In the last few days I have... a) visited a katana shokujin-san, aka a samurai-swordsmith! b) been to an ice sculpture display! c) seen a batmobile van! d) seen a chrome towtruck with a dolphin-mural! (hmmm... last feature questionable) and e) eaten Kobe beef! I'll post pictures of a) and b) eventually, but for now...

Continuing the tour of Irritable Ian we make our way to the north of Kyoto. On the advice of a 10 day travel-blog set up by www.japan-guide.com for the purpose of viewing autumn leaves I took a couple of trains to an obscure little station - the type so small that you step down from the platform onto the street. I was defeated by my vague map and was directed by a couple of old ladies towards my first objective, Enko-ji - "a small, tasteful, but unpretentious shrine sporting a nice garden" to paraphrase my online advice.

This window was on one of the old streets on the way. The rain was coming down and all I had was my 300 yen raincoat. I think I was almost cheerful though - my beserker fury had subsided and I was pretty philosophical by now... the sense of adventure was returning. (I know, I know... not exactly "extreme" sports we're talking here, but I'm easily excited.)

Like some ancient computer keyboard, these are some of the first printing blocks in Japan - over 400 years old. You wont find qwerty here. I think they're beautiful. They are housed inside Enko-ji.

Tucked at the end of a hallway was this amazing sumi-e screen painting. The economy and deftness with which the ink has been brushed on is incredible - so much detail implied. Well, to the real garden...

This is the approach to Enko-ji.

Once inside and past the indoor exhibits, you step out into the enclosed garden. For it's small size and the inclement weather (Clement had nicked off) there were a number of people here. Had to wait a while to get a clear shot. I wasn't thrilled by this garden but it was a nice place. It seemed very precise and deliberate. Each tree, rock and shrub seemed to be exactly as desired, which I suppose is what a garden is supposed to be... and yet it somehow lacked something for me. I'm sure I am being the equivalent of a Britney Spears fan critiquing Beethoven, but it's my blog so nerr.

A nice lady showed me some pics on her camera of the shrine she had visited that morning. It was on my list but I had ruled it out. It looked like an impressive place. Darn! That thought was to propel me to Kyoto the following Thursday for an early (and speedy!) mission before work. It all turned out well - weather ended up being brilliant - will post pics next post: Tofuku-ji.

Back to this day. It was raining persistently. And yet...

Surprisingly in this weather I took one of my favourite shots ever. I don't know why, but I always think of the planet from Alien where they find the eggs/facesucker/chestburster when I see this photo. That's not why I like the photo, but anyway...

My sister Penny has a nose for these things. (haha... ask her what I mean if you know her... sorry, Penny! muhaha)

This lantern is in the style of the late smurf rennaissance.

The lady who'd shown me her photos and I said goodbye, but when she saw I was leaving, she ran up and pushed 2 mandarins into my hand. "Japanese orange!" she said and then ran back to her husband. There are some really nice people, aren't there?

Well, next door was a graveyard being overlooked by a fiery tree.

Across the narrow road from the shrine's entrance, in stark comparison to Enko-ji's elegance, was this place. Sometimes the sacred places and the ordinary exist right next to each other. That's not lens-distortion, this house was bent with disrepair. For the mostpart Kyoto's quite a bustling city - an ordinary, ugly city amongst which lie pockets of tradition and beauty. They say Kyoto is the Paris of Japan - it's cultural heart. It's hard to argue against that, considering the myriad places there that reek of history and cultural refinement. It can just be surprising where you find them.

Well whattaya know? I thought, up until an hour ago, that I had been to a temple called Shisen-do. But I had, in fact, been to a shrine called Hachidai Jinja, just round the corner! Defeated by maps yet again, so it would seem. I never made it to Shisen-do and it's renowned azalea garden, but I was oh so close by! haha. I should have twigged at the time that I was of course not at a Buddhist temple (no Buddhas to be seen), but at a Shinto shrine (tell-tale zigzag paper hanging from sacred ropes). I didn't know that the "-do" suffix means temple. I forgot that I was looking for a garden! There was no garden. What a dork I am.

A famous samurai, Miyamoto Musashi, is enshrined near here.

He fought one of his most famous duels around this tree. I'm imagining Errol Flynn jumping up stairs and kicking over candelabras. Musashi won the day (i.e. the other guy got horribly sliced up).

