kyonoki

The Peace of Toji

Following the construction of Heian-kyo, two temples were created, flanking either side of the long gone but near mythical Rajomon Gate. Toji lies to the east and Saiji once lay to the West until it was burnt down in 1233. Both were built in supplication for national peace. Japan was not yet a united country. Toji soon established itself as the primary Buddhist temple in Japan. Prayers for the peace and security of the country continue to be held here. The Kodo and Kondo Halls make up the temple, the Nandaimon Gate to the south actually not part of the original Toji. After it burnt down, a new gate was removed in 1894 from Sanjusanden-do. The pagoda itself (Goju-no-to) is the tallest wooden structure in Japan. Rebuilt in 1644 it is one of Kyoto's most familiar symbols.
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22 06 05 - 04:15 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Quotable Idiocy

Easy to look back at University and drown out all the studying in a rose-tinted memory of warm summer days and those friends who you shared so much with. Easy to imagine that it was only yesterday that you moved out of home, warily put down your foot and began to walk your own path. Easy to forget what was painful, what lessons you learnt of love and about who you are, easy to remember only those things that make you grin and ache to be so grown up now. I look back on university and wish I could do it all again. Not the studying, the debates about Kings who died centuries ago, the tiny details of the past examined, but to see my friends again. Being in Japan makes me long more for those people. But we get older, we move apart, we begin new lives, new loves. Still, looking back I have the clear voices of people in my head. Louisa, Beth, Steve, Kevin, Lois, Antony, Emily, Emma, Kate, Rachel and Andy. Here's to you. And here are some of the quotes I remember from those three years in the sprawling parkland of UEA, the haunting victorian house and the cosy Parker Road. Some of the words are my own, but all of them are true, although you may have to guess who said what, all of which I hear in my head with your voices...

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22 06 05 - 00:22 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

The Amazing Reversable Cat

Here is the ancient Rhea (Reebee), very spoilt and very much loved all the way from Japan. The only reversable cat in the world...stroked one way black, the other way light grey. Boss of the house, easy to believe she thinks she is human. Shuns cat food for Munchies and at the slightest shake will come running from miles away. Constantly locked in battle with my brother...his cruel teasing has been countered by her attempts at suffocating him while he sleeps by lying on his face, and lying stretched out on the stairs to trip him up. Miss you Rheee.

21 06 05 - 06:01 - kieren - kyonoki| one comment - § ¶

Thumb in the Door

A little while before I quit my job at juku, my coworker James told me a story about one of his eventful train journeys. It was to underline his ongoing quest to prove that beneath the fake smiles and polite language, Japanese people are some of the rudest and most conceited. Men looking down on women. Women looking down on everyone. His main argument was that unlike the forward, pushy Western arrogance, the Japanese sort is two faced and smothered in syrupy slyness. Hmmmm. Not sure if I agree, but each day on the way to work he would rant  and rave until I managed to stop listening at all. Then one day he came up to me red in the face and growling. 'Unbelievable. Un-bloody-bloody-believable. Slimey git. Hope his thumb falls off'. So then the tale unfolded. Deep down I am sure he was happy it had happened. Finally he has justification for his anger. Sort of.

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21 06 05 - 04:09 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Cruelty To Ki

When I was young and my parents were refusing to let me do what I wanted (pond diving, relandscaping the garden to fit in my own brand of swimming pool, escaping the clutches of my dad to stay up late), I used to offer up a cheek and tell them to slap. I was never spoilt but I am sure I was a little shit at times. My dad would sigh, pick me up and throw me over his shoulder and carry me upstairs, all the while with me spouting the Childline phone number, ridiculously in the same jaunty tone as the commercial. My parents would be unable to conceal their laughter and it came as something of a joke, which enraged me even further. The only time I managed to get one up on them was by running away. Or rather, sneaking downstairs while they were watching TV and placing a note on the breakfast bar that said I had run off. I then went and hid under the bed. But then I fell asleep. A few hours later and a tearful reprimand after my mum and dad had pulled the house apart in panic, I have never felt so awful or guilty (although sometimes I swear I am catholic I have so much pent up guilt)...

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21 06 05 - 03:03 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Frank The Komainu

Ousssssssssss. Frank here. Did a stint down at Ikuta Shrine in Kobe. Part-time thing. Got to watch out for the damn pigeons, but managed to scare off a few children and eat up some yummy dango from one of the stalls. Anyway, taking the JR back to Kyoto got me thinking about the Japanese and direction.

