Ni Americans In Kyoto

In Nara’s old town the Migawarizaru are hung under the eaves of houses. These talismans, which are supposed to be monkeys, are made of red satin, with stylized limbs, head and obi. They ward off evil. [The actual belief involves worms living inside you that report your sins…you don’t want to know about it!]

Another Nara old town talisman is a fishhead stuck on a holly branch and nailed to the door. It wards off bad luck, and probably everything else.

In a small town we came across this phone booth with a regular telephone in it. There was no way to pay, but you could dial any local number.

The Buddhist fire extinguisher at Kiyomizu Temple is 3 red buckets of water, 3 silver buckets of water, and 3 gray buckets of sand. For a World Cultural Heritage site built entirely of wood, that seems like one hand clapping.

Everyone in Japan has a seal bearing the Kanji characters of his or her name for banking and legal transactions. We decided to get seals since it’s easier than trying to learn how to sign our names in Kanji. That’s J on the left and L on the right. The diameter is about 3/8". The little seal case has its own tiny inkpad.

Despite having invented the Tea Ceremony, the Japanese are serious coffee drinkers. Prepackaged lattes are popular, and one brand -- Mt. Rainier -- has a very familiar looking white-with-green-medallion package.

Egg Update. If you’ve seen our Swiss page you know we were impressed with their 10-egg “metric dozen.” Japan uses metric, too. The grocery stores don’t stock dyed eggs, but they have quail eggs. And they have “smoked eggs.” The package says that smoked eggs are healthy, but we just ate them.

Japanese food is great, but we’re not always sure what we’re eating. We give everything a try, though. For example, many foods -- even yogurt -- come with extra little packets. We realized recently that maybe we were being too eager when on separate occasions we each sampled the freshness packet. (They’re not that tasty!)

We bought a knife from a firm that has been making carbon steel knives for 18 generations, i.e. since the samurai were buying ‘em. After trying several styles J selected a design, and then we retired to the back of the shop for green tea and conversation with Miyuki, while a workman sharpened it -- as if it needed any more! -- and hammered our names on the blade in kana.

Wooden clogs are not uncommon footwear. These, however, are door handles at a shoe store.