Our House

Our house for the year is a Kyo no machiya style home on a small alley in central Kyoto. This is an endangered style of building despite some efforts at preservation and use of some such buildings for trendy cafes and shops. We'll write more about this later but I wanted to get some pictures up. This house was modernized, adding a bathtub (which you can order to be filled or reheated to a certain temperature by pressing a button in the kitchen), fresh flooring, and so on while keeping most of the charming qualities of the house. It is being rented out on a weekly to yearly basis furnished and so you can see photos of it in an advertisement on line (just write me to ask for the link if you want it).

This is the view of Shijou (4th Avenue) from our corner.





It's a fairly busy corner with a bus stop, 24 hour restaurant, with major banks and department stores in the distance. We are in an alley off of this corner, a very narrow street onto which taxis and other non-resident cars are not allowed. Amazingly, you walk a short way down the block to our house and inside all you can hear is the sound of cicadas! Apparently this is pretty common in Kyoto. Perhaps it is because of the wood construction and taller buildings at the major corners blocking the sound as it comes in. Anyway, it's very nice to have the convenience without noise.

Turn around and it's like this. At the end of this stretch it turns right continuing in the same fashion with wood houses, and then again to the left coming out on another big street.

Daimonji

Maia asleep Tenkadori
Originally uploaded by sarahfrederick1

Last night was Daimonji, one of the major summer events in Kyoto. It being very hot and having small children we played like locals and laid low, watching the fires on local TV. Before tall buildings were allowed in Kyoto (more about this later no doubt - it's a major issue for our neighborhood), you probably could have seen these patterned fires on the mountainsides from our street corner. But now we would have to brave some big crowds or pay a premium to watch from a high-rise hotel. Instead we had a nice meal at a nearby high-end yakitori place, which was really delicious. One usually thinks of fish quality with Japan, but all the chicken is of superior quality too, young and sweet smelling. We had grilled wings, thighs, tail (very yummy but bad for you), gizzards (surprisingly tender and yummy as prepared), grilled shiitake, tiny green peppers, and pork wrapped asparagus. This was at Tenkadori which turns out to be a chain from Yokohama, but the staff was very friendly and created a neighborhood restaurant feel. One of the waitresses gave Sam an edamame key chain - you can pop the beans out from the shell as when eating this favorite food of his.

Maia was dressed festively for Daimonji (well, she I guess she is wearing this new cute outfit in most of the photos so far) and had a nice nap at the restaurant.

Gosho

There haven't been many that many touristy photos on here. I don't know if I mentioned that it has been over 90 degrees every day since we arrived. I think the first day with a high under 30C was this week. None of this is conducive to sightseeing, and we have a year to see at least some of the 2000+ temples in Kyoto.

We did try to take in some greenery on a relatively cool day when we were near the big imperial grounds in the center/north of the city the other day. Sam liked the giant gingko tree, which is quite a bit bigger than the one recently (almost 10 years ago) started at his grandmother's house.




We happened on this garden, which is apparently one of the famous places to see blooming Salisbury (?) trees in Kyoto in August. The photos are not wonderful but give some sense. And the turtles sitting on a rock were neat. Then we watched some retirees play tennis from a cool cafeteria.

Shinkansen

On August 10 we took the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto. My host sister came with us to help, which was great. We had sent the bulk of our luggage down to our house, but traveling with two kids in diapers never seems to allow for "traveling light." Sam fell asleep in the station and missed a lot of the excitement - the trains are more interesting from the outside unless you are a seasoned enough Amtrak traveler to really appreciate the clean, quiet ride, ability to really reserve seats, and on-time performance. In the 25 minutes we were on the platform, about six express trains loaded and departed on time.


Finally we are in our new home (as of 8/10)). Sam was still a little tired out...

Gibli with the kids

At Nagata's are my host brother's kids who are four and nine. They could play with Sam, though language barrier and Sam's general irritability from the trip and hot weather were obstacles to that. I think they had fun but some tears and shouji damage ensued.


We all went to the Gibli Museum in Mitaka. Gibli is the animation studio who created animation such as My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Princess Mononoke. It's extremely popular, so you have to make a reservation to enter during a certain time window. Of course we seem to have gone on a day in summer vacation when the crowds were at a maximum and it was super hot. We couldn't take photos inside where Sam played on the "Cat Bus" - a big stuffed version of the bus in _My Neighbor Totoro_. You have to line up for a 5-7 minute stint playing with about 12 other kids on it. This was one of Sam's first experiences with that sort of crowd, and he did OK when his friend stood in line with him. Chris couldn't watch, and it was indeed worrying what would happen when they told him his time was up. Luckily he was willing to just get back in line again. This photo is pretty realistic - a lot of very hot and tired people trying to be in good spirits in front of the giant Totoro doll. At least Totoro was standing in a pretty shady spot and away from the crowds.

