Summer!

I thought I'd take a short break from the Japan-related posts and write a blog post about what else is going on these days.

For one thing it's summer in Texas.  Hot!  HOT!  I shouldn't complain actually.  I'm not sure we've hit 100 yet.  Or if we have it's been a just barely hit, but the high 90s are still plenty hot.  And the last week there's been a pretty decent wind.  Between the heat and  wind, the moisture is getting sucked out of my lawn and plants.  I increased the watering by the sprinkler system from very 4th day to every 3rd day.  And I'm needing to remember to go out and water plants the sprinkler system doesn't reach.

The cats like the heat in doses.  The first picture here is Zoe, sleeping in her favorite outside spot under the table.  I had to take this picture through the door so I wouldn't wake her up because she was so cute sleeping with her head resting on the chair rail.  Addy will go out there for short periods but here she's stretched out on her favorite spot on the bed.

I have purple blooming in the garden now.  These purple blooms are crepe myrtle down in the garden.  Above them is a fuchsia crepe myrtle tree that's also blooming.  And of course all the roses continue to bloom.  So far I've had something blooming all the time since the flowering quince began blooming last February.  Thanks, previous homeowners!

I'm keeping the bird feeder filled but it's become something of a chore because I have a flock of house sparrows with a few house finches thrown in that go through a feeder full every other day.  There are about 16 sparrows out there right now, vying for 4 open slots on the feeder.  the feeder has 6 places, but as the seed gets low it can only be reached from 4 places, then from 2 places.  The vying gets worse as the level of seed drops.  The sparrows and morning doves are about the only birds that still come around.  Occasionally I'll see the cardinal pair or blue jays will come to the bird bath.  None of them need me to be feeding them now, but I still put seed out.

I have a pair of mockingbirds nesting in one of the tiered trees out back here.  I see them around all the time.  The other day one was foraging by the side of my house, right outside my window as I sat here on the computer.  He was using that typically Mockingbird behavior of flashing his wing patches as he hunted.  I wish I had caught it on camera.  It was very cool.  I like mockingbirds.  

My two little pine trees are still growing although they are tending to grow outward rather than upward.  You can see here that they're surviving quite nicely in the pot I put them in.  And you can also see that the limbs continue to spread, although upward growth has slowed.  I wonder if they need to go through a dormant period - like maybe winter.  Unfortunately, they have at least 4-5 months to go before the weather turns cool.  I wonder if I should put them outside for awhile when it does though.

Anyway so things are pretty normal around the homestead.  I have some family stuff coming up.  My Mother is having a medical procedure next week so I'll be deeper in east Texas to be with family.  I'm confident that everything will go smoothly there, but I want to be around.   Work is busy, but at a somewhat slower pace than it's been for the last several months, so that's nice.  

I'm seriously watching my diet and exercising these days because I had a doctor's appointment when I got back from Japan.  My total cholesterol was 181 after 9 days in Japan, eating fish, vegetables and rice.  My total cholesterol has been running 205 - 219 for the last five years at least.  The last time it was in the 180's was in 2001.  So that cholesterol result motivated me to be more conscious of my diet and try not to be totally sedentary.  

So that's what's going on.  Nothing earth-shattering, just daily life.  Next post, back to Japan!

Japan Trip 3

So many pictures I want to post.  It's hard to know what to put in and what to leave out. All I can hope is that these posts will give you something of the flavor of what being in Japan was like.

Okay, our third full day we walked back to Kyoto station and got a day pass for the subway and bus line.   We also stopped at a bank and exchanged some traveler's checks for yen.  Then we took the bus back to a stop near the Kiyomizu stop and hiked up to the Kodai-Ji Temple.  The first picture is taken at Kodai-Ji Temple.  The entrance was a little hidden, but very cool once we located it.

I should stop for a minute and say that before we left for Japan we had made all these specific plans of what temples and shrines we wanted to see each day and how we would travel to them, etc, etc.  Those plans nearly completely fell by the wayside when we got there.  For one thing, we way over-estimated our time and ability to get from point A to point B.  In addition, we took more time to explore and look at the shrines than we probably thought we would, rather than taking pictures and rushing to the next one.  So we ended up hitting the main temples, shrines and castles that we wanted to see and tossing the rest of the plans.  We'd spent each evening deciding what we would do the next day.  Kodai-Ji wasn't in our original plans but it was awesome!   We even stopped there and had a "soft cream" at a little stand.  Soft ice cream.  It was fun.  And tasty!

Anyway, as noted Kodai-Ji was waaaaaay cool.  There were some dragon figures there and more cool and fun paths through the woods.  There were also some obnoxious American tourists for awhile unfortunately, but they didn't hang around.  

From Kodai-Ji we could see the head and shoulders of a massive white stone  Buddha  above  the  temple  buildings  and  through  the trees in the forest.  We walked over there when we left Kodai-Ji and it turned out to be a shrine of the unknown soldier.   We lit some incense and took some picture of the place and of the ducks in the little stone pond there.

