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Topkapi Beauty

October 3, 2015

I’ll continue with posts of our travels in Australia’s Top End soon, but What I’m juiced about right now: is …

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Travelling through the world, and through life, feeling our way by the tips of our fingers.

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Vancouver, Canada

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Vancouver is famous for its plum and cherry blossoms; maybe almost as famous as Japan. And we have Japan to thank for it. The Vancouver tradition started with a donation from Japan of 500 cherry trees in the 1930’s and a further donation of 300 trees in 1958. Today there are more than fifty thousand plum and cherry trees lining the streets and filling the parks of Vancouver. Close to home where Rupert Street dead-ends and butts up against the start of the forest trail around the golf course there are two of them. I watch them daily. It’s a moment of pure joy as they come fully into bloom. Latest blog post: spring in Vancouver - snowshoeing on Mt Hollyburn and cherry blossoms in town. Link in bio.

Tenmangu flea market is known locally as Tenjin-san flea market. It's as if the attics and storage rooms of Japan have been emptied out and put on display - uniquely Japanese antiques and curios, and racks of gently loved kimonos. It feels like a small-time festival. Nishiki Market, a narrow street of five covered blocks with a ceiling of rainbow windows, is known as the kitchen of Kyoto. There are hundreds of shops and restaurants and the market is a long-standing fixture of ordinary life in the city. See my latest blog post: The Ultimate Treasure Hunt - a flea market and a food market in Kyoto. Link in bio.

Kitano Tenmangu flea market, known as Tenjin-san, has the feel of a small-time festival. Performing together at the flea market in Kyoto, I think this human has had his monkey from when it was a tiny baby. The love between the two is so palpable, and the monkey looks so healthy, that it makes me smile. It’s such a delightful performance. It doesn’t matter that I don’t understand a word of what the human is saying, the monkey says it all in his own clever way, and when it’s time to bow, he bends at the waist so low his head is on the ground. The whole audience laughs and claps. See my latest blog post: The Ultimate Treasure Hunt - a flea market and a food market in Kyoto. Link in bio.

Kitano Tenmangu flea market is known locally as Tenjin-san flea market. It's as if the attics and storage rooms of Japan have been emptied out and put on display. There are both special artefacts, and the detritus of life spread out on the street; picture frames and small furniture, vinyl records, toys, an old scale, stacks of new dishes, beautiful handmade pottery, and uniquely Japanese antiques and curios, and rack upon rack of gently-loved kimonos. It feels like a small-time festival, and we lucked into it. It only happens on the 25th of each month. See my latest blog post: The Ultimate Treasure Hunt - a flea market and a food market in Kyoto. Link in bio.

Nishiki Market, a narrow street of five covered blocks with a ceiling of rainbow windows, is known as the kitchen of Kyoto. The market began life in the 1300’s as a wholesale fish market. Over the years it morphed into a retail market selling primarily foods, but also various other goods. There are hundreds of shops and restaurants, many of which have been in the same family for generations, and the market is now a long-standing fixture of ordinary life in the city. These two ladies are selling tea, and they hand out tea samples in beautiful pottery cups. No one steals the cups, because Japan. See my latest blog post: The Ultimate Treasure Hunt - a flea market and a food market in Kyoto. Link in bio.

For over three weeks we were based in Cusco, the still-beating heart of the Inca Empire, as we explored the Urubamba Valley. It is known as the Sacred Valley because it was the property of the emperor, and it is littered with imposing Inca ruins and traditional villages. We visited such sites as Moras with its enormous circular crop terraces, the cascading salt evaporation ponds of Moray, the villages of Chinchero and Ollantaytambo, several of the more prominent Inca ruins, and of course Machu Picchu. And all along the way we encountered ordinary people living their lives pretty much in the same way as they have done for hundreds of years.

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The Ultimate Treasure Hunt – a flea market and a food market in Kyoto
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