not sure my phone camera would be much good).

It was pretty mesmerising watching the fireflies floating around under the trees. It was also just lovely to hang about in the garden at night, when the weather was cool! (Everyone warned us about the heat and humidity of Kyoto, but this right now is ridiculous!)

So with report deadlines and presentations I can't promise a blog post in the next couple of weeks. But we do have a lot coming up. There are a few tourist spots in Kyoto that I'm going to try to visit while I still can, and soon it'll be the Gion Matsuri (possibly the biggest festival in Kyoto?). Also I have a trip booked to the Moss Temple (you have to reserve in advance by sending them a postcard, it was all very exciting) and I'm really looking forward to that!

(p.s. I just realised I didn't write about the Takarazuka, either. I'm so behind! It was fabulous, I definitely recommend it. There you go.)

Kinji and Ise

This weekend was full of outings, so my Monday kanji test kind of suffered... but it was worth it! On Friday it was karaoke and conveyor belt sushi. We tried the Kura-Zushi limited time only caramel banana sushi -

 ACTUALLY really rather nice. Warm rice, warm sauce, so kind of warm banana, and just light enough to go well after (too many delicious) tempura prawns...

On Saturday we discovered possibly the best shop I've ever been to. Not an over-exaggeration. It's a big second-hand clothes store that has places in Osaka and Tokyo too. I hope they're designed as nicely as this one. You go in and it's like you're trespassing in an abandoned conservatory, with plants everywhere and light filtering in through stained-glass windows. Only you know it's a real shop because of the guy standing outside shouting at the top of his voice about it.

 There were goldfish in one of the baths!

 These are the lamps on the stairs.

When you turn into the store, it opens right up like some kind of warehouse. The rooms are already quite big, and there are mirrors everywhere to make it seem even bigger. One of my friends commented that it feels expecially nice when you're used to how cramped clothes stores are here, particularly in Teramachi.

 They have a bird living in one of the walls.

 The best thing about this shop? The clothes are not only gorgeous, they're really good value too! I got a cute lighthouse-print shirt for 700 yen. Oh, and the staff seem like genuinely lovely people, if all of the above wasn't enough.
Excuse me while I pack my stuff so I can move there.

If you want to check it out, the chain's name is Kinji, and the Kyoto store is called Three Star.


And if that wasn't enough of an adventure, yesterday a friend and I headed out at 8am to spend a day at Ise. That's the city where possibly the most important shrine in Shinto stands, Ise-Jingu. It is said that the Sun Goddess Amaterasu who created Japan is enshrined here. I know it from the Tale of Genji, a novel from the 11th century, so it predates even that. It looks, however, brand-spanking new. That's because it is rebuilt every 20 years, so the current buildings were only put up last year. Because the wood they use is so new, almost golden, it looked pretty impressive. Also because shrines are normally painted red, the simplicity of the wood somehow made it seem even more grand.

Ise-Jingu is comprised of two areas; an outer complex where the deity who provides food for Amaterasu is enshrined, and then the inner shrine, where the Sun Goddess herself is. They're both surrounded by forests. The shade of the trees was especially welcome yesterday, because I don't know quite what temperature it reached there, but it was hot.

The torii at the entrance to the inner shrine.

At the outer shrine there's a beautiful lake with water flowers growing at the side. There were dragonflies and also turtles sunning themselves on the banks.

 The trees at the shrines - I think they might be cedar? - are huge, this one particularly so. The sides of tree trunks by the path have been worn smooth by the number of pilgrims stopping to touch them.

 This was just an interesting tree - I've never seen something like this before. Is it the tree's leaves? Is it another plant? It's pretty, anyway.

 Me looking like a mug in front of a torii by a bridge. The bridge leads to the shrine for the god of wind and rain. It is said that this is the god who created typhoons twice to blow the Mongol invasions away from Japan. The security guy at the shrine seemed a little lonely (this shrine gets less foot traffic than the main one) so was really happy to fill us in when we asked about it, and even gave us some advice about where to explore in the shopping area.

 ... which was here! There's a part of town that's been kept in a traditional design, so you can get lost down the little streets full of souvenir and tea shops.

 These are charms to pray for good weather. I think one is normally enough, but I guess this shop owner really doesn't want it to rain.

 Cold tea and mochi. I love that they've made plates that are the same colour and shape as the grill pattern on the mochi. (I also loved that the mochi were delicious. Possibly the best I've had in Japan? Perfect red bean:mochi ratio).

 Finally it was off to Meotoiwa, or the married rocks. Unsurprisingly, it's a popular spot for couples, but also for your regular tourist too. Because look at it! It's beautiful! It was nice to get to the coast for some fresh air, because summer in Kyoto is really beginning, and that means humidity up to your ears...

I don't have any trips quite as big as this lined up for the next few weeks, but I am going to see the Takarazuka Revue this week, so I'm really looking forward to that!

