Toji Temple Market

 A few photos from our recent trip to the Toji Temple market. This once a month market is not to be missed by tourists! Many tourist goods are sold along side tasty Japanese stall food (like the mochi balls being made in the photo). There was a large asortment of bonsai, house plants, fabric for yukatas, and all kinds of other things. many websites warn you to go early, and they are right! We went around 10am and it was a mad house!

*The market is on the 21st of every month

This is the first time we have see pine nuts for sale at the markets. I'm sure they were not any more cost effective than in the U.S. 

We know what the fox says...Ohaiyo! Samui desu ne! 

Amidst the bustle of the market, temple men walk through the crowds, reminding everyone of why the market is happening. 

Training kids to love pachinko! These antique pachinko machines are for kids to play for prizes. 

bonsai for sale, some of which were in the $150+ range! 

Colorful spray painted succulents for holiday decorations

Kyoto Imperial Palace

Living in Kyoto can at times feel like a bit of a time warp. One block your in a major metropolitan and the next you are biking through the gardens of an ancient palace. After a while this sadly becomes commonplace and not so exciting. It was nice though at the end of October and into early November, the Imperial Palace is open to the public without prior approval. Normally, you have to pre-apply to enter the palace grounds. On these special days, the palace is a buzz with the hum of tour buses and foreigners. If you can stomach the crowds, it's well worth the time! 

Here are a few shots of the palace! 

Kyoto City International Foundation Open House

We recently attended the Kyoto City International Foundation's (aka KOKOKA or Kyoto International Communication House) Open Day. Unfortunately a rainy day, they still had a great turn out. 

If you are unfamiliar with KOKOKA and intend to live in the Kyoto area, we highly recommend going by! Although not as welcoming as we think they want to be, it can be a great place for basic resources. They do have some staff who speak some English, offer low-cost, crash course Japanese, and immigration support. Here is a link to their website. 

Food from around the world lined the outside entry way to KOKOKA. 

Live music and other performances were held in the main hall of KOKOKA. There was an enthusiastic Irish violinist while we were were at the festival, and right before him an all female Eastern European flute troupe!  

Typhoon and Nanzen Ji temple

Right after the recent typhoon, we wanted to check out the Kamogawa and then take a little bike ride around the east side of Kyoto.

The river was significantly different than what we usually see.

Here is a picture of the river up until this storm:

Here is a picture the day after the storm:

It took over a week from the river to calm back down and now looks much less lush and welcoming.

After seeing the river, we made our way over to the Nanzen Ji temple. This beautiful temple is at the base of the east mountains protecting Kyoto. The storm had left the temple a mess, with new rivers all over the place. It was sad to see such a beautiful place a mess, but it gave it a wonderful earthy smell and atmosphere and thankfully none of the buildings were damaged.

We also saw that there is a great temple-style restaurant here. It looks beautiful, but we didn't try it out.

Here are a few photos of the temple and grounds:

The sitting area of the signature and good luck stick person. It almost looked as though the person lived in the building. In addition to selling good luck sticks, the person also has a face-mask-making hobby. 

Ironically, the aqueduct running through Nanzen-ji was almost empty.   

Pumpkins for Halloween

As October started a few days ago, Halloween began to appear in Kyoto. We went to Loft (a Target-esque store) to pick up pens and an envelope and the downstairs floor had been turned into a Disney-dia-de-los-muertos Wonderland. Unsure what we are going to do to celebrate the holiday, we held off on costumes. This did get us thinking though, as every year we carve pumpkins for Halloween. No matter how far apart we are, we've figured out a way to always do pumpkins. Unwilling to let this go, we began the hunt for a good non-Japanese pumpkin (native Japanese pumpkins are green and very different in shape). Check out our past blog post about the Anraku-ji pumpkin festival to see native Japanese/Kyoto pumpkins

A couple days later, we found a flower shop that had a beautiful, perfect globe-shaped pumpkin. We asked the shop girl, "kore wa ikura desu ka?" which means "how much does this cost?" The woman replied that it was 4000 yen (i.e. $40!!!). Floored we thanked her and left, sans the pumpkin.

Two days ago we made our way to pick up bagels and decided to go by the botanical garden on our way home. Even from the outside the buildings and lush green, bush fences are worth passing. Right in front of the Tadao Ando building that borders the garden was a small pumpkin patch.
In a rush to get home we made plans to return later. Finally this afternoon, we made our way back. The pumpkins were 300 yen per kilo, and with a variety of sizes everyone can find the perfect pumpkin.

After a long debate in the "patch" over the safety of carving with full-size kitchen knives (they don't sell the kids carving-safety packs here), we decided on instead getting small pumpkins for decoration and possibly to carve (TBD on this part). We chose our favorites, and made our way home. 

kodai-ji Temple: A beautiful and spooky evening

One of the really great things about Kyoto is there is always something going on (check our "events and things to do in kyoto" page if you don't believe us). It is also really nice here as the events happen all throughout the day and into the late evening. So for a city that generally closes around 9pm (restaurants, shopping, some bars, etc.), it can be really nice to find activities to do later in the evening. A really fun, summertime event that happens at night is the lighting of Kodai-ji Temple.

Yokai lanterns

For three days in August, the temple opens its doors to the public at night. The gardens are lit up, and there are beautiful art displays in some of the buildings. Part of why this event is really fun, is its connection to Yokai (ghosts/spirit creatures). The Japanese believe that the summer time is when you are most likely to encounter ghosts (or similar other-worldly creatures). So ghost stories, haunted houses, etc. generally occur during the hotter months of the year. Much of the art on display at Kodai-ji was ghost-related.

Although we couldn't take photos of the artwork, here are some shots of the temple, gardens, and lighting.

Tombstone (I know right?) of a woman. Inside the building there are two statues, one of her and one of her husband. The interior is beautifully painted withy clouds, gold, and samurai (I believe). 

details of the tombstone-building's outside

An immense bamboo garden housed within the temple grounds. 

A small tea house offered traditional unsweetened matcha and mochi/adzuki bean pastries. 

Although we couldn't get a great shot of the two gray, stone statues on our next visit we will be sure to get some photos of the cute couple!

Part of the art exhibit is an outdoor projection on the temple walls of flying yokai and music. A really neat art-piece, that allowed you to just sit and relax in the summer night's heat. 

View of the trees from the water's edge.

Tip for living in Japan: Be sure to find night time activities to beat the summer heat!