Glen Kaufman
2012: Day One
Spring 2012
Kyoto
Day 1 March 31
Rain the night before and in the morning and it seemed like a good day to stay at home and begin the unpacking. I had just powered up my Kyoto cell phone and immediately received a call. How strange! It was my friend Kiyo (he arranged for my 1st solo show of gloves here in 1984 and we have been great friends since) asking whether I was free as he had a whole day mapped out. Yes, of course, especially since the rain had stopped. I rushed to get dressed and organized to go out for the first time, making sure I had all the essentials in my shoulder bag. Off to the convenience store to grab a sandwich and renew the card for my cell so I could call out as needed. Took the subway to meet him and off to a huge antiques fair in south Kyoto where we browsed around for a couple of hours just looking. I am not in a buying-more-stuff mode.
Next we were off to a one-day culture event via several trains in a city on the shores of Lake Biwa (the largest inland lake in Japan) where the wind was fierce and very cold. I was not dressed for that kind of weather!! His college students/grads had work on display and we met lots of staff, saw the work (one very interesting painter whom Seiki knows very well), and then headed out for more adventures.
We used various trains and subway to get around and had to walk a good deal as well. We stopped by a small gallery I have visited many times to see a show of a well known performance/painting/installation artist who had a show to raise funds for the earthquake victims of a year ago. He decorated a standard sake bottle shape with kanji hung with strings around their necks on the wall, brush strokes in a few colors, rough paintings of bottles, and one quite huge. All for sale and quite cheap but I resisted. Following that, via taxi, an opening of an exhibition of a woman artist who showed yellow ceramic and opaque glass flower forms filling a floor space and also smaller versions of the yellow flowers on the wall. Hmmmmmm … OK but not so special.
Finally dinner at “Min Min”, a cheap Chinese place I had not been to in years. Food was OK but I had a violet intestinal reaction an hour or so later just as I was getting home. Oh my!!! Too oily or too much MSG?? Cold night so the oil heater was most welcome.
(Time out to pull the laundry in before dark, start dinner and fill the oil heater.)
Day 2 April 1
Keiko of GalleryGallery (GG) asked me to edit a letter in English she sent to me via email for participants in an International Tapestry event (Ori Rhythm II) she has organized. It was too complicated to finalize in print alone so we agreed to meet with her husband Ko-chan (also a good buddy since he retired from teaching HS English) to hammer out the final version. We met in a mid-town coffee shop for “Morning Set”, a kind of bargain breakfast, at a shop called Colorado. I had to bring my laptop so changes could be made on the spot and then Keiko and I went to GG to transfer the doc to her computer. One of the places I can access WiFi. But found out I can do the same in most fast food shops along the busy shopping street nearby, especially St Mark, one of my favorites that specializes in chocolate croissants. YUM.
The 1st Sunday each month is an antiques fair at the Toji Temple so I headed off by bus with my one-day pass. It was windy and cold, and by 2 PM many dealers were already packing up so not too much to see. No red under-kimono caught my eye. So went to the nearby super indoor 4-story mall to look around and have an afternoon snack. Then back to GG to pick up the laptop, head home, drop it off and head to the not-so-close super market with my roller soft pack to do a major shopping. And used my bus pass so I didn’t have to lug it all so far. Ah, life in the city without a car!! Dinner prep, watched some figure skating and the news, dinner plus a movie with Nicholas Gage and John Voigt about a treasure map on the Declaration of Independence! and early to bed. Sunday night there is usually and English Language movie I can watch. They love the action thrillers here.
Day 3 April 2
Normal at-home day. Garbage to the corner collection spot under a net so the crows won’t create chaos. Sunny day predicted so perfect to do a couple of loads of laundry left from my fall stint here. I finally got to unpacking the 2 large suitcases and got most of the contents put away. Everything seemed to be in fine shape with a reminder I need to get busy in the studio working on the frames for the collage series. It was finally time for my first river walk to the bank to transfer cash to the landlord for the April rent. The cherry trees are in full bud but with this cool weather it will be awhile before blooms appear. There were a few daffodils, forsythia, some white spring flowers and a few delicate blue ones heralding spring.
The transaction at the bank (at a kind of multi-purpose ATM) is all in Japanese and quite complicated so I always need to ask the guard for help. That done, I tried to exchange some more cash but was told in halting English that it would take a long time! Crossed the street to “my” bank and was able to get my number 126, and quick call to hand over the paperwork and cash and had to wait for 20 minutes to get the yen. That always amazes me after all these years how complex a simple transaction is.
This was close to the station where I walk a couple of times a week to get the I. H. Trib. so decided to pick one up, headed to my usual spot for an ice coffee and read a couple of pages before heading back home along the other side of the river. I can’t recall seeing the river this low before with a lot more rocks and gravel exposed. This should end tomorrow as we are expecting a typhoon-type storm with strong winds and rain. It seems to be a big deal as it was the #1 item on News 7. If so, tomorrow will be a true stay-at-home day.