Category: experiences

“Little New Year”

Today, January 15, is koshogatsu, the “Little New Year”. Traditionally, koshogatsu coincided with the first full moon of the year, and while this is not the case any more since switching to the solar calendar, there happened to be a full moon yesterday. And I managed to get a semi-decent photo of it, sadly it doesn’t show the lovely pale orange color it had among the clouds.

Anyway, koshogatsu still marks the end of Japan’s New Year period, so people are supposed to remove their New Year decorations. Some people bring them to their shrine in the neighborhood where they are ritually burned in a ceremony.

I’ve never decorated my entrance for the New Year – other than putting up the current zodiac animal – but I had an old ofuda charm from last year. So, I dutifully returned it to the shrine, but there was no ceremony to get rid of such items.

Instead, I walked in on a private ceremony. A couple was sitting in the closed-off part of the main shrine building, where usually only priests may enter, and they received a blessing. Afterwards, they were putting a green branch of a special bush in front of the deities. I am not sure what kind of ceremony it was; both of them were dressed in black, so it might have been related to a funeral, perhaps? Since I didn’t want to intrude, I left after having watched so far.

I always thought that all funeral ceremonies were Buddhist in nature, but I recently learned that this is not the case. Apparently, there are families who practice Buddhism according to one of the many sects, and there are a minority of others who practice Shinto. Obviously, serious believers would not change to the other religion for any occasion, and the ceremonies and rituals for childbirth, coming of age, marriage, death etc. are very different. I have not delved too deeply into this – talking about religion is difficult even in English – but it’s certainly a topic I’d like to learn more about.

I’m back!

Happy New Year again!
I hope you had great holidays and time for some rest.

It’s been a while since I posted, so I have fully recovered from my cold/COVID by now. Unfortunately, I had to deal with other health issues. It seems that I picked up a habit of needing a doctor just before week-long holidays.

This time it wasn’t cat-induced, but instead a tooth that caused pain in half of my lower jaw – never mind that said tooth has been dead for decades… So I had to see my dentist just before he closed for the New Year to get antibiotics, painkillers and a height adjustment of said tooth’s ceramic crown. Everything was fine by New Year’s Eve, thankfully.

The other thing that happened was last Saturday, when I woke up with a shoulder so painful that I couldn’t lift my arm all day. I’m not sure if Pumpkin chose to sleep on it or if it was simply exposed to the cold room all night. It took two nights with hot patches applied to the sore spot to get better. And I’m now sleeping with a (summer) scarf, just in case.

What else happened… A group of my English students bought me a new eto, a little zodiac animal; it already lives in my genkan. It’s super cute, isn’t it?

For hatsumode this year (the first shrine visit of the year) I went to nearby Hachidai Jinja where I bought a lovely goshuin stamp with snake motif and an omikuji fortune slip. Apparently, I will have excellent luck (dai kichi) this year (I’ll need it, trust me.)

The rest of the time I spent sleeping and reading and puttering around in the house. And now real life is back: My accountant paid me a visit on Monday; on Wednesday, BATI-HOLIC had their first concert of the year (with a great crowd this time).

And today, we had hatsuyuki, the first snow of the year. No pictures because I had an early appointment, but there wasn’t much snow anyway. At noon, when my appointment was over, it had all melted away again. Obviously, the house is very cold now; when I got up today at 8:30, it was zero degrees in my bedroom.

Sadly, my plans of spending the afternoon working at some nicely heated cafe were scuppered: The ones in the city were crowded (it seems other people have cold houses too) and the one near my house was closed after it was open during New Year. Oh well. Next time.

Happy 1. Advent

Christmas is not a big deal here in Japan, for obvious reasons. Even though many couples get married in a (fake) Christian ceremony with all the related trappings, the number of actual Christians in Japan is very small.

Thus, Christmas is more of a commercial thing, where people exchange gifts and friends go out together. Naturally, there is Christmas food, KFC chicken and strawberry cake, both of which feels super weird to me. To be fair, more and more Christmas-related sweets are for sale every year. I even saw chocolate Santas (aka: Nikolaus) from Europe in a popular shop selling foreign foods.

Until I get an oven and can bake my own Christmas cookies, this is the kind of fare I’ll have to make do with. And advent tea, of course. My friend from Tokyo has once again sent me an advent calendar filled with a surprise selection of tea. Today’s flavour was “Santa’s Secret”, a perfect fit to my chocolate and the strawberry cake I had for breakfast. Happy advent indeed!

