These photos are from our brief time in Kyoto, and mostly from Tenryu-ji, a Buddhist temple founded in 1339. The original botanical garden is still largely intact today. Isn’t that incredible? My mind supplied visions of priests sowing the seeds and raking the ground into the landscape I saw in front of me, as though I were watching a historical montage. I tried to imagine creating something that people would experience in 600 years time and it is mind-boggling!
We travelled to Saga-Arashiyama in Kyoto primarily to visit the Sagano bamboo groves (pictured in the above two photos) only learning about Tenryu-ji when we arrived in Kyoto. The groves were a really beautiful site – very still and calm. Arashiyama itself was a pleasant suburban town – it was a nice change of pace from the bustle of Tokyo and I would have liked to have spent longer there. (I also would have liked to have spent longer in the kimono shop… those beautiful garments aren’t going to wear themselves!).
The walk through the bamboo groves and the quaint village felt very Studio Ghibli – I know I sound like a western fangirl but there was something so surreal and whimsical, particularly when we stumbled across a tiny train crossing in the middle of this epic walk between the bamboos. I always find areas with a rich history to be very comforting – picturing all the thousands of people who have walked the same steps, admired the same groves, the same sakura, the same rolling Kyoto mountains in the distance.
Happy birthday to me! I absolutely love birthdays! Parties, presents, being the centre of attention and getting older; I love it all. My Mum made me some gluten-free granola and some vegan peanut butter snaps which was the best start to the day and also got me such a gorgeous card. My Dad paid for my car to get serviced which was my main present but also loaned me his amazing Canon camera for the day for all these photos! On my actual birthday I met some of my best friends and we spent the day at the Natural History Museum before going to the pub. I wrote a song about dugongs last year hence all the photos with the dugongs!
I also went out the week before with all my friends and was honoured that the lovely Jess from Jessthetics could come too! It was such a fun (and particularly bleary) night and it felt like Jess had been part of our gang for ages. I felt very loved by the amount of birthday gestures I received this year; flowers (in the photos!) and cake from the charity shop, more flowers and cake from my theatre group, cake and wine from work, homemade vegan birthday cake from Jess, cuddly wolves, polkadot dresses, posh glittery things, LUSH goodies and headdresses from my friends and an animal safari t-shirt (!!!!!!) (amongst other things) from James.
It sounds cheesy but the nice thing about growing older is having people to grow older with! I don’t have much family or many friends from childhood so it’s fairly recently I’ve been able to appreciate how wonderful it is having close friends who you’ve known through multiple stages of your life. Pete (the tall ginger one) for example has been at every single birthday I’ve had since we met and we’ve gone from being two awkward teens to being two successful musicians running creative businesses (although still awkward every now and then!). I’m very grateful to grow up surrounded by inspiring and brilliant people every day and so lucky to call them my friends. :)
TAPE PARADE 