Japan

Picture of the Month: A Year in Japan #5

Posted: January 1, 2020

Flower arrangement with plant penguins at Odori park in Sapporo, 2019 — Cute flower arrangement at Odori park in Sapporo, Hokkaido

In these Picture of the Month posts about my year in Japan, I have mentioned how terribly hot and wet summer is in Japan. The truth of the matter though is that Japan isn’t small enough that it is the same absolutely everywhere, even if you don’t count Okinawa (tropical).

I live in Kyoto, on the main island of Japan (Honshu). My first time in Japan was in Fukuoka on Kyushu, the (bigger) southern island.

There is also a big island to the north, called Hokkaido. Its climate is fairly similar to Sweden, although they have more humidity in summer and, you know, typhoons passing by.

This is where I escaped for a glorious long weekend. Leaving 38 degrees Celsius behind for 20-25C. Basically getting to perfect summer temperatures, if you are me.

Suddenly I loved going out for long walks again. Sitting outside to read or write poetry. Walking until my feet hurt.

Visiting a shrine, and some other places.

A small church/chapel with a squirrel statue on top — The Squirrel Church/Church of Squirrels in a garden outside Obihiro, Hokkaido, somewhere. (I don’t know where.)

And for one day I hoped a train and visited the hometown (Obihiro) of a Japanese person I’ve gotten to know. She lives in Kyoto, same as me, but was visiting home for a little while in summer.

She and her mother took me around to a beautiful garden and forest outside Obihiro. But first they took me to a restaurant where I had the best tempura I’ve ever had. So delicious.

The garden we visited had both a Japanese garden area, but it was bigger with other sections that I don’t know how I’d define. I don’t know if they belonged to a specific garden tradition. If they do, I don’t know those traditions.

Squirrel carrying three small fruits of some kind — A squirrel in another area of the garden that has a Squirrel Church.

It was gorgeous though and we had a rain free day. Quite a surprise since I’d actually had to go a day later than planned because the trains had been cancelled the day before due to heavy rain outside Sapporo (where I stayed).

After that garden we went to a cafe, and then walked through a smaller forest with some sculptures and small houses with art.

A very enjoyable day and a lot of Japanese practice, which is great. I hope by the time I finish the year here, I can hold casual conversations fairly easily in Japanese, right now they are certainly not easy and don’t feel very casual since I have to work so hard, haha.

Beautiful lotus in full bloom at park in front of Akarenga in Sapporo — Beautiful blooming lotus outside Akarenga, an old government building (not in use) in Sapporo, Hokkaido.

Picture of the Month: A Year in Japan #4

Posted: December 1, 2019

Gion festival float in Kyoto — The Gion festival floats are very prettily illuminated.

In the middle of July, during the hottest time in Kyoto, there is a big festival, Gion Festival, across multiple days with two parades.

PARADES!

When the temperature is guaranteed to be 35C or more. I don’t get it.

Thankfully, the festival have some things happening in the evening when it is still way too hot (it doesn’t cool off except for a couple of degrees), but at least no sun beats down on my head.

So off I went with a friend.

The evening activity is something that happens the three nights leading up to each parade. The parade floats are set up and illuminated. Around this are food stall, souvenir stalls, and some shrine stalls.

I went during the days before the second parade, a much smaller event, with almost no food stalls and very few people. A huge point in its favor because leading up to the first/bigger parade, the evening events are usually packed.

And since it is summer, I cap this post with a picture of some really pretty ice cream that can be bought in the Kawaramachi area in Kyoto. I don’t know if the waffle cone is hand made, but the decorations are, and the soft ice cream (lemon flavored for me) was delicious.

It was so yummy.

Pretty and delicious ice cream in Kyoto — Prettiest ice cream I ever ate.

Picture of the Month: A Year in Japan #3

Posted: November 1, 2019

Japanese Garden at Nijo Castle in Kyoto — Inside Nijo castle grounds: A beautiful Japanese garden right by a tea house with excellent matcha and sweets.

