michael lambe's scrapbook » Kyoto

Deep Kyoto Highlights 2010!

Michael — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 18:40:32 +0000

Deep Kyoto’s original purpose was to introduce bars, cafes and restaurants of character. However, its purview has expanded way beyond that over the last year or so, to encompass art, books, photography, music, dance, poetry, conservation, environmentalism and now with the controversy over the Kyoto Aquarium – protest! I still post quite a lots of places to sit and eat and drink in though, so let’s take a look at them first!

Bars:
Alphabet Ave.
Tadg’s Irish Bar and Restaurant
BAR F.S.N.
Sake Bar Asakura
Cafes:
Quarirengue
Blues Cafe Ball’n’Chain
月と六ペンス
Restaurants:
Guest House Cono (posh)
Apollo (izakaya style Japanese food)
Thilaga Indian Restaurant
海と空 (Okinawan)
Sharma Indian Restaurant
Vege-Cafe Kanna (natural food in a machiya setting)
Kerala Indian Restaurant (the best Indian restaurant in Kyoto)
Ａｓａｈｉ　Ｓｕｉｓａｎ (sea food)
Second House ShichijoNishinotoinTen (pasta and cake in a Taisho era bank building)
Soba no Mi Yoshimura (soba so good!)

Here’s the rest! (or at least as much as I have time for…)

Art:
Daniel Kelly
Sarah Brayer
Pictures & Video from オトエホン-21
Dreamtime @ The Kampo Museum
The Glorious Art of José Benitez Sanchez
An Interview with Mara Alper
Nihonga
Saiundo Traditional Art Supply Shop
Books:
John Dougill’s “Kyoto: A Cultural History”
京町家の再生 – Machiya Revival in Kyoto
Heian Jingu’s cherry blossoms & Yasunari Kawabata’s “The Old Capital”
The Time Out Shortlist Kyoto
The Ultimate Japanese Phrasebook
Yoko Danno’s “Songs and Stories of the Kojiki”
One Hundred Poets on Mount Ogura, One Poem Each
Kyoto Journal #74 The Silk Roads (links to sneak previews)
Kyoto Journal #75: “Biodiversity” – Essential Reading for COP10
Conservation & Environment:

Kyoto Journal #75: “Biodiversity” – Essential Reading for COP10
The People I Met at COP10
COP10 – History is Made!
People Together for Mt. Ogura – The Poets’ Mountain
One Hundred Poets on Mount Ogura, One Poem Each
京町家の再生 – Machiya Revival in Kyoto
Culture & Tradition:
A Kyoto Christmas
Autumn Colours at Kinkakuji & Ryoanji
KIRISHITAN KYOTO
Rokudo-Mairi & The Haunted Candy Shop
Ryokan Pleasures & Possibilities
Takigi Noh (Noh by Firelight)
Ikkyū
Japanese Noh Theatre
Cherry Blossoms at Heian Jingu
Tengu
Kimono Old & New
Music:
ぼーぼーず＠ Urbanguild (rock!)
Udonya Mentei & Yoshida Koichi @ Bar Hawkwind (folk)
Kris Roche (up and coming singer/songwriter)
Okuda Satoko/Viva Sherry 1 & 2 & 3 (jazz pop diva)
Yugao @ Urbanguild (shakuhachi!)
Get on the Mat!
Yugao @ Zac Baran (Spain!)
raw elements (popular local band)
Morphic Jukebox @ Jittoku (folk rock funsters)
Miimo @ JunKroom (dub electronica)
Yuya Ohta @ Modern Times (happening young fella)
elements (the massively popular local band play their final show as a full band)
The Wild Cards at Tadg’s
Singing & Dancing Round the Table @ Irish Pub Gnome (Irish Folk)
Resonance 2010 – the best event this year!
Deep Kyoto & JunKroom Present: Voices for Umekoji ~ 梅小路公園の声 – the best event next year!
Photography:

Doomed Rooster by John Ashburne

John Ashburne
Chris McCooey
Paul Crouse
Jeffrey Friedl
Frédéric Devos
John Einarsen
Stewart Wachs
Ken Rodgers
Poetry:
Irish Haiku
Two Poems by Amano Tadashi
“A Lively Evening” by Murayama Kaita
One Hundred Poets on Mount Ogura, One Poem Each
A Hokku of Yosa Buson
Introducing Keiji Minato
Songs and Stories of the Kojiki retold by Yoko Danno
Kyoto International Poetry Society
Protest!
Deep Kyoto & JunKroom Present: Voices for Umekoji ~ 梅小路公園の声
 Raw Feelings for a Fish Tank (Chris Rowthorn writing in Kansai Scene)
Fury at Kyoto Aquarium Plan (my piece for Japan Today)
Why you can’t read my KVG article on the Kyoto Aquarium online…
Our Protest Against the Kyoto Aquarium at Kiyomizudera
Think Outside The Tank (a selection of local opinions)
Others:
Somushi (Korean tea shop)
Club World (I actually went to a club)

Autumn Colours at Kinkakuji & Ryoanji

Michael — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 13:55:22 +0000

Yesterday we visited Kinkakuji and Ryoanji to check out the autumn leaves. It was Mewby’s first time to see Kinkakuji. It was of course massively crowded with tourists all trying to get a snap of themselves with the famous Golden Pavilion.

The garden at Ryoanji is gorgeous at this time of year.

I’ve taken to using my i-phone to speed things up when I’m with her, but Mewby doesn’t like it if I take too many pictures…

Lazy Sunday Afternoon…

Michael — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:19:19 +0000

Just a few snapshots from last Sunday. We were too late for the antiques market but we had a bit of a stroll around Toji’s temple grounds anyway.