Ikebana

Hello! This week I thought I'd tell you about the ikebana class I'm taking. It's part of the traditional arts programmes available to foreign students, the same as the ceramics course from last term.

(It's a lot harder than the ceramics course from last term).

"Ikebana" is Japanese flower arranging. It's linked to Buddhism (like calligraphy and tea ceremony) but it's used in a secular way too. Kind of like the UK, actually - there's a lot of flower arranging in churches but you don't need to believe in God to buy a bouquet. Our teacher explained the most common place for ikebana arrangements are in the alcove (tokonoma) of a traditional Japanese room. But he has also participated in live shows where he might create an arrangement on stage as traditional Japanese music plays, for example.

By the way, our teacher is a really interesting guy. You can check out the homepage for the school here. He's the third generation head of this pretty successful school of ikebana, and through the live shows and some collaborations with other successors to Kyoto's traditional arts has apparently done a lot to keep the arts here going. You could see how inspired he feels about this stuff when he was talking about it in our first class.

So here are a few of my attempts at ikebana. The school we're learning with takes a geometric approach to how the flowers should be laid out. So when you're trying to work out why your arrangement doesn't look quite right, then you move one flower sideways by an inch - suddenly the angles all line up and it's really very satisying. I also like playing with the flowers (the roses were a little less fun...).

 The first week. I was so happy to take the flowers home with me that I set them up just like this in my room. By midnight my nose was streaming and I remembered my hayfever. The flowers were promptly removed to the kitchen, where all subsequent arrangements now live.

 This was an interesting one. Unlike traditional Western flower aranging, which tends to go for a flourishing, in-bloom feel, ikebana is about the entire life of the flower. I really liked using the buds as part of the design. Our homework that week was to watch them open and then die.
(Mine died prematurely because I couldn't get them to water in time...)

This is my favourite! I really like sunflowers, so I was hoping to be able to use them, but thought that they probably weren't the right kind of plant for ikebana or something. Very happy to be wrong!

I'm going to try to update this blog much more regularly from now on - in fact, I'm aiming for every Monday, but don't expect toooo much.

So, fingers crossed, I'll write again next Monday!

Barbecue

SORRY it's been ages since I updated this. Mostly that's because I haven't been up to anything particularly news-worthy (unless endless kanji tests count). Anyway, we had a barbecue by the river at the weekend so here are some pictures ~

I love that they haven't made stairs or anything here. In the UK I think sliding down this concrete slope to the river bank would be highly frowned upon, especially carrying BBQs and the like (the whole thing would probably just be fenced off) but here it's just like 'Knock yourself out!'

Actually it's going to be pretty interesting when the rainy season gets here because all of the rivers are this low, but all of them have these heavy-duty concrete banks in place. Does that mean that the rivers get really full? In any case, the flood defences do mean that there's a lot of lovely green spaces to hang out in, which Kyoto is otherwise kind of lacking.

I like that there are a lot of flowers grown in public spaces around here, like by the side of the tram tracks on the way to uni, or here, at the top of the bank by the car park of the convenience store:

It was really nice to spend a day out in the sun, before it starts to get tooooo hot here (and I have it on good authority that it will...). Hopefully we'll be able to use the grill again before the rains come!

P.s I went to the Kitano Tenmangu flea market yesterday and got this gorgeous yukata (summer kimono) for summer festivals! I can't wait to wear it!

Okayama and Hiroshima

This is me slowly catching up with myself. After this trip, I only need to tell you about the farming experience I did, and then we're writing in real time! And there's a lot going on - the cherry blossoms are blooming, everything is coming alive. Including my hayfever, which meant a slightly baffling trip to the drugstore to get tablets (the lady was very friendly and understanding, my Japanese just wasn't quite up to the task. Though I've now got something which appears to be working, so, you know, sort of a success).

I went to Okayama and Hiroshima on a 5 day trip at the beginning of the month. You can get a train ticket for just over 10,000 yen that gives you unlimited travel for 5 non-consecutive days during the spring holiday. The only condition is that you have to travel on local trains. But, while the shinkansen may well have been more comfortable, I really enjoyed watching the landscape slowly change as I journeyed west. You wind through little valleys that have been levelled for fields, but the impossibly steep hills have been left covered with trees, so they look like islands rising from a sea of grass. Sometimes you see the entrance to the shrine creating a gap in the trees, and a stone staircase that disappears quickly into the forest.
(In short, it feels like My Neighbour Totoro country).

My first stop was the city of Okayama. This was mainly to give me a place to stay before getting up super early and going to Naoshima, the art island. But since I was there, I had a little look around.

They have a bike hire scheme like the Boris Bikes in London. I couldn't help but adore the pun of the name: bikes like this with a little basket are called 'mama chari' in Japanese, and Okayama is famous for being the home area of the legendary Momo Taro. So, these bikes are called 'Momo Chari'.