The time to visit Japan is not in summer. Trust me on this.

Kyoto during this year in Japan for me have been 30+ degrees Celsius from early June, and July and August stayed at a steady 35-38 degrees throughout. Plus humidity on top of that.

I haven’t minded the rain. I do like rain. The typhoons are a bit extreme though.

So as spring melted into summer, my sightseeing went from some (because settling takes time) to none in fairly short order. But I did get out for one thing in June.

Nijo castle in central Kyoto.

I could go look up all kinds of facts about this castle, but I didn’t learn them at the time, and didn’t need them to enjoy visiting it.

After getting inside and passing through a couple of walls, there is a big old building. Gorgeous really and inside are even more gorgeous things: wall paintings.

While Europe went more of paintings, Japan painted on their walls and on screens (and door screens). More gold meant richer, but they also went for white with ink, more in the style of Chinese ink drawing, although Japan developed some of their own techniques too in that area.

Although the inside was absolutely gorgeous and most everything was reproductions, we weren’t allowed to take pictures. Sorry, but you can probably find pictures online of what they would be like.

Some with flowers, made to different seasons. One had tigers. Those are just a couple I could remember of the top of my head.

Outside this main building were beautiful gardens and some ruins of older structures. There was also a big building under renovation that I have no idea what it looked like.

Since I’m more of a garden/park person when it comes to sightseeing, I truly enjoyed this part and had many pretty pictures, making it hard to only pick a couple.

To cap of my visit, about thirty minutes before closing and when I was just about to leave. It started pouring, like seriously pouring rain. Thankfully I happened to be inside the gift shop at the time.

Luckily for me, it slackened off about twenty minutes later so I didn’t have to bike for 20 minutes in pouring rain.

Moat at Nijo Castle in Kyoto — I really love moats. The mix of water and greenery, and often walls and bridges. This is also from Nijo castle.

Picture of the Month: A Year in Japan #2

Posted: October 1, 2019

For the first time in my life, I would officially reside in another country, Japan. I have stayed up to three months in another country before (Ireland and Japan) so I was a temporary resident there, but more like a long stay tourist.

I’ve also stayed about two months in several more places.

This time, as noted in the first PotM: A Year in Japan edition, I had/have a one year (and three months) visa, provided I study Japanese during that time.

For the first two months or so, I had two goals in mind: see as many cherry blossom trees I could stand and settle into my new life in Kyoto (my new apartment and as a student).

And that is basically what I did through April and towards the end of May.

I live close to the Kamogawa river, and when the temperatures aren’t consistently above 25 degrees Celsius, I often go for a walk along it. It has beautiful cherry blossom trees, and I look forward to seeing it in autumn glory too.

I also took the opportunity to see some geisha/maiko dances that are mostly held in spring (with a couple at other times of the year), and I can highly recommend it. Beautiful shows.

It was also in May that I turned 30 years old. No more twenties for me.

Kamogawa river in Kyoto during the day — Same river as above, not the same place and not the same type of day. A lovely place to walk at.

Picture of the Month: A Year in Japan #1

Posted: September 1, 2019

Cherry blossoms in Ueno Park — Ueno Park (Tokyo) shows off beautifully in spring.

A few years ago when I talked to my dad about potentially living in another country than Sweden, mentioning a few examples, he replied that he would miss the shifting seasons if he lived in a country that didn’t have four distinct ones like Sweden (and many other places).

Back then I didn’t know if I agreed or not.

Then a couple of years later, I became a digital nomad for a while. My work was—and is—completely mobile. All I need is a laptop and some internet.

Reading up on other digital nomads, I came to realize that they always seemed to chase the summer, and so did most travel companies that created work-vacation trips specifically for that crowd.

I was bored in no time.