Nagata House

As I mentioned before, the Nagata's were my host family when I first went to Japan at age sixteen. I lived there again in the mid-90s. We did a lot of touristy things in the area like going to Sensoji Temple, the covered shopping area Nakamise, and the drum museum where you can play some of the drums. But having lived in that area for almost two years in the past, I didn't even think to bring my camera. Plus it was too hot to think. The new house in of itself was of equal interest to me.

They live on the same plot of land as last time I visited, but I had no idea what it would be like since they leveled everything and rebuilt since I last was here about four years ago. It is quite common to tear down and rebuild houses in neighborhoods such as theirs, altering the living space to suit one's changing needs and the times. They used to have a basic postwar 2.5 story house with makeshift 2nd floor walkways to the neighboring properties where the two children lived, and part rented out as storage. I knew it would be different but was impressed and surprised to find an elevator in the new building. There is a garage and then you can go up to the floors where different family members live, and there is roof area where you can play or light fireworks as we did. They have the nicest home bath I've seen in awhile, and Sam loved it, especially because the granite tiles were green, his favorite color.

Like most such houses, there are elements of older Japanese architecture combined with modern conveniences. Here there is a tatami room with lowered floor to put your feet in. Sam did exactly what all kids seem to do - climb under the table. It makes a great batters' box. Maia liked to dance with her adopted grandpa - she's just learned to pull up.

Maia's Pet

So as not to traumatize them with quarantine, we left behind our two hairy cats Wagahai and Atashi (Waga and Tashi) with our nice renters from New Zealand. Luckily Maia found a new pet to bond with, Koro-chan the robot dog! The Nagata's have one. He can fetch a ball and plastic bone. Maia kept pulling his removable ears off, but fortunately he doesn't seem to hold a grudge.

Sam's First Breakfast in Japan

Sam has really loved clams and mussels for a long time. The night before Maia was born, I think he ate everyone else's mussels instead of a kid-targeted meal given to him when we were unexpected guests at his grandparents' house. He's always loved Japanese rice and miso soup. And one of the Japanese words he's really mastered and uses a lot is for fried eggs: "medama yaki," literally "eyeball eggs" because they look up at you. So he was in hog heaven when some of the things on offer for him Monday morning were fried eggs with ham, steamed rice (almost always available from the rice cooker), and shijimi miso soup. Shijimi are a very small shell clam (my dictionary says ")corbicula japonica." Here is the wreckage part way through breakfast. He ate the clams out of his parents' bowls too.

Maia has been enjoying the better quality tofu. We pick it up each morning from a place through the alleyway. It's still warm when we get it. And my host mother has been making her rice "o-kayu" - just a porridge of rice with water. It's much tastier than flaked baby rice cereal.

The Big Trip

We left for the airport at 5:45 AM in a convoy to Logan. Since Sam came out straight out of bed he was still in his lobster PJs, and he just did not want to change out of them. So he had a wicked Boston look for most of the way to Tokyo.


All in all the trip went pretty smoothly. Getting through security twice and the last hour or so on the plane were probably the most difficult. Taking off shoes, removing laptops, and pulling out little baggies of liquid items while wrangling the two of them was rather insane but doable. On the Boston-NY flight American Airlines didn't sit us together. They put me with Maia, but Sam behind Chris. But the flight attendant, who was flying her last flight ever, helped us out. And since Maia would sit on my lap for that flight I gave up my seat on that flight for $200. The beneficiary was an Irish businessman who was making a tighter connection to a Tokyo flight than ours. Father of 1 year old twins, he definitely didn't mind helping to entertain Maia. We agreed that our cheeky flight attendant cracking jokes with the pilots and criticizing the gate attendants for the lousy seat assignments, would be a good contrast to the polished and super competent JAL staff.

After a delay due to some really spectacular lightning and despite being 13+ hours in the air, Japan Airlines from NY to Tokyo was quite nice. They had various things for the kids: personal TV, Anpanman (a Japanese cartoon Sam watches on You Tube) diapers, a bib, kids' meals, and a nice car seat for Maia's seat, the last of which was a lifesaver. I could put her there when she was asleep, and the side of it made a nice cushion for me to sleep on. She was a bit antsy but didn't cry much at all, at least that anyone other than I noticed. One of the stewardesses was really ready to take her home, and in fact offered to do so when we were on our way to the immigration office at Narita.

Sam freaked out a few times, but was basically pretty saintly. He sat next to Chris and since he kept kicking in people (mostly Chris) in his sleep, Chris slept even less than the three or so hours I did. So we survived the flight, but I wouldn't want to do it again anytime soon. In the car from the airport (the Nagatas all came in two mini-vans to pick us up), Sam who had just woken up said first "Where's Jon?" - his Uncle Jonathan had driven us to the airport in Boston and then "I want to go home!" Sorry Sam, we are not getting back on that plane for some time to come. I doubt you'll miss it.