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(IMAGE: Yeah, That'll Do)
Continuing with the story about our visit to KidZania in Nishinomiya, Japan the other day, where Anthony started his play by working as a gas-station attendant and then got some banking done before searching for his next job.
It turns out that he got lucky, because as he was showing interest in a construction job, the foreman said that a job was about to start and that they had room for one [...]
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(IMAGE: Kid Banking, Grown-Up Style)
Continuing with the story about our visit to KidZania in Nishinomiya, Japan the other day, where Anthony started his play by working as a gas-station attendant. After working at the gas station, he wanted to be on the opposite end of the experience, as a driver. To drive in KidZania involves renting a car, but to do that you have to have money (which he now did, thanks [...]
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(IMAGE: Awaiting His Turn) for his first “job” at KidZania
In a previous post I wrote all about KidZania in Kobe, Japan, but didn't mention anything about Anthony's experiences there because I thought I'd save them for a second post. However, being the photo-happy papa I am, this post ended up getting filled after just his first job!
As I mentioned in that previous post, Anthony had one job he really wanted to do, so [...]
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(IMAGE: Open Wide) dental patient in a plastic-like stupor
We took Anthony to KidZania yesterday, in Nishinomiya (near Kobe, about an hour and a half drive south from Kyoto). It's best described as “Vocational School meets Disneyland”... it's a place where kids get to pretend to be all kinds of things. The picture above is from the dental clinic, of course.
(IMAGE: Auto Shop)
(IMAGE: Firefighters)
(IMAGE: Getting Ready to Tackle the Blaze)
(IMAGE: [...]
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I want to highlight a recent post by an acquaintance living in Amami, of his daughter's 2nd-grade class lunch and his visit to it. It's just a small slice of everyday life in Japan, but I love it. Lunch With Jade at Amami Superman Photography
We've never been invited to have lunch at Anthony's school, but much of what's described in that post – how the kids take turns doing different chores, and dress up with gloves and aprons and masks – matches what I know of Anthony's first-grade class.
The Amami Islands are in the East China sea in the far south of Japan, between the mainland [...]
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(IMAGE: Island Beverage)
After our sunset swim on the 2nd day of our recent trip to Ishigaki Island in the far south of Japan in the East China Sea, we got cleaned up and headed over to the outside barbecue restaurant for dinner.
Figuring that I should order a beverage befitting the tropical island we were on, I got the nondescript cocktail above. Fumie also got some kind of cocktail, and Anthony got a [...]
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(IMAGE: Sunset Swim)
The best part of any travel for Anthony, it seems, is getting to swim in a pool, and after the busy second day of our trip to Ishigaki Island in the far south of Japan, Anthony finally got his visit to the pool. I played with him at first, but as the sunset approached, I grabbed the camera...
(IMAGE: Underexposed)
Metering somewhat for the bright sun left the rest of the frame underexposed, which allowed what little color there was in the sky to be exaggerated.
(IMAGE: Fusagi Beach, Ishigaki, Japan)
Meanwhile, with the setting sun, Anthony got cold and retreated [...]
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(IMAGE: Mild Sunset and Cliché Boat) From the Fusaki Resort Village Beach, Ishigaki Island, Japan
Our second sunset on Ishigaki, much less interesting than the first, but soothing and calming after a long day seeing the sights, playing on the beach (Part I, Part II), and climbing short mountains.
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(IMAGE: Hirakubo Lighthouse) Most northern point of Ishigaki Island, in the far south of Japan in the East China Sea
Well, thought I'd be releasing a new plugin for Adobe Lightroom today, but ran into a roadblock that killed it at the end. Sigh. So, I've decided to take the evening off from plugin development and get back to my story of our recent trip to Ishigaki Island. It's part of Okinawa Prefecture, but [...]
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(IMAGE: 百点満点)
It seems that Anthony had his first “test” in school, in Japanese class, and he came through with flying colors. I don't think I would have realized that the (2) in the lower-right was a monkey, so I would have missed some points.
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Monet in the foreground, Anthony jumping at right, Gen sitting on the far bank, and two other kids
On Saturday Anthony got to play in a park with two friends he hadn't seen in a while, kindergarten classmate Monet, and Gen (my friend Zak's boy). The park near Gen's house in Otsu (just over the mountains from Kyoto), ojigaoka park, is wonderful, both for kids to play and for parents to photograph.
(IMAGE: It has [...]
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(IMAGE: Thick Bark) very thick bark
Sorry for the lack of interesting posts lately... I've been going all out working on my Lightroom plugins lately, and seem to have no time for blogging. The plugins are like black holes.... I've got a new one in the works, and the nearer I get toward being able to release it, the more energy I devote toward reaching that goal, sucking energy away from, well, pretty much everything else.
Anyway, today's (uninteresting) post is about a tree I noticed on the grounds of the Kyoto Imperial Palace park, during a family bike ride two weeks ago. It was a fairly [...]
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Last weekend, Anthony went on an overnight trip with Fumie's folks to Okunoshima (大久野島), “Rabbit Island”, a small island in the Seto Inland Sea a couple-hour train-ride and a short boat-ride away. The small island has a large population of wild but friendly rabbits that have trained people to visit and feed them.