Warm and hot (ugh!), warm and hot, warm and hot. That was the weather. Always, because when autumn came, flee to the equator, when winter comes to the northern hemisphere, flee to the south one.

It wasn’t that the weather alone bored me. But my skin missed feeling a chill. I missed seeing spring green and new plants; and autumn-colored trees and kicking through dry leaves.

I missed wearing sweaters and not being hot every time I walked outside.

Turns out my dad was very much right.

It made me realize I wanted to experience all seasons, regularly in my life. And since I’d loved Japan as a tourist a couple of times, I really wanted to experience a whole year there. Their beautiful Japanese maples in full autumn colors. Winter when temperatures in many cities (I wanted to be in) would be slightly chilly but not cold (in my opinion). And spring.

Wonderful, beautiful spring with its cherry blossoms.

The only thing I didn’t look forward to (and I was correct!) was Japanese summer. Hot, hot, hot, and humid, humid, humid.

Anyway, I got a student visa to study Japanese for a year, and off I went in April 2019. And these are a couple of pictures from my first couple of days in Tokyo, before I got to Kyoto where I would live for most of this year in Japan.

Cat figurines at Imado Shrine, Tokyo — This is the Imado shrine in the Asakusa area in Tokyo. One of the purported birthplaces for the lucky cat figure (maneki-neko).

Reader Report: July, 2019

Posted: August 13, 2019

Since this is my first reader report, let me explain what it is. This is a non-exhaustive list of stuff I read, saw, played, and experienced in the past month. A bit like my Great Entertainment posts. But instead of writing up reviews of each item separately, this is a list of highlights from the past month.

Right on, let’s start with books I read.

Top of my mind is Storm Cursed by Patricia Briggs, book 11 of the Mercy Thompson series. This book was sooo good, but not a good starting point for the series/world.

Read my post on the Mercy Thompson/Alpha & Omega books to find a good starting point.

I recommend every book and story set in this world. Obviously some are more to my taste than others, but if you fall in love of the world, I have still liked all stories I’ve read.

Japanese fairy tales. If you enjoy fairy tales, I can definitely recommend Japanese ones if you haven’t read those. I do not know if the ones I’ve reading are sanitized (like Disney did with the Grimm fairy tales), but I’m enjoying them nonetheless.

I am reading them in Japanese though, in simplified versions written for Japanese learners, so no reason to link them here. (Any Japanese learners out there can contact me through the contact page if interested in them.)

My suspicion is that my versions are sanitized because all fairy tales I’ve read in original form tends to be more gory, but maybe that is just a European thing and I need to read more fairy tales from more cultures.

If you have any good recommendations of books with fairy tales from other cultures, or even from European ones that aren’t Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen. I’m interested in reading them. (I do know of Arabian nights and Aesop too.)

Lastly I’ve been rereading the In Death series by J.D. Robb (pen name of Nora Roberts). I’m almost back to the latest book. The characters, the mysteries, and the relationships are all soooooo good. I really love this series and it will hit 50 books next year. Just wow!

The characters grow/change, but still remain true to themselves; their changing however does shift the feel of the series a bit. Just like happens in many long series.

Rereading the whole series is a huge reading commitment, so maybe it is obvious just how much I love it. (I also wrote a Great Entertainment post on it, read it here.)

And while I wrote about the books above, I remembered another new-to-me book I read this month. Blue Smoke by Nora Roberts. Romance, with a bit of detecting in it (aka romantic suspense). Modern day for when it was written. *Goes to look it up* Published in 2005. Which made me realize it did have cellphones towards the end of the book. (It spans quite a bit of time.)

I enjoyed reading this. While I am a bigger fan of Nora Robert’s J.D. Robb books, aka the series I mentioned above, I certainly tend to enjoy the NR books too. And this was no exception.

Now on to other things!

I visited Nijo castle (二条城) in Kyoto. You can walk around the inside of some of it, and that was amazing. Unfortunately you can’t take photos, so I can’t share any. It showed a lot of the old woodwork details, painted ceilings and wall paintings. Some amazingly beautiful rooms.

