RIPARIAN ENVIRONMENT

鴨川
20016

And I'm at it again . . .

This time I'm mostly writing rather than bouncing around the city. holed up in a 100-year-old machiya, which is traditional "town house."  I'm revisiting my enchantment with the Kamo FRiver and chose a place to stay in Shimogamo, the area where the Kamo and the Takakano rivers merge.

"Love on the Kamogawa," an erotic Ukiyoe by Keisai Eisen (1830)

MORE  TO COME

THE TEST OF TIME

郵便箱
2016

Here it is, May 2016 already, and my Kyoto Cultural Heritage Mailbox is still hanging precariously at  the entrance of my old apartment over the rice shop in Asukaicho. I built the little red box in 1977, when I was a student at Kyoto University, which makes it 39 year's old (and me, way older than I care to admit). Ever since, I've been visiting the box to check on its condition whenever I've found my way back to Kyoto. 

I reget to repot that the venerable mailbox is on its lst legs.

The mailbox is threatened by the immanent demise of the old traditional rice shop, which has been encroached upon by brand-new building over time. The two small apartments over the rice shop are vacant now and the white paper plastered on the top of the mailbox says posting mail here is "forbidden."

It was already looking ppretty shabby ing 2012, but firmly attached to the wall that separated the rice shop from the building being erected next door.

Here is how it looked in 2010, battered but boldly intact.

MACHIYA

街や
2016

The area where I am staying is called Shimogamo, at the  confluence of the Kamo and Takano rivers. It is famous for the lushl canopy of trees surrounding Shimogamo Shrine, where the purity of the Kamo's water is worshipped, Shinto style. I am  lodged in a 100-year-old machiya, a traditional city house, crafted in the traditional style.

This machya is similar in design and craftsmanship to Rob Singer's machiya, where I satyed in 2010. (see earlier post). But his is truer to the original form and maintains greater authenticity. This machiya has been renovated with a plastic bathing area and a modern kitchen. Other sections of the house are in disrepair, giving it a funky feel.

The front, facing the courtyard

The house is one of three machiya in a courtyard behind a large main house -- 300 years old.

The main room and garden

\

The front room where I did my writing

Sairs

Traditional tatami mat room upstairs

Modern second-floor bedroom

Contemporary Plumbing

A plastic o-furo

BRIDGES

7

CONTENT TO COME

BICYCLES, BICYLES!

Just about everyone I talked to in Kyoto, from friends to shopkeeper to cab drivers, had two pet peeves: bicycles and throngs of Chinese tourist. Bicycle because the so many of them now they swarm the sidewalks insured of peddling down dangerous roads and tend to scatter or plow into terrified pedestrians -- without apology.

A calm procession

The bike problem vexes city. Here's a
police warning from Osaka 

Staying out of traffic on Sanjo bridge

Bike parking at Kyoto University

SHIMOGAMO SHRINE

CONTENT DTO COMR4

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content to come

PLACEHOLDER

BiPLCE HOLDER

The Yeas Go By

光陰矢のごとく
2016

Kyoto changes so it can stay the same.

The posts below belong to two earlier stages of this blog, first in 2010 and more recently 2012. The above material was written three-and-a-half years later in the spring of 2016. 

I don't know how soon I'll get back. I lived in Japan for a total of of ten years in difference stints, first as a student in the 70s then as a foreign correspondent in the 1980s. In the 2000s I swung by Japan frequently to do reportingas roving Asia Correspondent based in San Fransico. I always wonder if I've spent too much time in Japan for my own good. And yet I keep returning.