(IMAGE: First Nibbles)





(IMAGE: Whoa, Ran Out of Veggies, Sorry!)

(IMAGE: Restocked With [...]
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(IMAGE: Well-Isolated Offering Statuette) Sanzen-in Temple, Kyoto Japan
On our visit to the Sanzen-in Temple in the mountains north of Kyoto a couple of weeks ago, at the highest area that we ventured to (where Anthony got his prize for doing the “sticker rally”), there were racks and racks of little “offering” statues, each representing a donation to the temple.....
(IMAGE: Offerings) lots and lots and lots of offerings
Each face of each “wall” has 1,500 statuettes, so there are 12,000 statuettes in these four walls, with more in the background. These were the only “offering” things I noticed, which makes a stark comparison to the Fushimi Inari Shrine, in [...]
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This post follows from Secluded Beach on Ishigaki Island, Part I, about our trip to the beach on our second day of a short trip to Ishigaki Island in the far south of Japan. Part I included this picture looking north from our spot on the beach....

We saw only a few people the whole time we were there, including one guy who walked up the beach toward the outcropping seen above, [...]
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“The MILK as milked”
Anthony noticed a crown-shaped image on a carton of milk (seen at right), and asked what it was. I explained that it was what happens when a drop of milk splashes, and he was quite interested, though somewhat skeptical.
I promised to show him, explaining that it was too fast for the eye to notice, but that we could use a camera to stop the action. His interest [...]
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(IMAGE: Serenity) Sanzen-in Temple, Kyoto Japan
In last week's post “A Visit to Kyoto's Sanzen-in Temple” (which was followed up by some pretty desktop backgrounds and Part II), I included a photo captioned Contemplation, showing a lady at the edge of a garden-viewing room, viewing one of the temple's gardens.
I never got around to actually entering the garden-viewing room myself, but on the way out of the temple grounds an hour or so later, a small break in an intermediate wall gave a glimpse of the garden and the garden-viewing room from right angles to before, and I took the opportunity to snap another shot.
I [...]
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(IMAGE: Towering)
So, continuing with the story about our recent visit to the Sanzen-in Temple in the Kyoto mountain suburb Ohara on Sunday (which produced the pretty desktop backgrounds I posted yesterday)....
As I said in the first post, it's a mountain temple, and so it has different zones separated by various flights of stairs....
(IMAGE: Ever Upward)
You can see in the background of the picture above the trunks of some cedars disappearing [...]
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A few desktop-background pictures from the first half of yesterday's visit to Sanzen-in Temple in Ohara, a mountain suburb of Kyoto, Japan....
(IMAGE: Lost)
( Desktop Background Images )

(IMAGE: Helicopters)
( Desktop Background Images )

(IMAGE: I Love Moss)
( Desktop Background Images )

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(IMAGE: Growing Tsukubai Basin) Sanzen-in Temple in Ohara, a mountain suburb of Kyoto, Japan
Getting cabin fever from being cooped up inside due to the swine flu hysteria, Fumie wanted to get out and into nature, and I was all for it. We decided to visit the Sanzen-in temple (home page) in the mountains north-east of Kyoto, about 20 minutes by car.
We'd gone by the unattractive bus parking lots for it many times, [...]
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