Kyoto to Nagoya

As Robyn and I went down to breakfast we delivered our large bags to the drop-off point to be trucked to Nagoya while the group did more sightseeing before catching the bullet train to Nagoya to meet our bags again.

After breakfast we visited Wendy's room to see her view (stunning), then vice versa (view of railway station). Our next task was to check out and set up in the lounge for internet and diary catch up. Robyn had a fortunate visit to the shop in the basement of the hotel and bought a superb silk coat with some patchwork on it. Unfortunately there was only one so I still retained my cash.

Onto the bus at 10am for a trip to Arashiyama on the river to the west of Kyoto. We walked along the river then up to the serene bamboo forest. We had a short cold wind and shower of rain but by the time we were in the forest the rain had stopped. There was a man making delicate bamboo dragonflies. Of course I succumbed and bought one. I hope I get it back through customs. Back through the streets of traditional buildings and stalls with some very beautiful wares including umbrellas that only show their pattern when wet.

 

 

 

 

The bus then took us back to Daimaru food hall again. I bought the same picnic lunch. However, when we arrived at the indoor picnic spot I was tempted by the green tea ice cream and coffee at the cafe. This meant I had a little too much lunch!

The afternoon stop was the Fureaiken Museum of Traditional Crafts of the Kyoto area. It was amazing, with a great shop where I bought a new scrunchie for myself.

On the bus again for our trip to Kyoto station where Ikuko (our guide) even came up to ensure we got on the train safely. It was a bullet train (Shinkansen) that literally flew through the countryside and almost continues towns making photography very difficult. We arrived in Nagoya 35 minutes later and found the Meitetsu New Grand Hotel with little trouble. What a way to travel! The only issue was that the toilet at our end of the carriage must have been blocked and stank appaulingly.

Eleven of us met at 6:30pm to search for dinner and ended up with Japanese Italian. The stories over dinner abounded and caused much laughter. We wandered slowly back through the mall. We found a great cheap clothing shop where Robyn and I discussed how to knit one of the jumpers on sale. I decided to try it on to see how it looked before trying to knit it. I liked it so much I bought it on the spot!

Off then to the Mini Mart to buy milk and up to our room for a silver tea before bed.

 

Kyoto fabrics

Robyn and I met Margaret and Karen at the hotel restaurant for breakfast. Back to the room for a bit of organisation then onto the bus by 9am to go to the Nishijin Textile Centre.

Our first activity was to weave a small placemat on a loom. Then to the shop before watching the kimono show. Luckily we had time to return to the shop where I bought some samples of jacquard fabrics made in Kyoto.

 

Our next stop was to the Daimaru department store food hall to buy our own takeaway lunch to eat at Nijo Castle. Wendy and I chose prawn sushi roll and fresh mango juice.

Off to Nijo Castle where, after our picnic lunch and removing our shoes we were able to have a tour of the castle and its nightingale floor. Of course we were again stopped by school children who wanted to practise their English.

As we were leaving the castle we came across a number of women in the garden dressed in kimonos. They had been attending a function. They even allowed us to take their photo. The wisteria in the garden was just as you see in Japanese art, with elegantly weeping leaves, unlike ours at home that seem to reach out everywhere.

From Nijo Castle we headed to the Yudon Fabric Dying Centre and Museum where we printed a handkerchief in a traditional design using a series of stencils. Once we were all finished and a little disappointed with our efforts the staff came around and did the last stencil of 'magic' white lines typical of the Kyoto area. Suddenly our prints came to life and were beautiful instead of very amateur.

Back to the hotel for our formal 'welcome' by Lynn and Deb and our personal introductions to the group. Robyn, Lynn, Deb and I then headed to Harves to buy takeaway dinner and some wine. We took it all back to our room (it was the biggest) and shared our meal with much chatting.

After dinner Robyn and I packed our bags ready to leave Kyoto tomorrow.

 

Kyoto Temples and Shrines

We were both up by about 6:30am and enjoyed our coffee/tea in our new mugs. Breakfast at about 7:30 followed by some diary typing.

The group met in the foyer at 9am for our bus trip to various temples around Kyoto.

Kiyomazu Temple – Buddhist

Here we joined huge crowds to walk to the temple up the hill of many small shops. There were women in kimono who can apparently get free entry to the temple (in fact some of them were western). Some delightfully polite school girls approached us to practise their English. Robyn and I found a fabulous little craft alley where Robyn actually tried on a wrap-around apron, but was not tempted to buy it.