I walked right near this mound - it was really hard to see. I shudder to think how it would have gone down if I'd put my foot through it! Anyone know what it represents? I'm told that a raked stone/sand garden represents the universe.

Heading back out now, there was some nice moss. There is a moss garden in Kyoto that has 120 varieties! I will put a link here to some great pics: http://www.phototravels.net/kyoto/zen-gardens-saiho-ji.html . The reason for the link is that I doubt you or I will ever get there... you have to copy out a Buddhist sutra before you enter, which takes over an hour - I'm not sure if that means an hour for a Japanese person or for a novice gaijin like me. Anyway, I'd like to see it, but the photos will do.

I started with a window and I'll finish with a window, just to imply that there is some very deep poetic insight to this blog entry... looking within worlds and without or something like that! Feel free to leave comments like:

Ian, you are so deep.

Stop writing so much and get some sleep, dork!

You couldn't navigate your way out of a paper bag.

Nice moss.

I lied. I'm going to bed, but first just thought I should share 3 facts I've learned from my junkmail inbox:

Saddam Hussein is alive.
Fidel Castro is dead.
World War Three has started.

Just thought you should know. Peace

"While photographs may not lie, liars may photograph" is a quote I read recently (Lewis Hine... ever heard of him? ...I haven't). I am going to add my own bit: "...and fiddle with them in photoshop". I silhouetted this scene with my computer, just because I thought it looked better. If it were the stage of a shadow play, can you spot the actor?

Overture, light the lights... here he is ...and he's still black. On bleak looking days like this one in Kyoto, crows really take on an ominous quality. They are big and seem eyeless. I encountered a gang of them (well, a murder to be correct) in the field near my house recently. They made way for me, but they looked so scary... I half expected to see that they were eating a large dead thing, but no. Any Alfred Hitchcock fans about?
Northwest of Kyoto city is a place called Arashiyama. I made a bee line for it to see the autumn colours. I remember writing excitedly about it the night before as I planned my intinerary. Of course, on top of blogging, I stayed up too late and then changed my itinerary on the way there anyway. That, combined with the rain (which I rather optimistically thought would be stopping for me for just the hours I needed ...wrong!) landed me in this beautiful place feeling foul!

The scenery had a soothing effect, yet I was still this petulant child snapping away amazing sights whilst grumbling under my breath about everything. Just a bad Ian day, I guess. (Spot the monk).

You don't see these guys much - occasionally around train stations and I suppose on the odd bridge!

Even if the rain had held off, I hadn't counted on things being shrouded in mist. It was a bit of a tease, as you could tell the trees were really vibrant and varied in colour, yet there was this veil in front of them. My disappointment turned to appreciation as it makes for a different kind of view... but I was still a bit grumpy.

"Damn it, I'm so grumpy. It's the weekend. I'm in Kyoto, doing what I love doing, taking pictures. Look at these fantastic trees. Grrr..."

I'm being a little unfair on myself. But I did become a seething ball of rage when I tried to get a ticket for the "Romantic Railway" - an old diesel that takes a scenic route along a river valley.

The queue wasn't moving as the lady at the window had a lovely time chatting to people as the train came and went. The wait til the next one was 30 minutes. Noone else seemed perturbed. I couldn't understand it. I tried to read the signs around but couldn't. I walked off in a huff.

I changed my mind, went back and joined the queue again for a few minutes. It didn't move at all. That did it. I was having a Class-A "I don't get this country, how it works, what to say, I can't read anything... etc" day.

They pop up every now and then and you feel as if it's all very unfair that everything hasn't been designed with you in mind. Anyway... I walked off in a bigger huff ...and got lost.

I generally knew where I was, but I couldn't work out where the station I wanted was. I got some help and that made me feel better... until I realised it was about 45 minutes til the next train. haha. I then encoutered some rude overseas tourists and tried to be rude back. Not exactly in line with what I heard recently at church - Christians shouldn't be springs in society, bouncing back anger/insult etc., but rather shock absorbers, taking the shocks of society and softening the effect. My inadmissable defense is that I heard that after this day! haha (I think Jesus kind of said stuff along those lines tho!). Where was I? Oh, "Grrr..."

Anyway, I'm sure you're sick of my whinging, but I hope you're not too sick of autumn trees yet! There are more to come I'm afraid. This post is of places up until I got on the train I just mentioned.

This is just before I got lost, moving into a residential area.