After we left the unknown soldier shrine with the large buddha, we walked back down to the bus stop and took the bus over to see the Toji Temple.  The Toji temple has the largest 5-tiered pagoda in Japan, and like most of the temples, it has well-kept and pretty grounds.  There were also a herd of turtles sunning in the ponds at Toji Temple. Lost and lots of them.   All the structures at Toji Temple are massive.  You can get something of a feel for their size because the last picture in this post is me standing in front of the Toji Temple pagoda.

After leaving Toji Temple, we walked over to the nearest rail station.  Along the way we passed a bakery and a book store, so of course we had to stop in both.  We got melon bread and cheese bread at the bakery for later.

At the rail station we took the Toji line back to Kyoto Station and then switched to the subway and went back to the Teramichi shopping district.  At the Shiyakusho Station (subway stop for Teramichi) is an underground mall, so we had a late lunch there before going to Teramichi.  I had Kitsune soba.  Yum!

We did less shopping this afternoon because my feet were seriously killing me.  I did buy bandaids and a new pair of tennis shoes!  I figured if I were going to walk any more I was going to have to have another pair of shoes.  So I bought a pair of reeboks.  I asked for them in a size 8, and he came back with them and said "biggest size we have."  Apparently the Japanese have significantly smaller feet than I do.  Luckily they fit well.  That pair of shoes saved me on this trip.  Comfortable and easy to walk in.  The funniest thing is that when I took them out of the box back at the ryokan, a flyer was in the bottom of the box.  It was a page of "Instructions for Use".  I was startled, never having seen a pair of shoes with instructions before, so I started reading it.  The shoes are made with a uneven bottom surface!  The intent is to force your leg muscles to work and exercise in order to keep your balance.  I started laughing.  Leave it to me, the person whose feet were killing them, the person who is older and semi-steady on my feet anyway, to buy a pair of uneven, unsteady shoes.  Anyway the shoes gave me no trouble at all.  They're a pleasure to walk in and really saved me on the trip.


At any rate we went back to the ryokan after shopping, me almost limping by that point, and stopped to pick up snacks, real food and beer for the evening.  Plus we had our melon and cheese breads.  We got back and spent part of the evening getting everything repacked and ready to go to Miyajima Island the following day.

The other unfortunate thing was that I was coming down with a bad cold on this third day.  I must have picked it up on the airplane going over.  I didn't let it slow me down too much on the rest of the trip though.  And that was day three.  

Japan Trip 2

I've realized that I'm going to have to give a nearly day-by-day account of this trip in order to post all the cool pictures I want to post.  I can skip travel days, but the rest are pretty full of picture worthy material.

The last post was about our arrival and first full day of playing.  This post will be about our second day.

After our usual wonderful breakfast, we went to Kyoto Station and picked up the Nara Line south to Inari Station and went to the Fushimi Inari Shrine.  Fushimi Inari is definitely one of my favorite places in Japan.  These orange gateways are referred to as "torii", and Fushimi Inari has millions of them.  They have two pathways going up the side of the mountain that are completely lined by torii.  The picture here is the entrance to the two torii pathways from the top.  Going up the torii appear blank (see next picture down), but from the other side going back down they have kanji writing on them (next picture).  The pathways are completely awesome.

At the top of the torii paths there is another pathway leading up the mountain that we took.  Not many people take it, so it was perfect for us.  I don't know how far up we went, but we came across an area that was full of what I call little fox shrines.  There were hundreds of them.  The picture down lower in this post shows some of the little shrines.  In one area there was a natural bowl, cup-like area in the mountainside that was full of small shrines.  I wish I could describe it adequately.  We didn't take pictures of that particular area or even go down into it because there were people dressed in white traditional Japanese clothing who were holding ceremonies and praying.  We just moved quietly past, with the smell of incense in the air around us.  It was really a cool extra hike, very peaceful and quiet with good views and not strenuous hiking.  Also I saw my first bamboo forest, which was also cool.  

After coming back down the mountain, we did some minor shopping at the touristy places around and in Fushimi Inari Temple, then took the Nara line back one station, got off and found the 207 bus to take us to Kiyomizu Temple.  We did take it in the wrong direction initially, but got turned around (got off and took it in the right direction) and rode it up to the Kiyomizu-michi stop.  We got off and walked up a VERY steep hill to Kiyomizu Temple.

A few comments about that.  I continuously forgot that Japan is comprised of mountainous islands.  There's not all that much flat land, and the mountains are pretty vertical. This "hike" up to Kiyomizu Temple was one of those nearly vertical places.  Probably it wasn't all that long, but it seemed like it was.  Also, although I wished the sun had been out more on this trip, I'm actually grateful that so much of the time it was overcast.  The temperatures were in the mid-70s, but the humidity was so high that I spent a lot of time sweating, including on this climb up to the Temple.


