Kyoto. July. Humid and hot.

The title says it all. The last two weeks passed rather quickly. The previous weekend Zhenya was sick, which led to a very lazy weekend of watching series and also finishing Avatar. The best kids animation film ever! It had such a satisfying ending. And how often are the endings of the series satisfying? Kind of never (almost).

Monday to Wednesday Georg was in Kobe for an RNA conference. On one of the days, they had a looooong lunch break and a free entry to the zoo. Turns out, the zoo in Kobe is really cool! With a red panda and armadillo and lama and dogs and cats for petting, and a lot of fancy beetles, and what not.

On Friday together with Georg's cousin, Barbara and her friend Korina, we went to the Gion Center for the Kyoto Traditional Musical Art performance: one hour of small performances in different arts. Chado - a tea ceremony, playing Koto - the Japanese harp, Kado - an art of flower arrangement, Gagaku - a court music type, Kyogen - an ancient comic play, Kyomai - the Kyoto style of dancing, and Bunraku - the puppet play.

We couldn't see much of the tea ceremony, because it was on the far side from us and in parallel with playing Kado and the flower arrangement. Also they didn't explain much about the tea ceremony, which according to Babsi is very complicated and on many levels connected to religion and culture in Japan.

I liked the flower arrangement, it was simple but meditative. It was weird when after the man finished arranging flowers, a woman who waiting on stage in a very nice Japanese costume got up to clean up. She waited all this time on the stage and dressed up so nicely just to clean up..

The court music was weird. At least we know that we won't go for a full performance of only court music (if for whatever reason somebody suggests it to us). The comic play was also a bit weird but sort of a bit funny. The English program for the event included a short summary of the performance: a master binds two of his servants while he goes into town. He binds them so that the servants do not steal his sake (weird master/servants relationship). The servants of course find out how to steal and drink the sake without unbinding themselves. They laugh and dance when the master returns. The

master is very mad (very mad according to the program, but on stage the master just seemed a bit annoyed. I guess when Japanese seem a bit annoyed, they are in reality very mad! Keep in mind!)

The Kyoto dancing was nice, though again I wouldn't go for a full performance only of this type of dancing. It is so different from what we in Europe consider an impressive dance. The Kyoto dance "adopted the elegance and sophistication of the Imperial Court manners", according to the brochure. Which is maybe why it was not very emotional but again the music and very soft movements of the dancer make you fall sort of into a trance state. So at the end I didn't find it boring.

And the puppet show was a highlight. The story, which again was explained in the brochure, included a girl and her lover, her parents, her fiancee, her lover's master and some stolen sword! But on stage

only one puppet was present - the girl who was telling the story. No wonder only one puppet was on stage: the puppet was the size of a small girl and it needed three people - all dressed completely in black, also their faces covered - to move her around the stage. The face of the puppet painted white, seemed rather real! I would have loved to see a full puppet show somewhere, with more than one puppet!