There are some pretty swish abodes in Arashiyama - with some classic luxury and sports cars parked outside one for good measure.

It took me awhile to realise I was down someone's driveway here.

Another driveway shot.

Looking up a street.

A garden (back near the river).

Still in the garden.

A bamboo mill.

I'm not going to bother trying to retrace which little shrine this is. Kyoto has about a squillion (last count). I will, however, next be putting up pictures from 2 shrines and a temple: Enko-ji, Shisen-do (temple) and Tokufu-ji... the first 2 being from the same day as this trip. I think Tofuku-ji has the best pics, but I'm trying to be chronological. Just as I'm trying to do today before tomorrow... but alas I've failed, it's already here... gotta sleep.

Bye bye

Kaki. Or persimmons. Or oysters. Say kaki with the wrong inflection and you'll order something very different! (I feel ripped off - I was told there are no tones to learn in Japanese! Still, beats Cantonese... is it 8 tones!?). Persimmons are a popular fruit here and you often see trees laden with fruit in backyards and fields during summer and autumn months. I'd never been much of an eater of them before, but after being given about 4 I've discovered they are really delicious. This tree grows in a yard on the path to the station.

Some splashes of autumn colour along the creekbed that I walk past to get to work.

By the station.

This is another view of the mountain near my place. It's appearance is so variable - not just by the change of the leaves, but by the light/air. When it's really misty it becomes this brooding form. When the sun's low it suddenly has a lot of shape to it. When it's unusually clear as above, it looks like a school photo of trees... or rather, a stacks-on.

We're now in Sanda, my nearest city. When I say city, it's more like, say, Sydney's Campbelltown. I have a tendency to try and come up with an equivalent place back home to places I encounter here. They're obviously pretty coarse comparisons, but maybe it's just me making reference points to take in what's around me. Sanda has some variety though, with new-money suburbs like Woodytown and Flowertown that are more similar to say Penrith and Cherrybrook (young double-income families). There is even a neighbourhood called Culture Town which is modelled on American suburbia, utilising real Washington timber! I stand corrected - I always thought culture was listening to classical music whilst drinking out of a vegemite glass... or something like that.

The creature in the photo was sitting forlornly in a playground, which are often pretty bleak - no grass, just dirt. If you cross the river from Sanda station you enter yet another Sanda - a forgotten Sanda. Away from the gleaming monolith which is the Kippy Mall shopping centre, this part of town is more like old Japan - old streets, old style homes. The demographic seems very much older, with very few people operating tiny businesses that miraculously keep alive... although some appear closed - perhaps swallowed by Kippy.

There are great shapes and textures around here. I also had a ball taking pictures of old electric meters and fuseboxes, mailslots etc. in an old part of Kobe on the weekend.

I really hope noone actually lives in that room. It would make my "Leopalace" shoebox actually seem palatial.

Even in these tumbleweed streets, you see evidence of the big English language schools hotly contesting for business. At least 3 different schools duke it out here on this humble bit of closed shopfront.

Another business that's seen better days.

This is a rubber-band gatling gun. Well, of course it is. Also known as a little-boy-magnet. I saw this contraption at a local community festival, held in a sports ground in the middle of nowhere - an exposed spot on a freezing windy day.

I bumped into one of my students, the boy in front. Arata is standing on a pair of stilts, which were hilarious, because they were only about 5 cm off the ground! Nevertheless, they seemed to be very popular. (I am always amazed when I see kids zip around on unicylces here!)

Well, after all that talk of pitched battles fought in the streets over English business, here I am colluding with the enemy! My mate Oscar works for another company and I've also gotten to know a regular bunch of staff and students from his school who get together a fair bit.

Lastly, a shot my friend Lexie sent me - she's a friend from within my own ranks who went back home to Canada. She and her boyfriend Pat came over to teach together and I'm glad they did. They were both really genuine and had a great positive outlook on everything (like the ins and outs of working for our company), which I miss. A bunch of us farewelled Lexie, karaoking until morning. I'm not that keen on singing - but a karaoke place is easier and cheaper than a hotel after the last trains have stopped running.

Next stop, autumn in Kyoto. After almost catching up, my blog is sliding hopelessly to out-of-date mode again. Right now we are starting the second half of winter. It's only snowed twice so far, but that was enough to excite me. This winter is comparatively warm all around the northern hemisphere.

Anyway, well past time for bed! Sayonara...