Kiyomizu Temple is famous for it's open air stage that overlooks Kyoto.  The view from here is pretty spectacular.  The last picture is of a portion of Kiyomizu Temple rather than of the view.  I didn't enjoy this temple as much as I might have ordinarily because I was tired, and my shoes had rubbed a second blister, on the opposite foot from my first blister from the day before.  So we didn't explore Kiyomizu temple as much as we probably should have.  Nor did we shop at any of the shops lining the streets  approaching Kiyomizu Temple.  By this point we were hungry.

We went back down to the bus and took back to Kyoto Station.  We finally just ate at a place there in Kyoto Station, since it was so late by then and we were starving.  I had curry, which was okay.  I was so hungry by then I'd have eaten almost anything.  

After reviving at lunch, we went back to Teramichi for shopping.  We found an Animate store and spent quite some time there doing anime shopping.  I bought a Japanese fan with cats on it at a shop on the way out of the shopping area.

Two things happened on this day that were repeats of my initial trip to Japan.  One was buying the fan.  I also bought one the first time I went over.  The second was: at Kiyomizu Temple, I was stopped by a group of school kids with their teacher, asking if they could practice their English on me.   That's what happens when you're a blond in Japan.  I enjoyed it though.  This group was older than the group from my previous trip.  That time it happened at Nijo-jo and it was young grade-school kids.  This group may have been middle-school.

After shopping we returned to Shimizu ryokan.  We stopped at a Lawson's on the way and I picked up beer and snacks, since our room had a small refrigerator.  My friend always picked up something more substantial to eat when we stopped for evening food supplies, but evening beer and snacks worked for me.  

And that was our second full day.

     

Japan Trip 1

I'm back in town!  I took so many pictures on my trip to Japan though (several hundred) that I'm going to have to talk about the trip in several blog posts to get everything in.  

I went to Japan as a vacation trip with a friend of mine.  We've talked about going for almost 10 years now, so since we both had the time last month, we just decided to go.  The trip was great, despite the fact that I picked up my third cold in the last 6 months.  We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  I'll talk about it a little at a time so I can get in the pictures I want to get in.  

We flew into Tokyo Narita airport straight from DFW, a 12 hour flight, and arrived about 1:30 pm.  We got our Rail Passes and took the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto, changing trains in Shinagawa.  We arrived in Kyoto around 7:00 pm and walked to the ryokan (traditional Japanese Inn) we stayed at in Kyoto.  I made that sound easy, but we wandered around a bit trying to find it.  Japanese cities tend NOT to be laid out on a grid, plus only major streets have names, and buildings as a rule don't have numbers on them.   Finding things is by landmarks and wandering.  


Anyway, we got there and the place was more than worth finding.  It's name is Shimizu Ryokan, and the first picture on this post is of it.  We stayed there four nights and ate breakfast there every morning.   Traditional Japanese breakfast is fish, vegetables, rice and miso soup (see above).  This picture I took with my phone one morning.  The food was delicious.  Our room was an 8-tatami room with a small table, futons and a private bathroom.  We decided public baths were a little more traditional than we were willing to get. The place was perfect for our purposes.  The staff was exceptional and every afternoon when we came in, they brought us tea.


The first day we were there we walked back to Kyoto Station and got a 2 day pass for the subway and bus system so we could move around freely.   Then we took the subway up to Nijo-jo which is a palace in central Kyoto.  Nijo-jo is pretty awesome (picture above) and has nightingale floors - the kind that "sing" like a nightingale when you walk on them.   We wandered the grounds a bit and took lots of pictures.  Then we got on a bus and went to Kinkakuji Temple.   I should mention that these places are famous and attract a LOT of tourists, so when you see pictures with no extraneous people in them, you know I waited a while to take them.    You can see why Kinkakuji is so famous.  It's just beautiful (picture below).


The weather wasn't really cooperative while we were in Kyoto, raining on and off, but we just carried umbrellas and kept going.  It never was serious enough rain to dampen our enthusiasm or make life difficult.

Next we went back to Kyoto Station and walked over to Sanjusangendou Temple.  This temple has several thousand statues of Buddha inside the temple, but no picture taking is allowed inside, so there's only outside pictures, and none of the thousands of Buddhas.  Most of the temples don't allow pictures to be taken inside because the flash from photography damages the paint and finishes.  Restoration is being done in many places that we visited, and of course everything is continuously maintained.

This picture is of a big bell and log for ringing it outside of the temple at Sanjusangendou.  After leaving Sanjusangendou temple we walked back toward Kyoto Station and found a place near the Station to have a late lunch.  I had a pork cutlet set.  Yum.  

Unfortunately the tennis shoes I took on this trip were slightly too big and gave me a nice blister on my left foot after this first day of walking.  We walked more on this trip than I have in years, so I'm sure it was good for me. 

After our late lunch we took the subway to a place I remembered where there was a shopping district.  I remembered correctly!  It's called Teramichi shopping area, and we found a store that carried some anime and did a little shopping there before calling it a day and returning to the ryokan.

That was our first full day in Kyoto.  I found representative photos from that day and posted them here.   You can see why I'm going to need to talk about this trip in several post, since these were just first day pictures.