Category: experiences

It is slowly turning autumn here. Already several weeks ago I noticed that it would get dark earlier in the evening, by now I ride to my soroban class when the sun has completely set. That means that I have given up cycling along the river, it’s simply too dark down there.

Now is the right time to come to Japan though, the weather is very pleasant with up to 30 degrees during the day and bright sunshine and no rain. This is perfect weather to do sightseeing, as it is not too humid either; I can understand why people would prefer to visit here now instead of summer. It does cool down in the evenings quite a bit though, so I will not be able to wear my shorts much longer then, and I will probably have to start looking for a jacket.

Besides that, you don’t notice autumn much just yet. Only here and there leaves are turning yellow and bright red, but it’s by far not cold enough. And the koyo, the autumn colours, will only be at their height in November anyway. Instead, we did have some spectacular sunsets in the last weeks, I have seen people flocking to the river and taking photos there (not everybody lives in a great place like I do with perfect view on it).

Yesterday I spent the afternoon in my favourite spot at Shinniyodo temple. There are lots of trees, often a cool breeze, and benches and tables where I can write and work. Unless they are working in the large area with attached cemetery with their leaf blowers and grass cutters, the place is very quiet and peaceful. As it is a bit off the beaten tracks, not many people are coming there, except during Hanami and Koyo season.

Every now and then, a hapless tourist stumbles onto the temple ground. Yesterday was such a day, and I watched a tourist – possibly a Japanese from outside of Kyoto – running around the temple taking photos. The man also took a picture of the front of the main hall, which struck me as particularly odd. Don’t get me wrong, the buildings are nice, there is a lovely three-storied pagoda, and for a special fee you can go and see the Japanese garden, but, right now, the main hall front view is this:

So, why on earth would you want to take a picture of scaffolding with a roof on top? Even if the man was a builder, this is very strange. It may have been simply for documentation purposes, something along the lines of Been here, Done that. I have seen many people taking odd snapshots. The most stunning experience, however, was a man in Heian shrine garden, who walked through it with his ipad raised to the side of his head, obviously making a movie. However, neither did he look at the screen, nor at the scenery at large, the only thing he saw was the path in front of him. To me, this type of tour documentation is useless. Even if you see the pictures half a year later – would you still remember actually having been there?

This is a great day with great timing… Noon has just passed and I’m already 2 hours late…

In the morning, I had one of my quarterly hospital appointments. When I arrived there, I was informed by a note on my doctor’s door (which I got translated by another staff member) that my doctor was running late and would not be in the office until 10:30, more than one hour after my original appointment.

Usually that’s not a big deal, because my schedule is rather loose, but just today it happens that I have a deadline, need to finish two other things (including writing this post), and I have to go shopping for some souvenirs because I will see friends in Kobe this afternoon. As we want to go to a museum which will close at 5 pm and have dinner afterwards, I can’t be much later than already planned.

At least I could do a little something while waiting for the doctor’s arrival – as you get this cell-phone style beeper, you don’t need to sit and wait before the office anyway, which was good – in the one hour I had I went shopping and picked up my writing utensils from home, which is only 10 minutes away thank goodness.

Still, when my appointment was finally over, one and a half hour later than planned, I just made it in time for the extra long queue in front of the payment counter; and when this was done, there was, of course, an extra long queue in the pharmacy as well (you have to pick up your medicines in “your” pharmacy not later than 2 days after the prescription, so that could not wait). So, altogether, I am now running two hours late. I’ll have to get on the bus in about one hour – and I have the feeling I haven’t done anything just yet…

Isn’t is always the same – just when you think everything is running just fine, you have a severe onset of Murphy’s Law…

I have finally solved one of those mysteries that I have been wondering about since I came to Japan and started living in this neighborhood. With that I mean, this type of small, suburban, family homes kind of neighborhood in general, not just this particular one in Kyoto, as I have come across the same mystery in several other places as well.

Let’s try a little quiz (and don’t scroll down to the solution just yet!).
What do you think is the purpose of these: So, what do you think the bottles – which are filled with water, by the way – are good for?

For a long time I thought they were used in case of a fire (and one of my housemates had a similar suspicion); it’s always good to have plenty of water around when one of the wooden houses is burning, and those plastic bottles, why, you can just chuck them in without further ado.

Then I thought, well, maybe, it could be that it’s a sign not to park there, whether a bicycle or a motor bike or even a car. Although this does not seem very useful, the close-knit way small neighborhoods work here with people on constant lookout for anybody breaking any rules, it could just work.