Pretty Visitor

When I opened my window this morning, I found an unexpected visitor. She got caught between the window pane and the flyscreen, so I opened the latter to let her out. She didn’t want to leave, so I had to help her a few hours later. A couple of hours after that, her mate made an appearence too – he was about half her size and the color of a dried leaf. These are the things I have in my garden. I am both amazed and somewhat frightened…

Before you ask: Yes, another monster hunting spider made an appearance in my office a few weeks back. I dealt with it. But to be honest: These are the moments when I regret my life choices (of staying single…)

Sorry, just a short post today. I’ll have to go see BATI-HOLIC a bit later tonight.

Fixing Things

Last week, I received mail from Austria. Not that this is newsworthy, of course. What is somewhat worthy of a post is that the letter came sealed in a plastic bag with a sticker on it:

The sticker essentially says that this piece of mail was damaged somewhere on the way and that a special division of a post office somewhere in Saitama took it upon themselves to glue the envelope back together without touching whatever was inside.

They did such a good job that I cannot even see where the envelope was damaged. My friend who sent the letter said that everything had arrived as planned, so I guess there may have been a small tear in a corner somewhere or maybe the glue at any of the flaps didn’t hold up.

So far, I’ve only received water-damaged mail with stickers saying that the post office had dried the letter. This was always obvious, other than now. Oh well, Japan. Good to know that my mail is safe and will arrive in the best of all possible conditions.

I’m Back!

Summer is over – which in Japan means that the humidity dropped considerably and the temperatures are now in the mid-30s. September is also typhoon season, but the first one that got people worried even up here didn’t even reach Kyoto (it did cause a lot of damage in Kyushu, though.)

In my summer off (from here), I did some serious BATI-HOLIC fangirling (the next two months will be busy in this regard…), got caught up on my reading, and finished a few other projects that have been lingering. They run the gamut from personal to house-related and business; I’ve even made progress on a certain long-term pet project of mine.

Speaking of pet: my beloved Pumpkin has made me explore Japan’s health care services in more depth than ever before, and he now owes me money. I’ll give you the details in due course.

Anyway, I’m back for now and will do my best to keep you in the loop two times a week as usual.

Heatwave

It’s the time between Gion Ato Matsuri (July 24) and Obon (August 16) and, like every year around this time: We’re in the middle of a heatwave.

So yes, I’m hot and Pumpkin is suffering too. I am taking it very easy at the moment – it’s summer, after all – but I still have to do some work.

Thankfully, it doesn’t feel that hot in my office, at least I have the impression, I’m not sweating too much. Also, there is a light breeze every afternoon, and with all my windows open, this indeed makes a difference.

Ox Day

Today was doyou ushi no hi, which is considered the hottest day in midsummer. The doyou are 18 consecutive days that occur before the change of the season, and traditionally, the summer doyou are associated with the element of fire (for obvious reasons).

The doyou ushi no hi is the day of the ox during this period (sometimes there are two in the same year). It is considered healthy to eat foods with an u in it, for example udon noodles or ume plums are popular.

The #1 food for doyou ushi no hi goes back to the Edo period, however: It’s unagi – eel- sliced down the middle, broiled on a grill and served on a bed of rice. It is one of my favourite dishes regardless of the season. However, since the Japanese eel has become an endangered species, this dish is very expensive and more often than not, the eel is a China import.

In any case, today didn’t quite live up to expectations. It was rainy and rather cool, so no complaints from me. I bet August will be hot and unbearable again…

Touring Kyoto

This spring, I decided to lean out of my comfort zone and to take people on tours in Kyoto. So far, I have led about 10 groups of people, all German speakers, and the experience was certainly interesting.

First and foremost: all my clients were delightful people. They were curious and interested, some even prepared for their tour. They also wanted to know about life in Japan in general, and I hope I could dispel a myth or two… Overall, I enjoyed myself, which came as a surprise to me.

Ever since I came to Japan, friends of mine had suggested tour guiding to me, but I was always very reluctant. The main reason: I’m an introvert and I feel I’m not good with strangers; and on a tour you have to “function” immediately. But it turns out that this is not an issue at all. I only had small groups of four people max, and the fact that I finally get to talk about Kyoto and its history for hours to an appreciative audience is quite exhilarating.

The other thing I was worried about was my hip problem: One tour means six hours of walking, a good part of it uphill… However, since I lost so much weight last year, it was less of an issue than I had feared – provided I can take breaks or at least lean against something especially towards the end of the tour. And there are always painkillers, of course.

However, there is one unexpected negative as well: The day after a six hour tour, I’m wiped out. I feel more mentally drained than physically tired, and this might be because of my introversion – having to interact a whole day with people I don’t know seems to deplete my batteries pretty fast. Therefore, I try not to schedule mentally challenging tasks – or, heavens forbid: appointments – the day after a tour.

For that reason, the whole tour guiding thing will probably remain a side job for the high seasons in spring and autumn. While it’s always good to test one’s boundaries, it’s just as good to know where they lie.