Goh-no Tora serves obanzai style Kyoto cuisine while also specializing in inventive menu items such as charcoal grilled duck from Kyoto’s Tamba region, or Kishuumedori- an original brand of chicken from Wakayama raised on ume plum vinegar. The name of the restaurant (‘five yellow tigers’) comes from the chef’ s astrological data: the combination of the year of the Tiger, the number five, the colour yellow and the Earth Star according to the Nine Star Ki form of astrology. In line with the name of the restaurant, Ki-Yan, who usually doesn’t paint his subjects with realistic colours, decided to use yellow for the tiger and expressed the number ‘5’ by using five colours: yellow, red, black, orange and gold.
Essential oils have been used in Australia for many years for a wide variety of wellness applications from skin care to healing the common cold. Having worked as an aromatherapist in Australia and in resort hotel beauty salons in Japan, Mariko Hirakawa has opened the salon Clear with the intention of offering personalized, individual care to each and every customer. Having left white space on her walls in hope that Ki-Yan would someday paint a mural, Mariko’s wish finally came true. The parrots and eucalyptus –Ki-Yan’s new motifs painted not only on the walls but also on the window screen-energize everyone who enters the room.
Fruit sando, the main menu item at Fruit Parlour Yaoiso, has been served for over 40 years as a way to encourage people to eat more fruit. Only high quality fruit sold in the Yaoiso main store-in operation since 1869 and located just four doors down from the parlour-is used in these tasty sandwiches. Coming in many varieties, the fruit sando consists of beautiful cuts of fresh fruit – from strawberry to kiwi –and plenty of soft cream sandwiched between two slices of fluffy, white bread. On the parlour’s walls, Ki-Yan combined colours of vivid ultramarine blue to paint the Waltzing Fruits’ motifs of melons, peaches, cherries and more. I purposely avoided using green, as it could create too much of a “naturalistic” impression’, explains the artist.