Then there was the garden around it. It is a huge complex. There is even a very small Japanese garden right by a tea house were you can get tea and sweets, and some food.

I had some matcha with traditional Japanese sweets. So very good.

I played a Switch game that was recently released. Cadence of Hyrule is a rhythm and rogue-lite game. A Zelda themed version of Crypt of the Necrodancer. I never played the original game, but I really enjoyed Cadence of Hyrule. In fact, I finished my first play through after only a couple of weeks of owning the game. (That is unusually fast for me.)

That is it for July. What did you read/consume in July? Something old (but new to you)? Something new? An old favorite?

What Changes and What Doesn’t: Poll Closed for What Blog Posts You Enjoy Reading

Posted: July 16, 2019

Thanks to everyone who voted in the poll on what blog posts you enjoy reading. The poll is now closed.

It was really helpful to see what you all enjoy reading.

I always try to reassess what to do about my blog about once a year. I want to be sure I posts things you are interested in reading, and I want to have fun with it. So this poll helped me make some adjustments.

Just arrived in Japan on my 1 year visa.

Picture of the Month is the most enjoyed part of this blog so it will definitely keep going! Right now I’m thinking of doing a sort of mini-series inside it.

I’m currently in Japan on a 1-year visa, and I thought I could spend the next year posting one picture from each month I’ve been in Japan on this visa. That means I’d post a picture from April when I run out of already scheduled PotM posts (September would be the first Japan visa post). And then I’d post a picture from May in October and so on.

If this sounds like an awful idea, please comment. I don’t feel strongly one way or the other. What I have been doing is to go through my digital photos and post the ones that are interesting or pretty from across all photos I’ve ever taken.

Second on the poll is updates about my life, including writing, blog, website and other news. I really don’t do those posts very often, but it does lead me into the change I’m planing for my Great Entertainment posts.

A first taste of what my pictures from Japan will show.

I’m basically going to smash together those two. Each month I’ll write about books I’ve read, games I’ve played, movies I’ve seen, places I’ve visited, which I’ve really enjoyed.

That way I’m both telling about what is happening in my life through what I consume (plus this won’t be strict reviews so life stuff will get in there) and I get to share great entertainment that I find.

I’ll also keep doing the release news, but might do like I’ve done the past month (and will do later this month), which is to collect release news together. So the blog might not learn about a release as soon as it happens. For that, sign up to my (monthly) newsletter where I will tell of things the same month they happen.

Also more timely news such as special bundles and sales will only be announced there.

So that is what it looks like for the next year or so, unless any of the changes doesn’t feel great.

Picture of the Month — October 2015

Posted: October 1, 2015

Ikebana Japan September 2014 — Flowers as Art, Ikebana

When I was in Japan in September 2014, there were a few festivals while I was there. At one of them, they had an exhibition of ikebana—flower arrangement—aka flower art. The picture above is of one of those ikebana during that festival.

I’ve been a fan of Japan and Japanese culture for more than a decade, but it wasn’t until I took a course called “Japanese Art, Architecture and Visual Culture” that I fully appreciated how much I love many Japanese things.

Scandinavian design is often called minimalist and clean (or words to similar effect), and so is Japanese design if I say so myself. Ikebana is colorful, stylish and temporary. Nothing lasts.

One Japanese architecture book I have (Japanska Rum: Om Tomhet och Föränderlighet i Traditionell och Nutida Japansk Arkitektur by Kristina Fridh (excellent book btw)) says that in Japan a room isn’t a room. A room is the experience you have right that moment as you are in the room. That means that each time you enter or leave a room, it is different. Every time you move, or the light moves (if it has a window), it is a different “room”.

In view of that, ikebana as a master art form makes perfect sense. Nothing is permanent; everything is always different; even art, or especially art.