Then on into town for a light meal at Vanilla (which you can read more about here).

We stayed there for a while and had a bit of a read – I was reading my book about machiya. It was making me a bit sad though reading about how many old machiya have been lost and looking at photos of the destruction unfolding… So we went for a stroll towards Teramachi and on a whim had a go at one of those “UFO catcher” machines. Oddly enough we won!

Only problem with that though was that Mewby had to carry a giant pink Stitch around with her for the rest of the evening – looking a looney. Stitch in toe – we did some purikura. This particular purikura machine puts too much contrast into the eyes so Mewby comes out looking like some kind of strange anime character:

And then on for a nice dinner at Apollo (which you can read about here). Nice place Apollo. We like it a lot.

Kodaiji Illuminated

Michael — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:21:32 +0000

Last night Mewby and I went to see the illuminated aumtumn leaves at Kodaiji temple. It was the last night of the illuminations so it was pretty crowded. The crowds do tend to take away from the experience a bit – but what can you do? This is Japan. Here are some pictures.

Gion Matsuri Pics…

Michael — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 08:44:46 +0000

Here’s a couple of modern day Gion Festival traditions you won’t see on today’s Deep Kyoto posting. The traditional purikura (print club) picture:

The traditional queue for the convenience store toilet.

The traditional post festival retreat to the peace of Joao.

More pictures up here: Gion Festival.

Pictures from the Weekend

Michael — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:39:31 +0000

Let’s see. It was my work friend Matt’s last night of drinking before he becomes a poppa last Friday. So I ended up pretty wasted (naturally) and even after Matt had gone, continued drinking with Andrew and his friend Mike. The booze (among other things… but mainly the booze) having made us all emotional we sat by the Kamogawa watching the fireflies (pretty amazing up by Demachiyanagi this time of year) and telling each other mutually appreciative things… I eventually got home at 4 – which was unfortunate as I had the clinic at ten. But I made it on time and it was a good session too…

Saturday was funny. Spent most of the afternoon wrestling with Mewby’s dog Rui (actually… not that hard to do… seeing as she’s a Maltese). Leaving Mewby’s place we passed Tofukuji so I took a picture.

Then in the evening we met up with Ted and Miki and her brother and sister-in-law (“yome desu!”) at Shimogamo. We had heard there was a fire-fly festival and that 500 of our wee glowing bretheren would be released at the stream. There was a large crowd waiting around the stream at the front of the shrine, staring intently at the waters so we waited there and stared intently too… and the minutes ticked by and nothing happened… till suddenly everyone just upped and left. It seemed there was another stream inside the shrine and that was where all the action had happened and we’d missed it already. However, although I had images of hundreds of the poor wee twinkly beasties being released all in one glowing go (and Ted had had Larsen-esque images of them all being instantly caught in a giant spider web) it appears they were all released boringly one-by-one. No show-manship these people. They like to dress up though.

I don’t know what this lady was doing but lots of people were watching her very intently so I’m sure it was very cultural and important.

Later though going home by the river, Mewby kept stopping and insistently shouting “Look! Look! There’s another one! Look! LOOOK!” very excitedly because there so many fireflies out among the river grasses… Very exciting, fireflies. If you get the chance – get yourself up to Demachiyanagi and watch them floating about. It’s like watching fairies. It really is.

節分＠吉田神社

Michael — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:37:05 +0000

It’s Setsubun, the day when people throw beans at demons (who knows why?) so I wanted to see some guys in demon costumes getting pelted at Rozanji but unfortunately left it too late and got there in time to see a sea of umbrellas instead (shocking weather today). The matsuri at Yoshida Jinja was a different story though. They burn a big ole pile of charms and amulets there at Setsubun you see, so we got there early and got a front row eyebrow searing, slightly scary view of the raging inferno. Some of these pictures are mine and a few are by mewby. Bet you can’t guess which are which. Click the switches to move the pictures on.

BubbleShare: Share photos – Easy Photo Sharing

Kibune

Michael — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 16:05:25 +0000

Kibune is very pretty (but very cold) at this time of year…

A walk in the woods…

Kibune shrine….
And there were lights on the river. I’m not sure why…
On the way home, they turned the lights off on the train so we could enjoy the sight of all the illuminated red and gold leaves around us, and everybody said “Aaaaah!”.

Light Up at Kiyomizudera

Michael — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 09:16:40 +0000

The light-up at Kiyomizudera continues until December 7th.
BubbleShare: Share photos – Play some Online Games.

Udo & Fumi

Michael — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 14:22:17 +0000

I had a visit from Udo and Fumi yesterday, which was nice, and we went to Shimogamo shrine and took some pictures. Hover your mouse over for extra info:

BubbleShare: Share photos – Safe Toys

Note the three-legged crows. I was curious about these and it seemed like a good excuse for a chat with one of the lovely shrine maidens so I asked. There is a story in the Nihongi, she said, that the first Emperor Jimmu, lost in the mountains with his army and not knowing what to do with himself, was visited in a dream by the sun-goddess Amaterasu who then sent a three legged crow Yatagarasu (八咫烏) to show him the way. Jimmu then went on to subjugate his enemies and found the Imperial line of Japan, and being very grateful set up Shimogamo Shrine to give thanks for the celestial assistance. Of course, said the shrine maiden, it’s not really true you know. It’s a myth. There aren’t really any three legged crows.

There’s an interview with Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip up on BoingboingTV which is worth a look and if you don’t know who they are, they are the guys who did this:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/ESvYRR1Fyug" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

And you can hear more tracks up on their myspace page. Letter from God to Man being most brilliant.