If a Japanese person was a car then he would have no steering wheel. You see they only have forward or stop. When you are walking in the street have you ever seen them look behind them before changing direction. And when they sense you want to overtake they simply stop, without pulling aside, making you crash into them. No matter how many times it happens I still cannot quite believe that their brain has no function of left or right. Crazy. A good example is the Second World War or the government policies of today...once pushed in a forward motion they cannot be stopped, simply careen forward pushed faster and faster until BAM. CRASH.

You have been warned.  If you are down at Nanzen-Ji you may want to pop in and give me a call. Be there from tomorrow on. Cheers.

20 06 05 - 05:33 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Behind The Times

Squeezing into the tiny lift, beside two chubby salarymen reeking of smoke and amazingly large, I whistled, praying that we were still within the safety limit for weight. Creaking and groaning the lift managed to climb two floors and I heard an audible sigh as the men departed. I dashed out not wanting to risk the coffin sized trap any longer. I pushed my way through the waiting room and found the Foreign Residents Desk tucked neatly out of the way so noone can find it. I handed over my receipt and waited while they approved my new ID card, with my new address. As I sat back on the torn leather stool, covered in what looked like the claw marks of a rampant tiger, I felt a gloomy depression envelop me. Looking around I could see why. The building was a miserable throw back to the time that taste (in particular architecture) forgot.

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20 06 05 - 03:22 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

It Begins

How can a movie about a man so messed up by his childhood traumas, so explosively angry at his inability to alter the past, be so feel good. I had a massive grin on my face the whole time. Batman is back and the Brits have got it right. No bullshit, just a straightforward tale, cutting off all excess. It is what it says. The beginning. Chris Nolan has created a masterpiece and hands down my favourite movie of the last few years. For it to be this entertaining you just know that so much hard work has gone into it. Also some smart decisions. The cast is quite incredible: Katie Holmes shines in her role (I had to check it was really her), Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman and Liam Neeson are quite simply brilliant, Cillian Murphy has the most disconcerting and unsettling look of a character in any recent movie (even before he masks up), and Michael Caine is...well...Michael Caine. Christian Bale not only makes this movie his own, but creates so much sympathy that it is kind of hard not to cheer for him. I have to admit I was just laughing, in awe of the action that finally delivers. Ok I should really wind down, before I get too wound up. Bombastic and beautifully haunting music by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard make it hard to stop humming as you walk home. Unlike before, Batman exists in our world, or rather in a world only a little removed. Gotham is placed very much within our geographical boundaries and neatly slotted in historically. Everything we see has a footing in the possible and the fantastic elements of Batman are dumbed down to create plausible characters. Any head scratching over the new Batmobile vanished in a second. They have revolutionised this character and all the gadgets that go along with him. If you are on the fence about going to see this movie, drop down and give it a go. You have to make this movie a success. DC are finally getting things right. Cleverly having the guts to scrap everything that has come before, they have carefully ensured that the villains can be ressurected, while leading us all down the path towards the sequel. Batman turning over a playing card. A jester. One word for you. JOKER.

19 06 05 - 05:48 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Tequila!

Perhaps not the best idea to scoff down chilli peppers and tabasco sauce, but then again I heard that Indians eat hot food because it helps to cool them down. Or is that just because they are mad. Tomi should win an award, or at least start presenting a cooking programme for NHK. The blurb would be something like this, imagine a scottish voice over the titles to the programme... each week we give Tomi a tiny budget, specific ingredients, we chose a country and then tell her to whip something up that is appealing and delicious. Bear in mind that Rhod can't eat any dairy products and Ki hates anything touched by cucumber, tomato, celery and generally things that are green, and you have your hands full. Hands up, Tomi is an amazing cook. We were debating what to buy for Mexican night but after a bit of umming and ahhing she decided she would make everything for scratch. A little bit of research and a hell of a lot of chopping and we had fantastic tacos and salad. Not sure if humous is Mexican, but there was quite a lot of that too. Best Mexican food this side of the pacific. Thanks Tomi. Next challenge...a satisfying salad with nothing red or green or fishlike. Wink. We had a taco for Mart and Rach. Cheers guys.