 

 

 

 

Heian Shrine – Shinto

Here we were delighted by two little 3 year old girls all dolled up in their kimonos for some rite of passage at the shrine. The smile that my little koala brought when given to one of the little girls was worth waiting for. At the entrance were a pile of saki barrels to advertise the companies that donate saki for the services. We were approached by an older student to practise English again. Such fun to just have these students approach us. The garden in behind the shrine was beautiful and I was impressed by the long bridge over the pond.

 

 

 

 

Ginkakuji Temple (Silver Pavilion) – Buddhist

Here we ran the gauntlet of another road of shops to the gardens around the temple. Another beautiful garden.

Lunch was at Shozan restaurant. It was a fantastically presented Japanese box meal. Robyn ate my sushumi and I ate her tempura (prawns and sweet potato). The meal included:

1. miso soup with fish ball and seaweed

2. rice and small dishes of greens and radish to add

3. green tea

4. four small bowls of

sushimi

tempura

tofu and bean curd with pork and smoked salmon

potato and other small tastes

In all a beautiful meal! There was a beautiful craft shop attached to this restaurant but unfortunately we did not have time to browse but were rushed off to our next temple to get it in the right light.

Kinkakuji Temple (Gold Pavilion) – Buddhist

It really is covered in gold leaf and shone in the light.

Ryoanji Temple – Buddhist

This temple had a Zen meditation garden with 15 large stones. These are never all in view at one time as 15 is a perfect number and it is not done to actually achieve perfection.

Back at the hotel by about 5pm to sort photos and diaries and recharge batteries (ourselves and our technology). I was able to get wifi in the ground floor lounge of the hotel and to deal with a few emails. I also backed up the photos of the first few days of the trip. 

We met Lynn and Deb and Margaret at 7pm and went for dinner at KYK restaurant. Another delicious but cheap Japanese meal that Robyn and I shared happily.

We then took an escalator ride to level 11 in the station building to the roof top garden and the view over the hotel to the southern part of Kyoto. What a magnificent building with a long series of escalators!

Back to buy ore milk and some postcards on our way to the motel. Then time for a silver tea and sleep at about 9:30pm

 

 

Dinner in Japan

Monday 29 October - Sydney – Singapore

Robyn and I were delivered at the airport by Jo just in time to meet Lynn by 4:15pm. Deb and Janet arrived very soon after and as that was the total number from Sydney we proceeded to our flight with a bit of time for coffee before it left. The flight to Singapore was over 8 hours so by the time we landed there at midnight and met the quilters from other states at the next departure lounge we were exhausted.

Singapore – Kyoto Tuesday 30 October

Our flight to Kansai (Osaka) left at about 1:30 am and was a further 6.5 hour flight so by the time we met our guide, Ikuko, we really were zombies. Some of the quilters had added to that up to 7 hours wait at Singapore between flights. We then boarded our bus for the 1.5 hour drive to our hotel in Kyoto, the New Miyako Hotel just near the main Kyoto train station.

As we could not get into our rooms we cloaked our bags and walked through the station mall to a fantastic craft shop, Yoshikawa, with everything crammed into quite a small space. Robyn and I decided to get a small piece of fabric each from each shop we visited and if we need to we can share these when we get home. Our purchases made (of course more than one piece of fabric) we headed back into the mall for lunch. Most of us had Japanese style sandwiches and coffee.

The group then split up and while some went elsewhere in search of a Japanese art paper shop, some of us decided that enough was enough and slowly made our way back to our hotel to unpack, shower and have a short nanna nap before dinner to catch up on lost sleep.

Much refreshed, Robyn and I went in search of milk for our tea/coffee and mugs as the ones supplied are tiny green tea cups. We found milk easily at Harves but mugs eluded us. We then met the others and Ikuko took us to Kimuraya, a traditional Japanese shabu shabu restaurant where we sat on the floor (but the secret was there was a hole under the table for our feet). We all thoroughly enjoyed our seven course meal:

1. two sorts of tofu with tiny portions of some vegetables
2. beef (wagu by the looks of the marbling) extremely thinly sliced and vegetables all to cook in a common bowl of boiling water.
3. Raw fish and salad (sushimi)
4. teriaki chicken
5. tempura prawns and tempura ocra
6. noodles to warm in the boiling water which was now delicious soup
7. jelly cube dusted in green tea powder

Wow, were we full!