But no, that’s not it, and now that I have inquired with several people as to the meaning of all those bottles all over the place, and they all gave me the same answer, irrespective of location, I thought I’d share it with you: Those bottles are there…

…to prevent cats from coming to the houses.

Yes, I made the same sceptical face as you do now. The reasoning behind the whole idea seems to be that the water reflects light, and as cats do not like those type of flashy reflections, they will simply go away and take their business elsewhere. I have no idea whether this is supposed to work at night as well though, the neighborhood is not that brightly lit (thank goodness). I know that at the edge of roads that go through forests in Europe, people put up old CD’s, in the hope that the reflections from the car’s headlights at night will keep the forest animals from coming near or even crossing the road; and it appears to work. But, those a wild animals – here we’re talking about cats that are used to humans and their lights…

I obviously need a new category for my posts: All things Japanese – wacky stuff…

I’m back from spending a week with an old friend of mine and her family, and I’ve enjoyed myself greatly.

Tuesday I went up to Nagoya, and after saying a short hello to her mother, we went to see Atsuta shrine, the biggest shrine in Nagoya. The area the shrine covers is very large, and it struck me immediately that the precincts were well kept and had many new buildings. It turned out that this shrine houses one of the three sacred treasures of the emperor: the sword. Thus, it is a shrine dedicated to the sun goddess, and is considered very important. In the evening we had dinner at my friend’s brother’s place. I had met him before, but he has only recently moved back to Nagoya. Once again, he was cooking lovely food, and we had a great evening.

Wednesday we spent in Arimatsu, one of the neighborhoods in Nagoya. Although only a small place, it is known as a part of the historical Tokaido – the road between Edo (now Tokyo) and Kyoto. A small part of it has been restored, there are lots of beautiful old houses to be seen there. Arimatsu is also famous for shibori, a beautiful tie-dying craft that apparently goes back to the 8th century.

Takayama was our next station, and we spent Wednesday night and Thursday there. It is a rather small town in the middle of the mountains, and its surroundings remind me a lot of the place I come from in Austria. There is the Hida Folk Village a bit outside of the town, an open air museum that has a number of traditional farmhouses from all over Gifu prefecture. All the houses can be visited, and as it was comparatively cool on Thursday, there was a fire in each one of them. There are many other sights in Takayama, and we spent a lot of time walking through the inner city with its old wooden houses and breweries.

Friday and Saturday we spent in Kyoto. My friend wanted to see a few specific things, and so we went to the Western part of town, which I have grossly neglected so far, I have to confess. We went to Ryoanji temple with the famous zen garden, and to Ninnaji, which is less than a temple and more of an old emperor’s residence. We also saw the Myoshin temple complex, a huge accumulation of temples next to each other; Ryoanji is considered one of the outlying temples of Myoshin. Saturday we spent on my side of town, starting out on the philosopher’s path and then moving on to the city to do some shopping.

I had a great week and thanks to my friend I could revisit parts of Japan I loved very much, like Takayama, but could also see new things in Nagoya and Kyoto. It’s so much more fun to go with somebody else than to do everything on your own all the time. I hope her brother will visit me soon, as promised…

There have been heavy rains in several Japanese provinces, causing floodings and landslides. I have just read that in a large landslide in Hiroshima, at least 40 people were killed, and more than 50 are still unaccounted for.

In case you were reading these accounts: Kyoto has been fine so far. As I said last week, just up until the Daimonji, there were heavy rains. Apparently during the ceremony, people were not allowed to go down to the riverbank (which is a favourite spot for watching the big dai) because the river had partially overflown the banks of the Kamogawa and the current was indeed very strong. Besides that, I did not notice much effects of the bad weather in Kyoto. Here, it has been dry the whole week, and although there are still weather warnings in place, they are now in the North of Honshu and the South of Hokkaido, far from Kyoto.

So, don’t worry about me here in Kyoto – the summer has average temperatures and average precipitation here. Must be all the mountains that surround the city…

When I came to Japan last year and needed a place to stay, I decided to look for a gaijin house, a shared accommodation for foreigners who stay in Japan on a short-term basis only and cannot or don’t want to rent an apartment. I did it mostly because I was not allowed to rent an apartment (no zairyu card, remember?), because I did not really know which parts of town are the “good” ones (I still don’t, but I have a better idea of where I’d like to live), and finally, because I thought it would be a temporary thing anyway.

The first year was very pleasant, we were only three people who stayed for longer, and occasionally there were short-term guests. But every one was nice and thoughtful and respectful in dealing with the other tenants and with the house.