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18 06 05 - 08:26 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Kamigamo Shimogamo

Cycling across Kyoto in the first humid day of the year (so hot), we planned to meet Tomi to go and buy food for Mexican night from the foreign food shop close to her house. With a little time to kill, we decided to park our bikes and take a walk over to the shrines at the back of her house. Tomi's house is actually in the precinct of the Kamigamo Shrine. After trying to decide which one we should visit, I was told that they were actually the same shrine and so we sweated our way up the Kamo river and then across on to the small peninsular created by the merging of the Kamo and Takano. A few years ago I had visited Kamigamo for the Aoi Matsuri, but then it had been a sea of jostling bodies crushed against one another, today I thought I might be able to go inside the shrine and walk around the quiet and haunting forest.

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18 06 05 - 04:14 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Remembering Shodo-shima

Waking up at 4.30, cycling like mad to take the first train, catching a bus while the sun was still a glow on the horizon, cold and tired, I wondered what the hell my friend Aki was doing dragging me along for a three day trip. Piling onto the ferry, we threw our bags into one of the tatami rooms (no furniture, just a carpeted floor for stretching out on and sleeping) and went on deck as the ship pulled out into Osaka Bay. Slowly we skimmed the edge of Kobe city, the water perfectly still and the morning gently warming as a brilliantly orange sun broke free. My dad always asks me if I have ever seen the sun rise, huge and seeming to swallow the horizon in a fiery haze. I tell him again and again that the sun is better and hotter and more dramatic on the equator and as Japan is at the same latitude as England that it looks the same. Although the Japanese call the sun red and not yellow-orange. That morning the sun was huge and round and I could look at it without having to turn away.

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17 06 05 - 02:59 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Gunkanjima

My mind mystifies me a lot of the time. How can it be so poor at math, yet be able to keep hold of a single name; even when it discards the reason it has kept hold of that name for so long. It often occurs to me that we might be able to see a little bit of the future and that we store away scraps of words and dates that will face us in a few years time. That certainly seems to be the case with me. I store away a date, a name, a place, thinking that it is interesting but on the whole not very useful. Then - be it a month or a year later - I see the date or name in a newspaper or on a poster. Ok, so it doesn't sound very spooky, but it seems to happen to me a lot. As if my mind is way ahead of me and preparing me for what things I will take part in or do in the future. Today I came across Gunkanjima and remembered that it was in a Russian Economics seminar at university that I first heard this name.

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17 06 05 - 01:18 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Suppenschwein

Just before lunch I was told to pack my bag and get ready to leave school. Wandering up to the gate I found the third years being shoved and pushed into waiting coaches. As they chattered noisily I took a seat and as with any moving vehicle fell asleep two seconds after we had been on the road. Half an hour later we were at the National Art Gallery in Osaka to view a new exhibition by Michael Sowa. The name was not familiar and so I joined the students and made my way around. Then I realised that I knew his artwork, knew it very well. A postcard of a tiny pig sitting in a bowl of muddy soup sits on my desk pinned to a box. If you have ever watched the film Amelie, you will know his art from looking at the paintings hanging in her bedroom. He takes a normal setting and adds an element of surrealism to it. Animals behave as humans and humans like animals. Although not quite cartoonish, his artwork has a light and comedic touch that never fails to draw out a  smile. If you ever get the chance to look at his artwork...go!.

17 06 05 - 00:31 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Heavy On My Heart

London sits like a glimmering cluster of bridges, palaces, cobbled lanes, immense monuments, the fast flowing mud of the Thames, and the severe buildings on the canvas of my mind. So woven is its thread in my memories and self, that although my family left London for the countryside after I was born, it will at heart always be for me the closest place to my home. I remember the grey, derelict landscape of the East End, staying with my grandparents and being awed by slow redevelopment of the docks. I remember the friendly faces, the alien terraces, blocks of flats, and the safety of my family. London has always been appealing, alluring while at the same time scaring me because I always knew that of any cities in the world, London hides so much history, so much darkness and wealth, secrets hushed beneath the fog and grime of centuries. London is the reason I love history so much, the reason I am able to see what our Empire was once like. It has survived turbulance and uncertainty to assert itself as singularly the most dynamic and traditional places on this planet.
Invasion, plague, civil war, fire, bombing...London's spirit is as strong as the English. We are a stubborn and secretly proud people, cowed by our apologetic nature, yet deep in our hearts determined to be honourable and too long guilty about our past successes. Empire's rise and fall. London was the hub of the last great Empire. Debates can rage about the misery Empire inflicted, the arguments can be fought against Britain at this time, but little matter in the long run. London remains a gem, even when the Empire has given way to other stronger powers. Unlike other great Imperial cities, London survived, adapted, while keeping it's identity.
I love this city. That someone would wish to harm, hurt, kill innocent people. That someone would want attack London. Well, good luck to you. I think that you must see sense in your beliefs. I think that you must see that violence is the only way. That revenge is necessary. But you are foolish to believe that London would blink, would halt, would shudder to an end. It has survived a thousand years, each time emerging stronger, greater, more awesome that before. Try all you want. London is not for the taking. It's people are a determined bunch.

