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Autumn in Kyoto, Japan I

When I was born, my parents and I lived with my grandmother for a few years.  It was a big old wooden house built in a style of machiya, traditional Kyoto townhouse. Although I was too little to actually remember those days, family photos showed me how close my grandmother and I were.  After our move to a different city from Kyoto, she continued to live in the same house, so we would visit her there often.  Memories of those visits are of course more vivid and I cherish them to this day.

As I grew up and moved even further away to Tokyo and abroad, my grandmother always kept in touch with me, telling me what was happening in Kyoto.  Every year on my birthday, she would send me a small gift from my hometown.  Then my mind drifted away to those earlier days from my childhood.

On a cold November afternoon several years ago, when I was back in Kyoto after a long time, Grandma took me out for an elegant Kyoto-style lunch as a late birthday present and asked me what I wanted to see that day.  Well, it was the peak time of autumn colors so I told her that was what I would like to see.  With her legs a bit frail, we walked slowly to the nearby Kiyomizu-dera temple.

A stunning view of the Eastern mountain ridge (Higashiyama) was waiting for us, with a myriad of fall colors of the foliage.  There was a pagoda in the distance and its rooftop looked like an island floating on the ocean of mystic forests.  Out of many sceneries I enjoyed together with Grandma, that was by far the most breath-taking.  That was also the last one as she passed away a few years later.  Every year, on my birthday, I remember that view.

Autumn in Kyoto, Japan I

Media: Original watercolor on paper
Image Size: 14 x 21 in.
Purchase: Sold