 This is the castle in Okayama. It's painted black and must have been pretty intimidating for would-be intruders. They had a few interesting exhibits about the history of the castle inside, but the best thing was the view from the top.

 Next stop was the garden across the river, called the Korakuen. It's described as one of Japan's best three landscape gardens. (But seemingly everywhere you go is one of the best three something-or-other. I wonder who decides these things?) It was pretty lovely, anyway, despite the fact that the grass lawns that truly make it spectacular in the summer were a bit dead.

Everything was pretty dead, in fact, except for the blaze of white and pink plum blossoms at the end of the garden.

After a lovely evening with the very friendly owners of the guesthouse where I stayed(http://toriikuguru.com/), I headed out bright and early to get to Naoshima just in time for the art galleries to open. You head out of Okayama for an hour, and then jump on a ferry. This is the view across the Inland Sea.

The island's main sources of income are the many art galleries that have sprung up (mostly created by Tadao Ando, also known as the architect behind the Tokyo Sky Tree) and also the large waste disposal facility. The sign next to this sculpture by the side of one of the roads crossing the middle of the island said that it was built as a merging of these two factors. I was just a little surprised to find this kind of modern sculpture on a quiet wooded road to the side of a lake...

This garden outside the Chichuu Museum is inspired by the Waterlilies painting by Monet that are displayed inside. No waterlilies to show this early in the year, though the other flowers were lovely.

I found this cat outside one of the Art House Projects. They're how I heard about the island. The towns there were just your normal island towns, slowly becoming abandoned as people moved away to the mainland for jobs etc. but a couple of them were bought by this project and transformed into spaces for modern artists to display their work. I enjoyed stepping over the threshhold not knowing what was inside, so I won't spoil that for you, in case you go. But I did have my favourites, and one of them was the converted temple outside which this little cat was sunning itself. (The other was an old-style house just down the road).



 This is a view over the town from the shrine that's part of the project.

 After I got back to the mainland, I hopped on and off trains for four hours to finally make it to Hiroshima. The dormitory there was comfortable, and I spent an interesting time there. I met a Japanese lady who told me that she had been living in Fukushima and now has no home to go back to, so she lives in that dorm. She was very lovely, gave me lots of tips about my visit, and at the end presented me and another travelling student with a little necklace each. I was really glad I got to meet her.

I walked over to Hiroshima Castle the next morning. In truth, it was pretty similar to the one in Okayama, just a little bigger. I think I prefer my castles ruined and somewhere remote in Scotland, but in Japan they rebuild them to show you exactly what they would have looked like from the outside. I liked the moat, anyway, because it was a lovely day.

 This is the A-Bomb Dome, after I went to the Peace Museum. It was a pretty tough museum to walk through, though I'm glad I did. I feel sorry for the security guard who was standing at the end of some of the most emotionally painful exhibits. He must see a parade of depressed faces all day.

 The next day I wandered over to Shukkeien Garden. It's much more compact than Korakuen (and surrounded by modern buildings on all sides). Its name actually translates to 'Shrunken Scenery Garden', and I loved the way they've created little mountains and valleys.

 Naturally I had to have Hiroshima okonomiyaki at some point during the trip. It's a bit different to the Osaka version, though I can't decide which one I like better. The Hiroshima ones do at least make for nicer pictures, to show how tasty okonomiyaki really is (the Osaka variety tends to look like a hot mess).

 Having fueled up on okonomiyaki I made my way down to another port, this time on the way to Miyajima. This is the island famous for its shrine gate that stands in the sea. I didn't know when I went, but apparently it's not actually fastened down to anything. It's just a master work of careful balancing (how they did that with the tide and all, I do not know). At very low tide you can even walk out to it.

 I stayed over on the island at a ryokan (traditional guest house) and had food so amazing that I forgot to get you photographs, as I was too busy tucking in. The ryokan was in a little bay, and the views were amazing out across the sea to the lights of Hiroshima on the mainland.

In the morning, I decided to climb the main mountain before I had to leave at midday. Mt Misen has a long history as a sacred place, in part due to the big boulders that are lying about. On the way up, there were a few of these overhangs, and if you look closely, you can see that people have left tiny Buddha statues and offerings underneath.

 There's an observationa platform from the top with phenomenal views. It's the highest point on the island, and may well be the highest point for a good few miles, so you have a perfect view of the islands that are scattered around.

 The climb up is supposed to be about 90 minutes to 2 hours, and I'd done it in 1 hour (as I sat panting on a bench halfway up, a very energetic old Japanese man came striding past, commenting on how well I was doing. As he sailed past. And I slumped on a bench. It was nice of him to say so, anyway.). Given that, and the fact that I had to make it back to Kyoto on local trains that day, I chickened out of the walk back down and took the cable car instead.

 

Next time I'll write about the other trip to Hiroshima, this time farming in the remote countryside!