2019: Rx: Bon Bon

Fall 2019
Kyoto

The first few days were at home unpacking, storing stuff and hunting for my usual tools, needs, and supplies.  And I was still fighting a cough even after I took my usual Athens doctor’s meds.  Welcomed back by phone by Ko-chan and Kiyo with plans to meet later in the week.  I realized I needed more help with the cough and asked Ko-chan to join me.  He recalled a doctor near my previous place that we had seen some years before.  It took my memory wheel time to churn ands it all came back.  I even found a patient ID from that clinic.  Ko-chan made arrangements for a Friday appointment.

Doctor and patient did remember each other although it was 7 years ago.  I spent about 30 minutes giving him the low down. (His English is good and we needed Ko-chan only briefly.)  Pharmacy is next door and they had everything ready for me.  The tablets plus an inhaler are now on the third day and I feel so much better and on the way to recovery!!

Ko-chan and I had lunch in Bon Bon café that has been in the same place for years with several iterations, and later did some shopping at a resale shop with great success. 

I met with Kiyo at a favorite café downtown.  He was loaded with umpteen flyers and brochures of current and coming shows and we had a chance to catch up on our lives.  His oldest daughter, Yuki-chan, gave premature birth to her third child 3 months previously and Friday was the first the family had a chance to see Yugo.  All very exciting for them, but Kiyo thinks the name sounds too French, i.e. Victor Hugo.

Yesterday I ventured into town again and saw a solo show of Shibuya-san’s smaller works.  She’s my same age a real dynamo, and somewhat of a quiet queen of the Kyoto Fiber World.  She had a huge work in the Kyoto Textiles spring show at the National Museum of Modern Art.  Then off to the Somé Museum (Dyeing) where I saw other work that had been in the big spring show, including my old friend from 1979, Shuji Asada.  Some work was great, some so-so and some really bad stuff.

Kyoto Art Center is next to the museum and the organization that sponsors the annual fall Kyoto Experiment with a month of dance, performance, drama and music.  I’ve attended the last 8 or 10 years and always find this international event so exciting and easily accessible.  Getting tickets has varied each year, but this time there was a kiosk at the entrance of the Center.  A sweet Juliette was so helpful and I won a prize for the first purchase at this spot.  So I’m set for three events in October.

Now waiting for the typhoon #17 to arrive, quiet a bit of wind but strange feeling in the air.  I’m set with French bakery goodies and milk and juice. Wine of course! Forecast is for heavy rain.

The country is crazy over World Cup Rugby in press and on TV.  I watched a bit a few nights but it is such chaos it’s hard to follow.  I do know when a player dives across the goal line and when the kick sails through the uprights.  The first night Japan won against Russia!!