This year, the house has become much more busy. Three weeks ago or so was the first time all the rooms were rented out since I moved in. A lot of the people were in their mid-20s, students having fun on their vacation; and unfortunately, the atmosphere in the house turned to that of a student’s dorm…

I had lived in a dorm for long enough to have known the moment I moved out of it, that I never wanted to experience that again. Ever. So I found it especially grating to go through the same old stuff again: dirty remnants of food in the kitchen (well, the cockroaches loved it), a filthy bathroom; a general inability to turn off lights and close the fridge (great stuff in summer, that), noisy homecomings at 1:30 in the morning (banging sliding doors is an art). No amount of requests or explanations of the senior members of the household changed anything, so I was incredibly relieved when the more obnoxious tenants moved out a bit over a week ago – at least I can sleep through the night again.

But today, I had another dorm flash back, and as I was not directly involved I found it rather funny. When I woke up and groped my way downstairs to the toilet and from there to the bathroom, I found, stuck to one of the mirrors, a letter headed with “To whomever is throwing up every night”… In a surprisingly blunt tone verging on the passive-aggressive (the letter was not signed), the puking person was strongly urged, if not to change their lifestyle, then to at least clean up afterwards.

I have since ascertained who has written the letter and that said writer was indeed extremely pissed off about the state of the bathroom sink (!) last night, hence the writer resorted to such methods. I would have never thought this otherwise so gentle person being capable of this!

Anyway, I had my laugh in the morning, and the letter was gone when I went down the next time. Hopefully the addressee has received the letter and the message – and we’ll have a sufficiently clean bathroom around the clock from now on. I also hope that in the future we will get more adults who can look after themselves (and the house) and don’t need to be on the receiving end of anonymous letters…

It has 23 degrees right now – and I’m cold. Yes, I know how that sounds, but only this morning we still had 10 degrees more… It started to rain in the afternoon, and thus cooled down considerably. Apparently there are two typhoons on their way to Japan, one of them (No. 11) is coming from the South and is probably the reason for the rain.

I don’t like going out when it’s raining. Especially now as I don’t really know what to wear – shorts and sandals are not warm enough, and long pants and sneakers get soaked within five minutes. Today I chose the latter, and ran around with squishy feet all evening, which was not really nice, so I might try the long pants with sandals idea next time, as my feet will be equally wet and cold, but there is at least the chance of them drying in the restaurant…

Yes, this is what I was doing – I went to a restaurant with my language exchange partner and a friend of his, and it was really fun! He did not tell me much about his friend beforehand, only that she had spent the last year in Austria, so I was very excited to find out that she lived in Graz, where I myself had studied so long ago! We talked about Graz and where she lived and where I lived and how much Austrian she actually spoke… We talked about her favourite Austrian dishes (Bauerng’röstl, closely followed by Käsespätzle), and when she mentioned that a friend had given her a bottle of real Styrian Kernöl, I recommended her one of my favourites: Vanilla icecream with said Kernöl. She was very surprised, apparently she hadn’t heard of it, but she promised to give it a try. The evening was a short one, we were literally kicked out of the restaurant a bit after 9 pm, and I think because of the rain, nobody wanted to go elsewhere and keep chatting.

I gave her my email address and she promised that if she had time, we could meet again – and talk about Austria. She claimed that she could understand Austrian dialect but not speak it, and I’m curious to try it out… What a great evening, despite the rain!

Yesterday I received my first soroban certificate! Here it is:It says that Iris is now a sorobanista of 6th kyu rank, which is not really much but, it’s a start. Everything has to have its proper order in Japan, so this certificate is signed (see the two red seals on the far left) with the names of two famous people who are somehow affiliated with this soroban association. The leftmost of them is Yamazaki Naoko, who, in 2010, became the second Japanese woman in space… I feel honored, actually!

The interesting thing about this certificate is that is does not contain my birthdate, although it should. No, it’s not because I deleted it… It’s because this is a pre-printed certificate, where only name, birthdate, and current kyu-rank are filled in by hand. Apparently, only children take these sort of exams, so the birth year is pre-printed as “Heisei”, the current Japanese era (we are in Heisei 26 right now). However, my birthdate falls into the last Japanese era called “Showa”, hence they left this part of the certificate blank. Sensei promised me to ask next time to have a “Showa” certificate issued, I said it was not important until I’ll get the first dan grade – the equivalent to a black belt in martial arts. Anyway, it’s a nice certificate (noticed the phoenixes?) and I am sufficiently proud of it!