Day in the Life of an Idiot

Every once and a while, I have to wonder if Japan is, in point of fact, just like it is in the anime I watch. 


A vending machine within the liminal space between torii gates.

Last Thursday night, right before my writers' group, I hopped onto a tour in Kyoto. I always imagine Kyoto, the former capitol (or capitol in-waiting) as entirely full of Edo period buildings. So, I was surprised to find our tour guide, Makoon, walking through what looked like some shady back alley. But, he turned a corner and, whammo, a bright red torii gate.

Bowing through it, he took us down through this odd passage way. Yes, there was this paved section, but as you can see on the right, it abutted vending machines and people's backdoors... and so it had this odd sense of being a magical, liminal space between the worlds. Once we got through the second gate, we really did seem to have been transported somewhere else.

 
Image: Umenomiya shrine, recognizable by its sake barrels on the second story.

So why sake barrels above the doorway?

According to the story Makoon told us, as well as the various links I've found, the god Oyamazumi no Mikoto was so happy when his daughter Konohana no Sakuya gave birth to his grandson, that he invented sake in order to celebrate.  So there are not only those barrels above the doorway, but also a full wall of tithes from local brewers. 


Lots of sake barrels on the offering wall, gifts to the gods from brewers all across Japan.

Interestingly the shrine is also a favorite spot for couples as there's an associated legend regarding the easy and complication free birth by an Empress who stepped over some stones on the grounds of this shrine (and took home some white sand and placed it under her bed.) Apparently, you can buy an omikuji with some of this sand mixed in? We didn't see that part, so I'm less certain about that. We did, however, see a couple in their wedding outfits coming into the shrine. 

At any rate, the truly startling thing about this shrine is that as Makoon walked us around the I initially thought, "Huh, this is a small little space, but it's quite nice." But, then he walked through what seemed like an unassuming gate, and once again a pocket universe opened up in which there was a massive, hidden garden.


Image: WTF, where did this garden come from? And is that a koi pond?????

Apparently, a lot of locals like to come to Umenomiya Shrine for its early blooming plum (ume) blossoms, shown above. Makoon stopped to chat with a couple of older ladies about their visit and it was much less cringe-worthy than the conversations I overheard on Hiro's tour.  

Makoon is a guide I had not had before. The most striking and noteworthy thing about him are his absolutely demonic fingernails. Speaking of anime, my brain kept watching his hands when he'd gesticulate into the camera view, thinking, "pretty sure this is the foreshadowing before he 'surprise!' eats our souls."

I mean, I am teasing, of course. But, his fingernails were, in point of fact, majestically pointed and wicked-looking.

Do not mess with Makoon. You will lose an eyeball! (or he'll transform into a soul eating demon, just SAYIN')

The other truly amazing and anime thing about Umenomiya was the cats. It is a cat shrine, which means that the shrine priests have adopted stray cats. They are all wild, but they obviously hang out at the place where dinner lives.


Image: shrine kitty in the sun.

One last anime thing... the other night when I was over at a friend's house watching Weathering With You, I got super excited because in one of the animateaerial shots, they panned passed the Mode Gakuen Cocoon building, which I'd seen in a previous HeyGo tour!!  I totally freaked out my friend during this kind of solemn moment in the anime by shouting, "Hey! I know that place! It's the cocoon building!!" She was unimpressed. Alas.

Anyway, the Kyoto shrine tour with Makoon was lovely. He's doing this same tour again and I'm weirdly tempted to go a second time to see what's in the second half. Maybe there will be more kitties, too.

 First of all, I've had a number of people ask me: yes, Mason's got his ROG back thanks to a quick order of a replacement cord. In fact, he's currently sitting across from me voice chatting with his friend Gray as they play Portal 2 together. 

Meanwhile, this is how I'm typing.



It may not be clear, but my Mac is missing a few keys. It's been without an "s" and a "d" for some time, but I'd be able to tap over the empty space and still get what I needed. But, the other night a bunch of keys on that row stopped working. I could bang on them as hard as I wanted and nothing happened. So, I starting trying to clean out the gunk i figured must be underneath the keys. I was getting some good stuff out, too! But... uh, then... yeah, let's just say I should NOT be allowed to poke at my computer with any kind of implement including a frozen turkey.

The keyboard, though?  I kind of dig it. First of all, it's the keyboard I "grew up" on (I'm actually old enough to have learned to type on a TYPEWRITER). But, the clickity-clacking of this baby? I'm into it!  I might be wrong, but I feel like I type faster.

It's just kind of physically awkward.

But, for now, it's good enough.

Anyway, sorry for not keeping everyone abreast of things. Mostly, it's been snowing here and I've been shoveling... I mean, the excitement is palpable, am I right?  I honestly don't know what I've been doing with my time--oh, let's see, I finished my critiquing/mentorship with my Broad Universe Canadian. We're going to be having our last Skype session on Wednesday, coming up.  After that, I'm going to throw myself into finishing up my apocalypse story, and then get working getting the novel together for Cheryl at Wizard Tower Press. Mason and I are going to spend tonight finishing up PSEO application stuff. 

So, yeah, it's like that.

Here's a picture of my kitty playing with his favorite mousie game on the iPad. He'll actually ask for it by coming up to the iPad and pawing at it. He'll do that and then look at me, like, "Hooman, do the thing to make the mouse come?"