Robyn and I went to the 100 YEN shop to buy mugs as the ones supplied in the hotel room are far too small. They are meant for green tea. The girls at the shop were able to tell us that the Japanese writing on the mugs said 'freedom'.

 

A Weekend Sweatshop

Last weekend I attended a quilting retreat organised annually by the Quilters Guild of NSW at the Jamberoo Valley Lodge. Linda and I left home at about 1:30pm and headed south, arriving at about 3 pm with only a short tour into Jamberoo when we missed the turnoff.

What a beautiful place to stay. Our sweatshop was set up in a huge room with a group of peacocks displaying to the peahens and of course we ladies at the door. What a show to arrive to!

Meals and teas were delightful and of course the company was hilarious. Much learning from each other was achieved as we wandered to and from the iron or just taking a break from our sewing drudgery to peek at other projects. Communal input was given for all sorts of decisions about our own projects and then ignored completely or accepted. A great way to work!

There were lucky draw prizes (I won a fabric pencil with changeable leads) and a game of patchwork bingo and there was  opportunity for short walks or just a sit in the sun.

I was able to achieve my step count by completing a circuit of the room each time I walked to the iron. My three projects for the weekend each progressed to the next stage in the process:

1. My England quilt now has hedges, rivers and woodlands
2. My Snail Trail coat has had a face lift with beautiful facing to realign the previous collar and lapels
3. My Starry Starry Night blocks are complete and decisions have been made about the final quilt top design.

The experience was a great way to get to know some of the others a little better. I had met some people previously  but others were new faces. And all their projects were inspirational. It was a very similar experience to the quilting weekend I attended in Maine USA in 2011. 

My new coat

When I was sorting Surrey's clothes out to send to charity I kept his many cotton shirts for patchwork fabric. However, I also kept his polar fleece coats and vests as I had seen some lovely patchwork results with those as well. On the weekend before last I made a coat for me with lots of significant fabrics from my stash. I cut the side seams, underarm seams and sleeve seams to leave me with a flat surface but kept the collar and zip intact. I then sewed on strips of fabric to cover the surface and resewed the seams, resetting the sleeves.

I am really pleased with the result and hope to get a lot of use from it in cold weather. At the moment it is too hot to even model it.

Spring in full swing

Spring was heralded by the a very poor hatching of one chick from 10 eggs. He was cute while he lasted but via a series of errors on the part of mumma hen and myself he has since died. No more chicks till next year now as it is too late in the season to hatch healthy chicks.

My sweetpeas are magnificent and smell so beautiful in the house when I fill a vase or two.

The Callistemon near the carport put on a great show and the grape cuttings are all  looking healthy.

Since I moved the roses in the ground along the back wall of the house  into pots in full sunlight they have thrived. Of the seven or so I transplanted in July only one has died. They had been suffering where they were for years and we had had very few flowers.

I love the nasturtiums! I have this colour range at the back door and another beautiful one that is dusky pink in the front garden in amongst all the normal orange and yellow ones.

The bamboo at the front steps (dug from the great bamboo dig 2 years ago) has now decided to start growing. I have 5 huge shoots growing skyward. I am watching the pot carefully to ensure no roots penetrate through to the ground.

Blossom and Rain

The blossom is out for spring and drizzly rain greeted us soon after we arrived.

 

However, on our way in we had to stop and clear up a few trees that had fallen further. These were cut by Terry and Ellie last time but had now inched lower so the car would have been scratched on the way through.

 

 

Even Geoff's new fruit trees were flowering and looking well so the watering system must be working. We are now considering extending this new watering system to all the fruit trees.

Geoff experimented with his new time lapse video camera. The results were good but more experimentation is needed.

Grey Shrike-thrush

 

Grey shrike-thrush eggs in the tool shed

Subsequent note from Ellie: Yes, it is a Grey Shrike Thrush.  It looks like a male and the eggs look right too. Apparently there are 3 to 4 eggs and both parents sit on them. The female is smaller and has a streaky throat or breast... It must be their large eyes that make them look curious or inquisitive. They have a few really lovely clear calls.  

Our main job for the weekend was to start mending the chairs that were becoming quite dangerous. We were hampered a little by the fact that we did not want to disturb the bird in the shed sitting on three eggs. We think it is a Grey Shrike-thrush. Next time we'll be able to use some chisels and files rather than just a screwdriver to clean out the old glue. We did mend one chair (only took about an hour) and now we know what we are doing any further work will be a bit quicker.