16 06 05 - 04:20 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Wako Tako

Takoyaki is strangely addictive, yet if someone had walked up to me in England and told me that chopped up bits of octopus cooked in a ball of batter was good I would have laughed it off. The chewyness somehow makes it satisfying as both a snack and filling as a meal. For my birthday I got a Takoyaki maker and although I am having to blackmail people to come and cook on it, I am gleeful that I can cook up optopus whenever I like.  Famous as an Osakan dish it is probably the most popular dish amongst my students, who think it is hilarious that I rate takoyaki way above sushi. But then today I stuck on the telly and saw that it was about octopi (octopusses?) so sat down and watched it for a while. Slowly my cheeks went a shade of green and I had to concentrate hard to keep my lunch down.

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16 06 05 - 03:05 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Alice Down The Rabbit Hole

As I was walking up the stairs I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today, I wish I wish he'd go away.

Like Alice tumbling down the rabbit-hole into Wonderland, a world of unequalled strangeness and oddity, so I feel like I have slipped and tumbled into a place that seems not quite real. As in that well worn tale,  bizarre things have started happening to me. Well not just me. If that were the case then I could safely be locked in a padded cell, but in the school grounds generally. Like that scratched message on the shrine pillar...a Doorway seems to be well and truly open, and all types of weird are pouring out.

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15 06 05 - 04:10 - kieren - kyonoki| one comment - § ¶

Portraits in Life

I am always accused of being more interested in taking photos of strange angles, unusual exposures, the world about me than in the people that really make up the whole picture. Guess it is easy to take people for granted, but people make memories and so here are just a collection of photos of people who whether they know it or not have shaped my life in Japan. Goddamn it Louisa and Mitsuko, I need more photos of you (for those of you who missed the subtle joke, Louisa is standing on the spot where the Great Fire of London ignited and so she is looking understandably shocked, if 350 years too late).

15 06 05 - 03:39 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

2nd Time Unlucky

The 2nd Grade classrooms look like a prison. There are no posters, no plants, definately no thumb-tacks, no toilet rolls unless asked for, no soap and at best sparse furniture. Unlike the other buildings, as you enter you get the impression that a guard should be stopping you any moment to do a frisk and ask you who you have come to visit. Windows are broken regularly, the walls are dirty with hand and footprints, the desks and chairs are covered in grafitti and doors are twisted out of their frames. As for the students themselves most look like they should be working street corners, holding up a bank or else going head to head with other gang members in a back alley. A bit harsh? Well maybe, and then again maybe not. Some students have those murderous glances in which you actually think that there may be so much hate inside them that they will snap sooner or later, others have blank eyes that tell you their minds have gone on holiday for the duration of school.  Pulling a student back into his chair as he shouted abuse at my co-worker, standing and waving his hands whilst calling her an ugly bitch and stupid woman, I was more shocked when she did nothing but ignored him. As he calmed down, sneering and joking with his friends, she simply shrugged and went back to teaching the rest of the class.

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14 06 05 - 02:57 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Frank The Komainu

Hello. I am Frank the Shrine-Guardian and every week I will be giving you advice and telling you about things that have troubled me during my travels.

Today: Louis Vuitton! Why?

14 06 05 - 02:17 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Bureaucracy Gone Mad

Japan is the largest importer of hardwood in the world, gobbling up millions of tonnes of trees a year to construct houses (despite Japan's new reliance on concrete, it utilises wooden frames to shape the concrete, uses them once and then throws them away), touch up shrines and temples, utilise in the home and on disposable chopsticks (billions a year). As a forested island, Japan's reliance on wood is astonishing given how much of it is wasted and how small Japan's own forestry industry is. Ok so my point is not really aimed at the horrible destruction of trees, well not quite. Japan is a country of bicycles. Every family owns one and in many cases every family member owns one. They are everywhere, scooting inbetween cars, ringing you out of the way, recklessly oblivious to other human beings, squealing from lack of care.  Japanese people rarely take good care of their bikes. Yet again getting away from the point.

