Today marks one year since I moved to Kyoto. I’ve had an amazing time here and feel that I’ve been very fortunate and blessed.
Trying to encapsulate all my thoughts, feelings and reflections into a blog post is nigh on impossible to do.
But now it is time for me to start thinking about what adventure or challenge lies ahead. I’ve been doing more reflecting, thinking and acting on this than I care to admit, because I should just be enjoying my time while I’m here. But it’s hard to do that when I feel like I could be doing more with my time.
My last flurry of entries all took place my daily commute. Since then, I haven’t made time to sit down and really focus on putting words down on paper (or screen, in this instance).
A week after my last post on Blogostino, my parents visited Japan for the first time in their life for a 10-day stint.
The bulk of this time was spent showing them the Kyoto I have come to know and love.
The people.
The places.
The sights.
The highlight of their stay, for me, was seeing my parents process the new environments and surroundings with equal parts awe, wonder and amazement.
It reminded me very much of the first time I came to Japan and was thrown around like a ragdoll in the midst of a tornado fueled by sensory overloads.
Anytime we would be on our way somewhere, my mother would often wander off when she saw something interesting. I’d turn around to see her admiring something in a store window and be like, “Mum, come on. We’re going this way.” and then I’d turn around and my father would have wandered off in the opposite direction.
It was like herding cats for 10 days straight, but it was great to spend such quality time with family.
In fact, we crammed so much in I’m having trouble remembering it all comprehensively.
At the same time, one of my closest friends from Melbourne, Aleks, was also visiting Japan.
These kinds of reminders of home are not lost on me for a second.
I’ll try and stop the feelings bucket from overflowing by posting some pictures instead.
On one of the first days they were in Kyoto, I took my parents to this cafe – Nishijin Sarasa. For some reason my camera decided it wanted to JJ Abrams this shot.
This cafe used to be a public bath (or sento) that was built 80 or more years ago. Nearby is a very famous, still functioning public bath with the same kind of interior design. Here’s some shots of the inside of the cafe.
It’s a really great cafe, as a matter of fact. There’s a lot of great cafes like this in Kyoto.
It was also the peak of the cherry blossom season when my parents were here.
The street right near my house was actually lit up every night, meaning it was impossible for me to actually be upset when I was walking home from work during this time when I was looking at things like this:
And this:
While my parents were visiting, they were invited to a cherry blossom viewing party (or hanami) which meant that we all got to sit by the riverside and eat, drink and enjoy the wind blowing cherry blossom flowers everywhere around us. First, the food was amazing.
And the location wasn’t too shabby either.
So I’m going to split these entries across a couple of days so I force myself into writing more often and frequently. But what would one of my entries be without a picture of some random food I sampled?
Yep. That’s exactly what it looks like – prawn-flavoured crisps covered in dark chocolate.
They were nowhere near as terrible as I expected them to be, either. Until next time!
Yep- sensory overload plus trying to recall each day is so hard as we saw lots of fantastic things:) hanimai party was so wonderful esp as people were so welcoming…Osaka building was incredible plus so many gardens and temples-think maple trees inhttps://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10152738902450828&id=532515827 autumn d be equally terrific… Aleks has caught Japan bug as well now…Ta for herding cats as think it was like a treatment and tour guides can’t do that:) luv Mum