Kakigari and Kouyu! (Harvesting Persimmons and the Changing Colors of Fall)

Shizendo - this gorgeous little temple in the mountains

It's the middle of November and while the stores and stations may have already brought out their faux Christmas trees decked out with tinsel and ornaments, the trees lining the avenues and mountain slopes are still decked out in their fall finery. One glance at the trains and buses packed with camera-wearing, map-bearing people is all you need to confirm that Kyoto is one of the best places to view 紅葉　(kouyou) - the changing of the colors. The ginko trees lining Horikawa Avenue are an incandescent yellow, so flawless their leaves could be the manifestation of sunligh itself, and the momiji - maple trees - at the temples have turned red, the leaves suspended above silent gazers, delicate and as transient as wishing stars.


But on the other side of the mountains to the North of Kyoto, there is a strip of land that skirts the shore of lake Biwaco that is beautiful for a different reason - a reason that is, nevertheless, still connected with fall, and can be summed up in one word: KAKI aka PERSIMMONS. To me, kaki trees are one of the most beautiful species of trees I have ever seen. They aren't too tall, so they don't overpower you with their height and give you neck cramps when you look up, and their branches are low enough that even if you are short like me it's not a stretch to pick the lower fruit. The distance of the branches are are pleasantly spaced and are far enough apart that you have a pleasant mixture of leaf, branch, fruit and sky.

Fruit and sky.

That, I think, is what tops it off for me. The bright orange of the kaki set against the bright blue sky with a few wisps of cloud and green leaves is a gorgeous composition of color...

Adam and Shin-chan

Workin' Hard

But enough about the aesthetic wonders of the kaki tree. More than being beautiful, kaki are DELICIOUS! In the U.S., unfortunately, persimmons aren't a popular fruit and so besides the occasional farmers market, I don't think that you can find persimmons at regular supermarkets. Which is really such a shame because I think all the sweetness and colors of fall must be packed in that singular succulent fruit, which can be as juicy as a plum or as crunchy as...an apple?...a carrot? a cross between the two and a taste like neither? it's hard to describe. But anyway, either way, it's really delicious and last weekend I went with Meli, Max and Adam to Max's host family's kaki field where we spent the day harvesting (and eating) kaki. The weather was perfect, with enough of the fall chill to give the atmosphere some flavor but not freeze off our hands. Some other finds beside kaki: a tiny green frog and an iridescent green beetle that Adam named the uchyujin no daitoryou, or the "president of the aliens", much to Shin-chan's (Max's host parent's grand kid) delight.

The harvest

After our hard work (if you could call it that), we went back to Max's family's house at the other side of the field and had lunch. Which was also spectacular. They had this fire pit in the middle of the floor where they roasted whole fish skewered on sticks, meat, lobster, mushrooms, peppers, onigiri (rice balls), and other delicious food stuffs. It was great. I felt like a rustic Japanese person.

The Feast

The four of us content and happy after The Feast

One of the other people who came along was a 書道 (shodo - Japanese calligraphy) teacher and so after lunch we had a mini shodo lesson. I learned how to write 喜美恵(Kimie - my middle name) and 家族- kazouku, or family - shodo style.

Shodo

All in all, it was a wonderful day.

Some more pics of our explorations around Shizendo and Tanuki mountain:

The gazillion stairs that led up to Tanuki Shrine. The shrine was so funny. "Tanuki" means raccoon and apparently it was the shrine to raccoons so there were tons of statues of them everywhere. The best part was that after the crowds of Shizendo there was pretty much no one at the shrine...which was great...until we saw this dark black statue of a monk looming ahead of us in the gathering dusk. Lucky for us, though, the day didn't turn into some kind of Japanese horror movie. \(^^)/

Under the torii at Tanuki Shrine in the mountains

For anyone who is interested, you can see more pictures online at: http://picasaweb.google.com/ELISSEOTA.

jya ne~ updates from Okinawa to be posted shortly!