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13 06 05 - 04:28 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Tale of Woe

Names have been changed to protect the innocent. Do not read any further if you are easily shocked. This is not a pleasant tale.

Feeling blue, I can remember my friend telling me a story to cheer me up.

My friend (let us call her Kate) was in the process of moving house to live with her boyfriend, but was inbetween everything. Half her things were in her parents house and half in her new flat. At dinner after work one day her mum had been helping out putting things in boxes and cleaning the new apartment. She had been going through Kate's extensive makeup selection and found a bottle of deodrant. Now lets just say that this deodrant was not for under your arms and was to make other bits of you smell nice. No more said on that.

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13 06 05 - 01:12 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Down and Out in Kyoto

Ok, rewind a little bit to the beginning of May and a week of holidays give or take strung out in a row. Greenary Day, Constitution Day (or as it is known in the rest of the world...Ki's birthday) and Childrens Day are celebrated one after another giving workers a much needed break. After my move to Kyoto and Rhod's delayed visa we didn't have much money between us so we decided that rather than risking the miles and miles of traffic jams we would stay in Kyoto and explore the Western hills behind our apartment. Cycling about the foothills at random we did a whirlwind tour of shrines, temples and mountains in the four or so days we weren't working. What surprised me most is that in about ten or fifteen minutes we can leave the city completely behind.

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12 06 05 - 08:22 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Fading Landscapes

When I first came to Kobe I never thought it would feel so much like home, so much like a shelter from my homesickness, close to everything my heart would need...a job that I truly enjoyed waking up to, the mountains to hike in, the beach a few train stops away. To say goodbye seemed a pretty impossible thing. Then again we don't know what lies around the corner, what forks our journey will take us down. So it is to be Kyoto. Not such a hard move, not so far away.

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11 06 05 - 02:15 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

The Feathery Fate of Kazuo

Kazuo is a lively 4th grade student, always with sweaty hair and a gravelly voice from his screaming exersions. Perpetually grimey from scuffling and rolling about the dirt playground, his good humoured nature can sometimes be a little too overbearing and bullysome to his classmates. He has that kind of bottomless energy that could power an entire city for a month. However he tends to pick on those who do not roll around at his crude jokes and disastrous pranks.

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10 06 05 - 21:58 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

The Wrath of Michizane

Cycling just about north, cutting through small alleyways and steaming hot streets, through arcades of shops that look faded and rundown, still clinging to the 70s, much like a decaying British seaside town, you come to Kitano Temmangu Shrine. To say it is hard to miss is a bit of an understatement as two giant dog-lion-dragons look down at you, gulping on the sidewalk, unsure whether to go in, unsettled by their resemblance to the monstrous gargoyles in Ghostbusters. But miss it I did until Rhod became sick this year. Taxiing back and forth between the hospital we kept passing the huge gate, but it was only when we started cycling to the doctor that we thought about seeing what the shrine was like. People were streaming back and forth so we guessed that it must have some kind of importance. It is one of those shrines you often hear about, but have no idea where exactly they are or what they are like. Following the winding, lantern cluttered driveway we came to Temmangu.

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10 06 05 - 04:03 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Prairie Monkeys and The Petting Zoo

With a stiffled yawn, I slip into the chair nearest the door and as a few people turn around I challenge them with my eyebrows raised shocked that they might think I had not been there the whole time. As the fans whir lazily back and forth, circulating a soup of warm air I try not to doze off as the teachers meeting drones on well into the afternoon. Outside the sounds of the children playing in the baking heat drifts through the open window and like usual I eventually stop listening to the monotonous Japanese and plan out a detailed escape in my head. This time it involves a fire alarm and a quick shimmy down a drain-pipe.

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10 06 05 - 02:30 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

A Life Not Lived

I was once told that loss is the greatest challenge we have to face as we get older. I guess that for some people personal loss comes much more quickly than others, but we all lose our childhood, leave behind school, friends, the life we live can take us to unexpected places meaning that we lose a lot more than we ever imagined. Since being in Japan time is a much more marked thing as the students I spend my daily life with grow up and graduate. Some students make such an impression on me that even if I don't stay in touch with them, I always have memories that don't fade as other do. One of those memories is sitting in the middle of a badminton court, sweaty and holding a bloody nose, shaking with laughter and not being able to stand. A shuttlecock had smacked my nose and cause a gush of blood which I found so ridiculous that I had to laugh, and eventually the other students (Nezu and Hirofumi) made it impossible for me to do anything else but roll around at how ridiculous it is to be taken down by a harmless shuttlecock.
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09 06 05 - 06:23 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

The Bald Little Professor

As I journey home on the train, I manage to read until the train reaches the Kyoto border, then my eyes get too heavy, the book falls onto my lap and like clockwork I sleep until my stop at Sanjo. Today I started to doze, lucky as usual to get a seat by myself, knocked out by the mild airconditioning. After a while I woke myself up, because something didn't feel right. Groggily I rubbed my eyes and wearily turned to my side. A bald little Japanese man looked at me, frowned, touched my arm and said 'What is God up to?'. I raised my eyebrows and prayed that this was still a dream. Then he asked me again 'Do you think God cares about how crazy we get?' Nope, wasn't a dream.
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09 06 05 - 03:23 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

By Imperial Invitation

This is pretty late, but as I cycled through the sea of gravel about Gosho, skimming off some journey time on my way to the Kamo, I thought of the endless times I had walked around it with my parents and friends, wondering what it would be like to have a peek inside the Imperial chambers. Twice a year the gates open to the public. Sure, it is not as exciting as winning the Golden Ticket and getting the chance to wander around the Chocolate Factory, but then again there is no chance of getting sucked into chocolate lake, blown up to the size of an elephant or attacked by malevolent squirrels. In a sense I remember Gosho so much because it was the first time Rhod showed me around Kyoto and I started getting the sense that I could come to love the city, once I looked past the false facade of tourism and that lovely Kyoto attitude (would give Kobe a run for its money).

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09 06 05 - 03:03 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Invasion of the Body Suckers

While I get home with the sun still burning my skin and glaring off the streets and buildings, Rhod leaves Q Games at half eight and so emerges in the relative cool of evening. He cycles home by skirting the outer wall of Nijo Castle and it is ten minutes give or take straight home. Yesterday night as he passed the castle he felt hundreds of tiny specks striking his face, so much so that he had to keep his mouth firmly shut and his eyes no more than slits. As the insects squashed and squelched and battered against him, he was forced more than once to stop and shake out his tee-shirt. Looking under the sodium glare of the street lamps he could see the air infested with miniscule flies all swarming this way and that. Understandably he picked up speed and tried to get home as quickly as possible, praying that the sweat didn't glue them to his body in a gross layer. (more)

07 06 05 - 03:10 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Three Boats and a Monkey

Grabbing Jol and James, Rhod and I cycled along the tramline, skirted around Ninna-Ji Temple (with it's fantastic wooden buddha, each hand broken off, leaving jagged stumps that somehow make it more real, easier to believe that as the men carved it England was being invaded by Normandy and Harold was about to be blinded and killed by an arrow to the eye) and scooted to Arashiyama for the Mifune Matsuri. Although we cancelled a picnic, we figured we would risk the wind and rain to see the three boat festival. (more)

02 06 05 - 05:56 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

The Doorway

When the sun is beating so hard that the heat seems to thrum and pulse in the air, when the rain is splashing down and gushing down the gutters, or when I feel like escaping from the claustrophobic atmosphere of the teachers room, then I take my lunchbox outside.  Walking through the school vegetable gardens, through the orchards, you come to a fence. One section is rusted and twisted and if you lift a flap of wire up you can wiggle through into a shrine. A wildly overgrown path, with grass reaching up to your waist, cuts through the wastegrounds at the back of the school and comes out at a minature shrine hidden away in the shadow of an outcropping of rock. Sitting on the rocks it is nice to read, soak up the quiet and escape for a few minutes as students scream and shout about the school. Fresh mikan and sake put out is the only hint that the tiny shrine has not been forgotten, but slowly time is rotting away at the wood, the torii gate lays drunkenly against a tree and the paint is peeling. It is decrepid and ugly, yet has a musty charm, hidden behind a giant ginko tree. Slowly it is being squeezed out of existinence by my school and the neighbouring nursery school, yet stands strong, the habitat of students in the evening who smoke and drink yet leave the shrine alone and do no damage.
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02 06 05 - 03:42 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Grace This Fish!

Grace this fish once had lovely black lips, fins and a speckled body that perfectly complimented her bright orange scales. But no more. In a move to equal Micheal Jackson, and to be honest better him, she has lost her black roots. Grace is now just orange. Happy to say that after this development she seems to be doing swimmingly well.

01 06 05 - 03:27 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